This is the newest post in our There’s an Archivist for That! series, which features examples of archivists working in places you might not expect. COPA member Rachael Woody, owner of Rachael Cristine Consulting LLC, brings you an interview with Ashton Wingate, the Digital Archivist of the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund, Inc. (LDF).

Ashton Wingate currently works for the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund, Inc. (LDF), where he preserves the organization’s 80 year history in the fight for racial justice, equality and an inclusive society. To learn more about Wingate, please visit his website.

RW: Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

AW: On the professional side… I am fairly new in my position, I joined LDF in January of 2019. Previous to becoming a Digital Archivist, I was a librarian in the D.C. Public Library system leading early literacy outreach/programming. My time at the D.C. Public Library taught me a lot and I highly encourage every information professional to work in a public library for at least a little bit of time to understand the power and responsibility of our profession. I am a board member of the National Home Library Foundation and the board treasurer for the Archives Roundtable of Metropolitan New York. Personally, I spend most of my time with my fiancé and our two dogs in our cozy Brooklyn, NY apt which has become MUCH “cozier” during quarantine. I have interests in music, sports, craft beer and cult films. In the past I’ve done radio and podcasting so I’m possibly looking to start that back up if I can find time. I have a small side hustle doing graphic design and building websites for friends and family. If you’re looking to spruce up your personal/professional brand hit me up!

RW: How did you get into archives, or why archives?

AW: After I graduated from undergrad, I spent the first nine months selling cereal for Kellogg’s. Worst job ever! Nothing wrong with Frosted Flakes but I didn’t take the job as seriously as I should have and I am definitely not a salesman. After that didn’t work out, I spent the next 8 years or so in communications for a variety of non-profits and government organizations in Washington, D.C. Eventually, I hit a wall and just wanted to do something different. I saw the advertisement for the Department of Library and Information Science at Catholic University on the train and something just told me to check it out. Looking back on it now, I think access to information is just so big for me. It is probably one of the biggest civil rights issues of our time and I just wanted to be a part of that in some way. Keeping people informed and allowing everyone an equal opportunity to understand more about the world around them is key.

RW: How did you get your gig at the NAACP-LDF?

AW: Fate? I’m not really sure. I know many people can relate but it’s not easy getting a job in this field especially as a new graduate. Whether it’s the unrealistic expectations/job descriptions or the (sometimes) low pay, it’s difficult to find the right opportunity. I knew that I wanted to move to NYC so that narrowed things down, from there it was a mixture of luck and perseverance. I applied for A LOT of jobs; my heart wasn’t set on just archivist. I was on every job board, every website, contacting friends of friends… I never thought it was going to happen, especially not an opportunity like the one at LDF. I’m eternally grateful to my boss and LDF leadership for taking a chance on me and I can’t imagine working anywhere else or doing anything else with my skills and expertise.

RW: Please tell us about your work at NAACP-LDF.

AW: The way that I have come to describe our work is that we add historical context to the ongoing conversation about race and its relationship to justice, politics and society. We are tasked with preserving the 80-year history of the country’s most prestigious legal organization fighting for racial justice. From Brown vs. Board of Education to representing Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King, to the current moment we’re facing as a country… it is a daunting task. We are a team of three serving an organization of almost 200 people. We answer reference questions, maintain collections of physical and digital legal and social science research resources, manage records retention and physical box storage as well as work strategically to ensure that each and every legal, policy, educational and community organizing effort is informed by the organization’s rich history. We are a unique archive but we are tackling some of the same problems as others including document management, data governance, training staff and getting buy-in on archival best practices/priorities and of course dealing with budgets and constantly presenting the value proposition for how archives fits within the organization’s mission and vision.

Right now, we’re in the midst of what we’re referring to as an “archives modernization”. With incredible support from LDF leadership and from generous donors, we’ve undergone an evaluation of our current archival structure, policies and procedures which has given us a roadmap going forward on where to invest our time and funding. We plan to update our workflows and processes, strengthen our technological infrastructure, procure new software for e-discovery and box management as well as identifying high priority physical and digital processing projects and work towards sharing our collections publicly through an online research portal containing information about LDF’s 6,000+ cases from 1940-present day. As a law firm, we have yet to open our collections up to the general public due to concerns over privileged and sensitive legal information.

RW: Please describe the collections or one of your favorite collections.

AW: The core of our collection is pleadings, research, and correspondence related to thousands of cases LDF has litigated. Our holdings also include photographs, videos, policy files, publications, fundraising materials, administrative records, and documentation of LDF’s sustained efforts in community organizing and social science research. We have over 250 boxes of physical material at the Library of Congress and over 10,000 boxes in storage between our New York and DC locations in addition to an ever-increasing amount of digital records.

RW: What are some challenges unique to the collections?

AW: One of the biggest challenges is the fact that we cannot share the information publicly with any level of ease. The majority of our collections is case material and cannot be released publicly without thorough review for privileged and sensitive information. Another challenge is just our relative youth as an archival institution. The archives at LDF was created in 2014/2015 and the majority of our collections have not been processed or digitized. It makes it difficult to fully gain an appreciation or understanding of LDF’s work and impact over the past 80 years. We are steadfast in our mission to work through the backlog of physical material and we’ve highlighted important cases and collections that we will be processing for the next three years. Because we are essentially a non-profit law firm and our retention and document management hasn’t been as strong as it is now, there is a lot of LDF material outside of the archives at other universities, repositories and still hiding in people’s basements! In the past, members of our litigation staff have been transitory, and they’ve taken their papers with them. A long-term goal for us is to track down these collections, take note of where they are and make efforts to accession them into our collections if the current steward cannot or no longer wishes to preserve them.

RW: What’s your favorite part of the job?

AW: My favorite part of the job is just knowing the importance of my work to the organization’s larger mission and the way in which we are all working together at LDF to meet this moment in time that is so important for civil rights and racial justice.

RW: What advice to you have for aspiring archivists?

1. Believe in yourself! Shake the imposters syndrome as best you can.
2. Advocate for what you need to do your job well.
3. Join a board or professional network to continue to make connections and see different aspects of our field.
4. Do whatever it takes to get the job done. Specialization is nice and important in some ways but to me there’s no difference between an archivist, a digital archivist, a librarian or a records manager… everyone on our team is doing all of that because that’s what the job calls for.
5. Be visible in your organization. As a department, don’t hide in the archives, get out there and offer your services wherever there is opportunity for collaborative work. Share your successes. As an individual, just try to be seen. I always try to find some way to be helpful to leadership so they know they can depend on me. I also try to be vocal during meetings so that people know I’m there.

RW: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

It is our organization’s 80^th Anniversary, keep your eyes out for the launch of our timeline covering 80 years of groundbreaking legal milestones in the fight for civil rights. It was a heavy lift for our department digging up archival information on over 100 cases as well as biographies on important figures and finding ways to relate the historic moments to the work we’re doing today. It’s something we’re proud of and it is coming soon! Check this link for more information: https://80th.naacpldf.org/

Also, I want to put in another plug for the Archives Roundtable of New York. It is an awesome organization; membership is super affordable, and we do our best to make sure we’re contributing to the archivist community in a real way. We’ve just launched a mentorship program and a skill-share and we have office hours every other Tuesday where members can call in and talk about whatever is going on professionally. We also have an open call for submissions to our quarterly publication the Metropolitan Archivist and a call for proposals for a virtual symposium that we’re holding as part of our Archives Week event this fall. More information can be found at www.nycarchivists.org.

While the LDF collections are closed, the archives does accept external inquires on a case by case basis. You can email your request to this address: archives@naacpldf.org.

This is the newest post in our There’s an Archivist for That! series, which features examples of archivists working in places you might not expect. Allison Termine, brings you an interview with Adam Jeffery, the Tattooer, Collector of The Baltimore Tattoo Museum (est. 1999) and Annette La Rue, Tattooer, Collector from Electromagnetic Tattoo in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Interviewer: Allison Termine, I’m a trained Librarian, Archivist and Collections Manager, learning Taxonomy and Ontology. Capturing the essence of nostalgia in my life has always led me to activities, professional and personal, where I had the opportunity to observe, record, preserve, display, learn and organize primary and secondary material of history.

INTRODUCTION

The pioneering style in the trade of tattooing is called Americana. Knowledge of this trade was passed down orally by August “Cap” Coleman, 1884-1973 and Franklin Paul Rogers, 1905-1990, the for-father’s, what remains is tattoo ephemera and an oral tradition that lives on today through those they taught. Important historical artifacts of modern electric tattooing exist in various collections who are archivists in their own right. It is a treat to interview two artists and collectors of the Tattoo Trade to learn of a niche subculture through its remnants / ephemera. Just like other collected historical archives, provenance of the Tattoo Trade is based on oral dissemination and the now primary objects that were used to apply the final product were secondary to them and therefore have become a nostalgic link to the past. Such object items are; the tattoo machines, drawings on fragile tracing paper, business cards, pictures, adapted furniture for the tattoo sitting, banners, and flash to name a few. These accidental archivists, interviewed are artists and collectors and are what I consider boots on the ground archivists. A term that describes the importance of gathering material in the present time, which they have done throughout their career in the Tattoo Trade.

*To discover an in depth history of the origins of Americana Tattooing visit:
http://www.tattooarchive.com/index.php and
https://selvedgeyard.com/2009/07/21/forefathers-of-american-tattooing/.

Our first interview is with Annette La Rue of Electromagnetic Tattoo, Chesapeake Virginia. Find her shop owned by her and her husband Steve Tiberi, also a tattooer and collector on Instagram @electromagnetictattoo, @annettlelarulex, and @tiberitattoo.

Q: As a Tattooer of 30 years can you tell me about the history of Americana Tattooing?

Americana style tattooing means a bold colorful style consisting of bold thick outlines, solid black shading and bright solid colors. Americana tattooing was popular among sailors and circuses at the turn of the century. Most tattooers traveled with the circus or went to busy Navy port towns. It was seedy and frowned upon to have ink on your skin until the late 90’s into the 2000’s.

Q: As a collector of your trade what drove you to save ephemera of the tattoo trade throughout your career? (Your perspective then and now).

I was fascinated with older tools and designs because they connected me to the old ways. Kind of like a bridge to the heroes of yesterday. I felt a little “magic” in those tools. It made me feel like I had a link to the past and it made me proud to have possession of the tools of the trade. Now it’s just more stuff and I’m selling and trading my collection for things I can actually use. I want the younger tattooers to have those objects so they can feel like I did. To own historical tattoo pieces is like instant “cred” for anyone who has it. If you have money, you can be a collector. When I was buying you had to track someone down, go to their shop or house and beg them to sell you things. Now it’s on ebay and craigslist, too easy to get.

Q: Can you tell me about the significance of early tattoo machines and how the knowledge of building them was passed on and evolved through the years?

At the time there was no significance to old tattoo machines; they were simply a tool to make money. Tattooers would travel and visit each other and learn different ways to build machines. Most machine builders have their own style or frame configuration. They would mail parts and write about the secret trick they had to make to make their machines better. There was a lot of friendly competition between tattooers. Some builders got famous and some were more obscure. Machines from the old times are very valuable today. When the old guys died a lot of families were embarrassed about the line of work and tons were thrown out, leaving a few for younger tattooers to scourge to find them. Good builders would invite younger ones to come build and learn. You could spend the day or a few weeks with a builder and get secrets and tips while making your machine. A smart person would go to everyone’s house they could and did blend all the knowledge and make it on his or her own. This is significant because the younger generation needed to know the tips of the trade in order to keep machines up and running and it also helped the young guys to progress using old ways.

Q: If the collected ephemera of Americana Tattooing is the result of a trade learned orally, could you tell us about how the forefathers of Americana Tattooing influenced this particular style that remains “timeless” and how it has lasting power today over all other styles of tattooing being applied to skin?

I believe Americana style remains timeless because the designs were timeless. From the 1800’s to the late 1990’s an eagle looked like an eagle. A rose was a rose. You could tell what it was in two seconds. That is what makes it timeless. Today’s tattoos are trendy and you can tell if someone got it in their 90’s or early 2000 or 2010 or 2020 because of the design. They may seem more personal now but they aren’t. People get the same bad trendy design over and over, thinking they are “custom” and they don’t realise we tattooed that same design 40 times that month. Most timeless designs can be changed with different colors or leaves or background etc. Modern designs have not much room to change, as customers want it to look the same.

Q: What is your favorite part of knowing you are an accidental archivist?

My favorite part of knowing I’m an accidental archivist is just knowing I can make young tattooers as excited and happy as I was when I started collecting. Of course these items all increase in value every year. It is the younger Tattooers having interest in keeping this history alive that I find interesting.

Our next interview is with Adam Jeffrey of The Baltimore Tattoo Museum. You can find Adam on Instagram @adamjeffreytattooer, and @thebaltimoretattomuseum.

Q: What are the types or formats of tattoo ephemera that were saved and what makes them significant? For example; how did a single piece of torn tracing paper with a pencil drawing become deemed “to save”, or a business card from Paul Rogers.

At The Baltimore Tattoo Museum we hope to explore the history and artifacts of modern tattooing in the Americana style. When it comes to the types of ephemera we collect that makes them significant are varied. For example, from some artists the art itself was secondary to their abilities to apply tattoos or build and tune tattoo equipment. So there are varying reasons we try to collect the many things we have. Some are significant to the tattooers of our area and the designs of a given town, for example, shipping and navy type tattoos in Baltimore, as it is a major east coast port. In other cases it might be the little inventions they crafted to make their everyday tasks a little easier like, retrofitting an old dental type chair to create better access to an area of skin to be tattooed. In other cases it’s their amazing ability, these untrained artists had to create very well drawn and thought out lasting style designs that even years later folks still would like to have applied to their skin.

Q: If the collected ephemera of Americana Tattooing is the result of a trade learned orally, could you tell us about how the forefathers of Americana Tattooing influenced this particular style that remains “timeless” and how it has lasting power today over all other styles of tattooing being applied to skin?

Like us at Baltimore Tattoo and Museum and the majority of tattooers, still apply tattoos with the same electromagnet style tattoo machine they’ve always used. There are even modern makers making the same style frames that were being made in the turn of the century. As well as the same hand motions and application styles that were handed down to get the pigment under the skin, to have a good outcome to the tattoo once it’s healed. Also, the way the machinery is set up and tuned, to make precise lines and shading etc.

Q: Can you tell us of one of your favorite collections?

I personally love our collection of Paul Rogers tattoo machines acetate stencils and flash. Most of it came from the collection of Charley and Sandy Parsons who are two of my mentors and were close friends with Paul who tattooed from the late 1920s till the late 1980s. Paul was an innovator and all around crafty artist making his own equipment, mixing his own colors and a designer of tattoos. The total package and to boot a good person as I am told.

Q: What are some challenges unique to the collections?

The largest challenge is that prior to the 2000s Tattoo memorabilia was just old stuff or junk so a lot of it was thrown away or lost to time as tattooing was nowhere near as common as it is currently. So honestly, there isn’t as much of it to be had as one might think as well the prior you get it thru can be hard to deal with as it has become more popular. Prices have gone up and you are getting it second and third hand now so the provenance of it isn’t easy to establish.

Q: What is your favorite part of knowing you are an accidental archivist?

My favorite part of being an accidental archivist is interacting with other collectors who have been collecting for a long time, their knowledge helps me place dates and times on artists, machines and flash that I’ve had questions about. It can be an awesome community.

Laura LaPlaca, Director of Archives. Photo courtesy of Laura LaPlaca.

This is the newest post in our There’s an Archivist for That! series, which features examples of archivists working in places you might not expect. COPA member Rachael Woody, owner of Rachael Cristine Consulting LLC, brings you an interview with Laura LaPlaca, the Director of Archives of the National Comedy Center.

Before her tenure as Director of Archives for the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY, Laura earned a PhD in Screen Cultures in the Department of Radio/TV/Film at Northwestern University. Her work focused on the early history of broadcasting in the United States, and particularly the development of the sitcom genre from the late 1920s to early 1960s. She also holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Dept. of Radio/TV/Film, and bachelor’s degrees in Art History and English Literature from Pepperdine University. During her 10+ years as an archivist of popular culture and media, Laura has led or contributed to processing and preservation efforts at institutions including the Library of Congress, USC-Warner Brothers Archives, and Paley Center for Media. She founded the Northwestern University Radio Archive Project [NURAP] and has served on the boards of the Library of Congress Radio Preservation Task Force and Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Television Studies Scholarly Interest Group. Her co-authored manuscript on the history of American comedy is forthcoming from Smithsonian Press.

RW: How did you get your gig at the National Comedy Center Archives?

I first visited Jamestown, NY – a beautiful historic community on the shore of Lake Chautauqua in Southwestern NY – on a grant-funded archival research trip while completing my doctoral dissertation on the history of the sitcom. Jamestown is the birthplace of the ground-breaking TV pioneer Lucille Ball, whose archives are housed by the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum, which tells the story of Ball and Arnaz’s influential Desilu Studios and celebrates their enduring cultural legacies. During my visit, I met Journey Gunderson, the Executive Director of the museum, who told me about her team’s ambitious efforts to execute Lucille Ball’s vision to build the first national-scale, non-profit educational institution devoted to comedy in her hometown. I knew moments after meeting Journey, and hearing about the remarkable energy, optimism, and goodwill that all of Jamestown was pouring into the National Comedy Center project, that I had to be involved. It turned out that the Comedy Center had yet to hire a Director of Archives & Research, and my particular background in the history of entertainment media and popular culture archives was a good match. I joined the team about 18 months before the 37,000-square-foot, $50-million-dollar National Comedy Center opened its doors in August 2018. Since opening, we’ve educated more than 100,000 guests from around the world about the history and art of comedy. We’ve been named one of Time’s “World’s Greatest Places,” voted “Best New Museum” by USA Today, and were designated by the United States Congress as our country’s official cultural institution devoted to preserving and presenting the vital story of comedy. But I am most proud of the fact that we have been so thoroughly embraced by the comedy community itself; knowing that the artists and creators we are celebrating find our work important is really the best metric of our success so far, and the thing that energizes me every day.

Q: Please tell us about the National Comedy Center Archives.

From the American sitcom Seinfeld, the Seinfeld puffy shirt on exhibit at the National Comedy Center. Photo courtesy of the National Comedy Center.

The National Comedy Center Archives collects materials that illuminate the comedic process, demonstrate the sociopolitical import of comedy history, and elevate comedy as an artform. We are committed, first and foremost, to providing access to collections. We always acquire, process, and preserve artifacts with exhibition and educational goals top of mind. To that end, the archives team works hand-in-hand everyday with staff in Guest Experiences, Education, Programming, and Technology to activate our collections for the public. The Comedy Center is comprised of more than 50 immersive exhibits that marshal cutting-edge technology and novel forms of interactive storytelling to communicate the story of comedy – very often via primary source archival materials. One of my primary roles as

From the movie Ghostbusters, the Ghostbuster suit on display at the National Comedy Center. Photo courtesy of the National Comedy Center.

Director of Archives is curatorial: Where and how can archival materials illuminate history for our visitors? That sometimes takes the form of traditional artifact displays inside glass cases (the “Puffy Shirt” from Seinfeld, Harold Ramis’ Ghostbusters suit, Charlie Chaplin’s cane, or Joan Rivers’ joke notes). But, more often, involves activating digital surrogates of archival originals as part of interactive exhibits that involve touch screens, video walls, projections, or other technologically enhanced presentations. To share just one example, our visitors can take a seat at a Virtual Writer’s Desk and “page through” annotated script drafts from comedies like The Muppets, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, or A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum while the final-draft on-screen versions of the scenes play out beside them. In the past six weeks, due to the COVID-19 closures, we have moved a selection of our exhibit content to a digital platform that brings the museum direct to fans, students, and families around the world. You may enjoy exploring National Comedy Center Anywhere at anywhere.comedycenter.org.

The Virtual Writer’s Desk on exhibit at the National Comedy Center. Photo courtesy of the National Comedy Center.

Q: Please describe the collections or one of your favorite collections.

The George Carlin Collection on exhibit at the National Comedy Center. Photo courtesy of the National Comedy Center.

Our collections range across the history of comedy, from I Love Lucy to Saturday Night Live, from vaudeville to Internet humor, and across all comedy genres. I have three “favorite” collections: First, the 27,000-piece George Carlin Collection, which we have digitized and made available to visitors via an interactive interface in our galleries. The collection chronicles Carlin’s five-decade evolution as an artist, via his copious handwritten notes, day planners, audiovisual recordings, wardrobe, and more than 40 boxes of creative ephemera. The interactive exhibit showcases his meticulous process in detail, and allows our visitors an up-close look at the creative mind of one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Second, the Rusty Warren Collection, and accompanying exhibit, honors the contributions of an important feminist comedic artist who levied her talents and brilliant wit to become a leading voice in the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Rusty Warren’s work was so progressive – and so feared – that she was banned from performing on television. Nevertheless, she toured cabarets and nightclubs for over thirty years and made 11 hugely popular comedy albums – 7 of which “went Gold.” Third, the Carl Reiner Collection – which is currently being processed – includes digitized

From the American sitcom I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball’s polka dot dress on display at the National Comedy Center. Photo courtesy of the National Comedy Center.

copies of every annotated draft page of the scripts for the seminal sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show, which Reiner created and wrote. This series was an important pivot point in the history of American television, and set a high watermark that endures to this day. The chance to peer into Reiner’s process via these scripts is like taking a masterclass in the art of comedy writing. In addition to overseeing the processing and preservation of our rapidly-growing permanent collections, I also work closely with artists, estates, and industry partners to curate rotating exhibits of documents, props, and costumes that represent landmark moments in the history of comedy: Lenny Bruce’s trenchcoat, Harpo Marx’s wig, Lucille Ball’s polka dot dress, a “Dundie” from The Office, Carol Burnett’s charwoman costume, The Smothers Brothers’ guitar and bass, Andy Kaufman’s wrestling belt, Eddie Murphy’s Nutty Professor costume, the wedding dress from Bridesmaids, Weird Al Yankovic’s accordion, and so many more.

The Smothers Brothers pose with the Smothers Brothers Collection on exhibit at the National Comedy Center. Photo courtesy of the National Comedy Center.

Q: What are some challenges unique to the collections?

John Mulaney views whe Rodney Dangerfield Exhibit at the National Comedy Center. Photo courtesy of the National Comedy Center.

The primary challenge that we contend with is the vastness and variability of comedy as a subject area. The Comedy Center celebrates comedy in all its forms – and across all eras. That approach requires safely housing, preserving, and conserving a broad range of multimedia artifacts, most of which were designed for one-time use on stage – not for decades of stable storage and exhibition. Our team routinely handles manuscripts, photographs, scrapbooks, and documents of all sorts…but also cares for 100-year-old fake mustaches, vaudeville broadsides, cartoonist’s palettes, Grammy Awards, a toupee, acetate discs, costume jewelry, a piano, several motor vehicles, a papier-mâché frog costume, paintings, undergarments, nitrate films, a miniature bicycle, a trick cello, a sledgehammer, and all manner of fragile, irregular, and – oftentimes – very funny objects.

Dan Aykroyd donates his motorcycle to the National Comedy Center. Photo courtesy of the National Comedy Center.

Q: What is your favorite part of the job?

Part of my responsibility as the National Comedy Center’s Director of Archives is to work directly with artists and their estates to devise the best ways to engage, inspire, and entertain our visitors while educating them about the vital role that comedy has played in shaping our shared cultural heritage. I enjoy every opportunity I have to interact with artists: to discuss their work, to internalize their stories, to strategize together about how to preserve and celebrate their craft for generations to come.

The Joan Rivers Collection on exhibit at the National Comedy Center. Photo courtesy of the National Comedy Center.

Photograph courtesy of Susan Malsbury

This is the newest post in our There’s an Archivist for That! series, which features examples of archivists working in places you might not expect.  COPA member Rachael Woody, owner of Rachael Cristine Consulting LLC, brings you an interview with Susan Malsbury, the Director of the Estée Lauder Companies Archives.

Susan Malsbury graduated from Earlham College with a Bachelor’s Degree in English and continued her graduate work at Pratt University, obtaining a Master’s in Library and Information Science and Archives with an Advanced Certificate in Archives in 2009.

Susan’s first archival work was volunteering at the Maine Historical Society in Portland, Maine, where she cataloged glass plate negatives from the Portland Press Herald and mariner maps. In 2007, Susan interned at the Guggenheim Museum and in the Manuscripts and Archives Division at the New York Public Library. Upon the completion of her internships, Susan was offered a project position at NYPL to be assistant archivist on a project to process the 1939/1940 New York World’s Fair records. Susan remained at NYPL for 12 years, becoming a Manuscripts Specialist in 2010, and the Library’s Digital Archivist in 2014. While at NYPL, Susan worked on complex audiovisual collections, such as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis records, and a wide variety of hybrid collections, from publishing house records to artist papers. In 2018, Susan began working at the Estee Lauder Companies Archives as the first ever Manager of Digital Collections and became the Director in 2019.

Susan has lectured extensively on digital archives and is currently the Chair of the Society of American Archivists Electronic Records section.

RW: How did you get your gig at the Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) Archives?

I began working at the ELC Archives in 2018. I had not been actively looking for a new job, but a friend sent the job listing to me and I was intrigued. It was a Manager of Digital Collections position and the role was to build a digital archives program, support the development of a collection management system, and oversee all digitization. I had been at the New York Public Library for twelve years, most recently as Digital Archivist, where I helped build the digital archives program from a project-based approach to a programmatic model. The idea of building a program from the ground up was intriguing and I also thought it would be good to get experience at another institution, as I had spent my entire professional career at NYPL. After a year at ELC, the Director of the Archives left and, after a brief acting period, I assumed the role. It was an unexpected career move but has been an incredible experience to lead a busy corporate archive through what has been a very transformative time!

RW: Please tell us about the Estée Lauder Companies.

Ronald Lauder, Estée Lauder, and Leonard Lauder in 1972 at the GM Building, the Company’s global headquarters since 1969. Photograph courtesy of the Estée Lauder Companies Corporate Archives.

The Estée Lauder Companies is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of prestige cosmetics. The Company was founded in 1946 by Estée Lauder and Joseph Lauder. Estée handled all product development and marketing, while Joseph oversaw finance and operations. The Estée Lauder brand launched with four main products that she sold at beauty salons around New York. The brand grew rapidly and both the Lauders’ sons eventually joined the Company, Leonard Lauder in 1958 and Ronald Lauder in 1964. The family is still very involved with the Company today, including now fourth generation family members.

The Company began creating additional brands in-house on the premise that it was better to make its own competition through separate brands that had distinct brand positioning. Aramis, a men’s fragrance and treatment brand, was launched in 1963. Clinique, the first dermatologist-created, allergy-tested and fragrance-free brand, came soon after in 1968. In 1979, Prescriptives launched as a color authority and was one of the first brands to offer custom blended foundation to match a wide variety of skin tones. The last in-house brand was Origins, founded in 1990 as the first prestige wellness brand that fused natural ingredients with science. After Origins, the Company shifted to fragrance licensing and acquiring already established companies; the first fragrance licensee was Tommy Hilfiger in 1993 and the first brand acquired was MAC Cosmetics in 1994. The Company currently owns 29 brands, including Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bobbi Brown, and Tom Ford Beauty, and is truly a global company with products sold in 150 countries and 48,000 employees worldwide.

Additionally, the Company has had a longtime focus on philanthropy through its Citizenship and Sustainability initiatives. The Breast Cancer Campaign was founded by Evelyn Lauder in 1992 to increase awareness and fund global research, education, and medical services. A little-known fact is that Evelyn Lauder co-created the iconic pink ribbon which has been adopted by breast cancer initiatives worldwide! The MAC AIDS fund was established in 1994 and has raised over $500 million dollars for AIDS organizations through the sale of the Viva Glam lipsticks.

A portion of the Archives’ heritage exhibit. Courtesy of the Estée Lauder Companies Corporate Archives.

The Archives was founded in 1991 by Leonard Lauder with the mission to collect, preserve, and make available the rich heritage of the Company and its diverse portfolio of brands. The goal of the Archives is to be the center of research and inspiration for the Company, to drive creativity and innovation, and to foster an appreciation and understanding of the Company’s heritage and development. While the Archives started off as a packaging library from the four core brands, it has expanded to include products from all brands as well as any public facing material or material that informs the consumer experience. We also hold select corporate records and the personal papers of Estée and Joseph Lauder.

The Archives has grown significantly from its initial home – like many archives, a closet in the basement of the corporate headquarters – to a full-floor facility in midtown Manhattan. We also recently opened a second archival processing hub in Long Island City. Our main office in Manhattan contains storage for a quarter of our collection, workspace for product processing, a heritage exhibit, and an on-site digitization lab. The heritage exhibit highlights the founding of the company and four core brands by the Lauders, and showcases key products and marketing innovations. Archivists give heritage tours regularly to new employees or by special request, providing over 100 tours a year.

RW: Please describe the collections.

Estée Lauder Crème Base Face Powder, circa 1960. Examples of product photography. Courtesy of the Estée Lauder Companies Corporate Archives.

Each brand has its own collection, and there are three additional collections for corporate records, the Lauder Family, and the Breast Cancer Company. The collections are broken into two main categories: packaged goods (products and packaging) and archival material (everything else). Currently, the Archives contain 75,000 products, 8,000 linear feet of archival material, 20,000 audiovisual items, and over 60 terabytes of born-digital files.

Products and packaging consist of fragrances, color cosmetics, skincare, home goods like room sprays and candles, and even ingestibles (Aveda’s Comforting Tea and Origins’ Peace of Mind gumballs). Our earliest products are from the 1950s and our latest products are ones that have not yet hit the markets. As the Archives receives two copies of each new product from every brand, we’re expanding by two to five boxes of products each week, depending on the season. We currently have an in-house digitization lab where products are photographed according to museum standards; a color chart is used to ensure 100% color accuracy of packaging and makeup shade.

Clinique Supplementary Lashes, 1971. Examples of product photography. Courtesy of the Estée Lauder Companies Corporate Archives.

The archival material consists of creative material, collateral, advertisements, education and marketing material, and files related to the Company’s many philanthropic endeavors, much of this increasingly arriving in born-digital form. Additionally, the Archives contains a good deal of special formats like garments, awards, and counter displays. One of my favorite recent acquisitions is the corset that RuPaul wore in the iconic Viva Glam ad! The vast audiovisual assets consist of commercials, tutorials, fashion shows, and media appearances.  We have historically received transfers of material when an office moves or is redesigned or an employee retires. In the future, we plan to develop regular transfer schedules so that we are assured we are getting all material identified as having archival value.

The Archives also runs an Oral History Program, overseen by Marion Jaye, the Company’s first archivist. Marion has conducted 48 interviews with longtime employees, collecting valuable institutional knowledge and stories that truly bring the Company’s heritage to life.

RW: What were some challenges unique to the collections?

One of the biggest challenges is the sheer variety of material types which require separate processes for accessioning, description, conservation, digitization, and access. Two factors that have helped manage these complex collectives are the development of a new collection management system and moving towards a staffing model that encourages expertise by material type.

The Archives uses customized versions of Collective Access for our CMS and our front-end archival portal, allowing users to access our catalog and select digital assets through a beautiful internal website. It was a true team effort to develop cataloging schemas that worked for all the material types in our collection while at the same time ensuring that our controlled vocabulary would be understandable to our user base. The former Director, Adrianna Slaughter, wrote a wonderfully thorough article about this process that everyone should go read! Having a customized system allows us to catalog fields specific to products and packaging, audiovisual, physical archival items, and born-digital files in separate modules that work synergistically in the same system. Collection management fields allow us to track an object’s provenance, and – for physical material – the condition, collection use, and availability and quality of digital derivatives.

We also have a large amount of legacy data in spreadsheets and files from past digitization projects on hard drives. Over the last year and a half, I have been vetting the quality of the metadata and standardizing legacy metadata so that it can be imported into the CMS. The audiovisual spreadsheets were an excellent candidate for this treatment; following my audit and remediation, we now have over 6,500 catalog records that can now be reconciled with a physical audiovisual object and/or a digital derivative, and then pushed to our front-end website for viewing by our users.

Audiovisual catalog record with media player on the front-end website. Courtesy of the Estée Lauder Companies Corporate Archives.

Another challenge is that, as a corporate archive, we can never close a collection for research. Processing projects require an additional level of strategic planning to ensure that material remains accessible to our users. Sometimes this can create unexpected opportunities to advocate for the Archives. Archivist Laura Donovan recently finished processing the MAC Cosmetics collection and has hosted research appointments at our Long Island City processing hub. These users have loved seeing a processing project in action, and a visit really drove home the scope of our archival work. It is one thing to describe the size of a collection, and quite another to walk into a room where all record cartons are on full display, neatly labeled and arranged on shelves.

RW: What is your favorite part of the job?

I have a few favorites, but the biggest is that I work for a Company that truly values its heritage and thus the Archives. You can see this firsthand in this fun video when the Estée Lauder brand had their spokesmodel, Karlie Kloss, intern at the Archives for a day. There’s often a challenging tendency in archives to have to constantly justify your existence; but at ELC, we are given the resources we need to focus on archival processing, provide reference services, host tours, and support special initiatives. These special initiatives include supporting media opportunities, creating educational programming for employees, and co-curating pop-up and permanent exhibits. No two days are ever the same and that makes the work tremendously exciting. It’s also exciting to see brands use the Archives for product development. Archivist Chelsea Payne, who oversees most reference requests, has seen an increase in brands requesting to see examples of refillable cosmetics as the Company seeks to make more sustainable packaging.

Personally, building out the front-end archival website has been an incredible project to work on and one of my proudest professional accomplishments thus far. The site will launch to ELC employees in June after a two-year development project that began last fall. I have learned a tremendous amount, from application development to designing an archives system for users who may be new to archival research. We decided to forgo the traditional bio/history note and instead created a chronology feature where chronology events were categorized by the following fields: Business, Events, People, Products, Regions, Events, and Philanthropy. Users will be able to select multiple categories and export those results to a PDF or an Excel file which provides more value to our users than a narrative history. I was also able to harness what I learned at NYPL to build out functionality to provide access to born-digital material directly through our site, including automatically capturing original files names as a metadata field.

An example of a collection’s page. Courtesy of the Estée Lauder Companies Corporate Archives.

This past winter, I ran two user testing phases and have been meeting with stakeholders across the company to demo the site and highlight points of collaboration. Unexpectedly, these meetings have provided wonderful opportunities to build visibility and highlight the Archives work. I previously mentioned that the Archives is in a transformative time. When our site goes live, it will provide all our employees worldwide with access to the Archives, previously only available to New York City-based employees. It is an exciting time to make a truly global archive for a global company.