There Are About 50 Boxes of Index Cards in the Collection

Within the collection there are boxes of index cards created by Gordon Hall for a variety of uses. Some of the cards have names of individuals and what groups they were members of.  Others have names of organizations with notes and information about them. Many of the cards also have addresses for the individuals or groups. Hall also used the cards to track his work. The index cards included in this post have the name of an organization, its address and a note saying they have been written a letter. I believe that the note means that Gordon Hall wrote to each of these groups requesting material. A lot of the material in the collection was gathered in this fashion.

I wanted to mention the index cards on the blog because they show the amount of effort and the attention to detail that Hall brought to his work. Also, from the archivist/historian perspective, they are an invaluable source of information. Not only do they provide a glimpse into Hall’s practices, but they also provide information about a ton of groups.

For this project they may help in a practical way as well because we have to describe the organizations in the collection. Many of these organizations are very small and have no information online and these cards could provide a lot of information along the lines of names, dates, locations and even categories. Of course they would have to be organized and inventoried first. At this stage of the process all we know is that we have boxes full of index cards.