AIC's 46th Annual Meeting

This case study presents an ongoing project in collaboration with a military history museum and their archives for the conservation and digital preservation of 150 - 200 silver gelatin panorama prints from World War I (1917 -1918) and World War II (1940 - 1944). This project began in 2011 and work continues as funds are available. Along the way, other work has been requested and some replica digital prints have been made for the Adjutant General's office, the HQ offices, and VIP Officers' temporary housing.

Using example prints of the project, I will explain and illustrate the steps taken from the receipt and documentation of the original photographs, through the humidifying and flattening of the prints, to the repair and/or lining for stabilization. The next steps for the digital reformatting and any digital repair to the photographs will explain the level of capture and files that were requested by the museum's archivist. Finally, the reprinting of the photographs as digital prints in oversized formats will be adiscussed. To date, approximately 30 individual images that were in the original collection have been conserved.

Over the past six years, there have been new donations to the museum and donors have requested copies of the donated prints.  The museum has agreed, using some of their funds for this purpose. There have been approximately 7-9 unaccessioned prints that were requested to be reformatted instead of the original group.  One of the most interesting of the new prints is believed to be a photograph of the first Airborne Company formed in the U.S. Army.  

Sizes of prints ranged from 3"x 12", to 10"x 38", to 8"x 48", and the reformatted digital image files run into the gigabyte sizes. The prints are on neutral tone B&W papers, warm tone B&W papers, sepia and brown toned B&W papers. Some are semi-matte, though most are matte finished papers and all have a baryta coating. A few have the soldier's handwriting on them, showing where the "saloon", mess hall, "my tent", and various companies of a brigade. This presentation will show not only the details of the original materials used in these prints and steps used to conserve them, but will also allow us to put into perspective of the human element that was, and is, a part of war and the preparations. It reveals some of the naïveté that men and societies had when soldiers reported to training for combat during those eras.