Annual Report to the Advisory Board
Albert Gore Research Center
FY 2004-2005

New Facility

 During the first week of March 2005, the Gore Center moved into its new facility in 128-129 Todd Hall.  At 5600 square feet, it is more than two and a half times the size of LRC 111, where the Center had resided since its inception in1993.  The main entrance of the new facility opens into a reading room featuring secure lockers, display space, a registration desk, and a public access computer terminal.  Reference materials and collection guides are readily available to all patrons.  A conference room opens off of the reading room.  The conference room is large enough to accommodate groups of students and smaller classes working on group projects. Three offices provide work space for the Center's graduate assistants, executive aide, and director.   The offices open onto a hallway connecting the reading room with the collection storage area.  Secure doors restrict access to the storage area.  The storage area is designed eventually to hold 7500 linear feet of compact shelving, although we are beginning with about 2000 linear feet.   The storage area also includes a work area for undergraduate student workers and interns.

On March 4, while we were still unpacking, the new Gore Center served as "command central" for the organizers and judges of the Regional History Day competition.  On April 15, we held our "Grand Re-Opening" celebration, with former Vice President Al Gore as featured speaker.

Acquisitions

• 1830s farm ledger, subsequently (1840s & 1850s) used as a scrapbook into which someone pasted recipes for home remedies as well as clippings of household hints and moral anecdotes from newspapers and magazines. Formerly owned by the late Bob Abernathy; donated by Scott Abernathy.
• Scott Abernathy and Mrs. Robert Abernathy also donated the papers of the late Bob Abernathy, including approximately 3 linear feet of speech notes and other papers related to his public speaking career and his work for MTSU.
• Approximately 2000 photographs from News & Public Affairs and the Midlander office.
• Sarah King of Murfreesboro donated approximately 1.5 linear feet of materials, including scrapbooks and photographs, documenting her term in the mid-1980s as President General of the national Daughters of the American Revolution. 
• Collier Family Papers.  Sarah King also donated some of her family papers, including letters of Ingram B. Collier and Anna Collier of Murfreesboro (1860s-1880s), Horace Ready and Anna Collier Ready of Murfreesboro (1880s-1920s), copies of letters to Carmine Collier of Murfreesboro (1890s-1950s), letters to Nama Collier of Murfreesboro in 1883, financial and business records of Ingram Collier (1860s-1880s), and business records of Walter Huey King (1912-1935). 
• In cooperation with Dr. Amy Staples, we have established the framework for a Tennessee Death Penalty Archive.  The TDPA will be an umbrella under which we will collect the papers of anti- and pro- death penalty activists and organizations in Tennessee.  We hope that this will become a rich resource for students in history, political science, and criminal justice.  One small collection has been received – one-half of a linear foot of materials from the Olin Hutchison Clemency Team.  Dr. Staples is in the process of working with former death-row inmate Harmon Wray on the donation of his papers and those of the Tennessee Innocence Project.
• Nancy Adgent donated approximately 1 linear foot of Adgent Family Papers, 1940s-1970s.
• 28 color slides of the old Lascassas Grist Mill.
• 18 oral history interviews with Vietnam veterans, conducted by students of Amy Staples
• Copies of four Lizzie Alexander Ward scrapbooks, donated by C.B. Arnette and Ernie Johns.  These large scrapbooks date from 1908 to approximately 1929 and contain many clippings from local papers for which there are no extant copies.  Of particular note is a clipping from the Murfreesboro paper marking the opening of the Middle Tennessee Normal School.  This scrapbook is of particular significance because there are no Murfreesboro newspapers extant from much of this time period.
• Publications of the Marshall County Historical Society
• 5 Dryad yearbooks from the Tennessee College for Women
• Seven boxes of videotapes of the program Inside Academia, transferred by Richard Hannah
• Records of the Tennessee Folklore Society (45 linear feet) donated by Charles Wolfe
• Addenda to the following collections:  Steve Cates, Collage, John Bragg, Bob Pickard, Eugene Sloan

Collection Management

The following collections have been processed and had online guides prepared:  Louisa Daniel Rutledge Papers, Zadie Key Papers, Charity Circle Archive, Cecil Flowers CCC Collection, Marianne Bevil Hillenmeyer Papers, Hobart Parish & Johnnie Corbitt CCC Collection, the Patsy Weiler CCC Collection [CCC = Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal agency of the 1930s], the Homer Pittard Campus School Collection, and the Kappa Alpha Collection.  These collections comprise approximately 40 linear feet.  Graduate assistant Kristen Luetkemeier prepared for the website a subject guide for our holdings related to the Civilian Conservation Corps. The graduate assistants and student workers scanned and processed approximately 3000 photographs and slides during the year.      Undergraduate student worker Evan Zimmerman matched over 1000 acid-free cards printed with call numbers and title and author information to the books in our collection.  The purpose is to allow the books to be arranged by call number.

Finally, we implemented a new Microsoft Access database to manage our accessions records and track preservation and processing actions needed for each collection.

Technology

As part of the campus-wide computer upgrade, the Gore Center received 5 new Dell computers.  We have discovered, however, that the five oldest of our seven scanners are obsolete to the point that they simply cannot communicate with the new computers.  We will be investing in some new scanners, since we use them quite extensively.

In early August, we implemented our new website.  The appearance is not radically different, but the "behind the scenes" structure of the site is much improved and has already made site maintenance much easier.        

Researchers

The Gore Center served 447 researchers in the first half of FY 2004/05.  This represents a record number of inquiries for the same period in each year since 2000.

Research use of the Gore Center dropped off significantly during the second half of the year.  Because of the uncertainty regarding the date of our relocation and the necessity of closing the Gore Center for a significant amount of time once the move took place, we were unable to schedule any classes or outside groups to use the center.  Nevertheless, we completed the year with a total of 560 researchers, nearly three-quarters of them undergraduates.

Outreach & Public Relations

 The Gore Center prepared an extensive historical display (nine panels front and back, for a total of eighteen panels) for the dedication of the Rose and Emmett Kennon Hall of Fame in October.  We also provided an eight-panel tabletop display on the history of Greek life on campus for the Alumni Center, as well as a three-panel tabletop display for the Courthouse lobby for the Rutherford County Heritage Festival in late October. 

Graduate Assistant Kristen Luetkemeier prepared eight five-minute audio programs for WMOT using oral histories from our collections. She also prepared three photograph features for the Murfreesboro Magazine [which has now ceased publication].

During the year, the Daily News Journal initiated a new weekly feature called Snapshot from the Past, showcasing historical photographs of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County.  Approximately twenty-five of the Snapshots have featured photographs from the Gore Center's collections.

The Rutherford edition of the Tennessean did a feature on the Gore Center's Veterans History Project to commemorate Pearl Harbor Day.

The second volume of the Rutherford County Bicentennial History DVD was released in the fall of 2004.  It features many Gore Center photographs and the Gore Center Director makes an appearance.

The Center initiated a new section of our website called "Learning Tools."  It currently includes a section on using primary and secondary sources for public school teachers and a section on using Gore Center resources for completing Girl Scout badges.

Oral History Project

Gore Center staff and volunteers completed twenty-one oral history interviews between July 1, 2004, and June 30, 2005.  We also focused on the backlog of transcription and editing, as well as adding keyword search terms to the oral history database.

The Gore Center worked with Dr. Sekou Franklin of the Political Science Department to begin developing the Rutherford County Civil Rights Documentation Project.  A significant portion of this project will involve oral history interviews.  We will also be seeking to collect other kinds of research materials as well.

Rutherford County Archives [submitted by Kevin Cason]

Creating Finding Aids

As an on-going effort to benefit users of the archives, the staff and volunteers of the Rutherford County Archives prepared several finding aids for the record groups. Graduate Assistants Jeff Sellers and Kevin Cason completed two indexes for the chancery court loose records. One index covers the chancery court cases from 1940-1979 and the other index covers the chancery court cases from 1979-1985. Each index is alphabetized by the last name of the plaintiff and also provides the name of the defendant.  In addition to the chancery court case indexes, Graduate Assistant, Kevin Cason prepared an index for the death records of Rutherford County from the years 1925-1939. Information in the index includes the person's name, date of death, cause of death, and sometimes the town where the person died. Kevin also made indexes for the map collection and the Rutherford Health Department Publications that are housed in the archives.  While the Graduate Assistants have been busy preparing finding aids, Don Detwiler, a volunteer, has also prepared many useful guides. The guides that Don has made include an index for Rutherford County businesses in the chancery court files and a genealogical guide that extracts family information from all of the cases involving estate settlements.

Conservation of Records

Graduate Assistants Jeff Sellers and Kevin Cason also continued ongoing preservation/conservation efforts for some of the items in the archives. Activities completed include copying records on acid-free paper to preserve the original copies of the marriage records from 1881-1889, as well as copying record books 12, 22, and 24 that contain wills, probate information and inventories of estates from the 19th century. In addition, Jeff and Kevin re-foldered, boxed, and removed metal from the chancery court records from 1979. 

Joining Organizations

This year, the Rutherford County Archives joined as an Institutional Member of the Society of American Archivists, North America's oldest and largest national archival professional association. By joining the organization, the archives received national recognition as an archival repository and received discounts on archival reference materials. In addition, the Rutherford County Archives joined as institutional members of the Society of Tennessee Archivists and the Rutherford County Historical Society.

Outreach Activities

On October 23rd, the County Archives participated in the 2nd annual Heritage Day Festival by displaying some of the unique and interesting items housed in the archives. The archives welcomed many visitors from Middle Tennessee and gave them an appreciation of the rich history of Rutherford County.  Three articles appeared in the Daily News Journal and the Tennessean Rutherford AM newspapers featuring the County Archives. The articles discussed the development of a new archives facility, the genealogical information, and how the archives celebrated the Heritage Festival.  On February 4th, the staff of the Rutherford County Archives invited people from the community to an open house to showcase some of the new indexes and guides that have been created. Representatives from Middle Tennessee State University, the Linebaugh Library, and the Rutherford County Historical Society came to visit.

Archives Building Project

The County Archives graduate assistants, along with Dr. Pruitt, worked diligently with the County Commission-appointed Archives Committee to plan for a new archives facility.  After the Old Health Building was determined to be inadequate (both structurally and capacity-wise) for the Archives, the Commission and the Public Building Authority requested that Hastings Architectural Associates, working with the Committee, find a new location.  The end result is that a new, $1.4 million facility will be built on the site currently flanked by the Rutherford County Adult Education Center and the Rutherford County Schools Maintenance facility (property bounded by Burton, Rice and Memorial).  Due to delays in the construction of the school system's new maintenance facility, groundbreaking will not occur until October, 2005.

Albert Gore, Sr., Biography Project [Report submitted by Tony Badger, December 2004]

Thanks to the work of Sean Smith, who has so ably stepped in to succeed Mike Martin on a piece-work basis, I think we have made good progress this year, despite my new position as Master of Clare College. I have written about 40,000 words of the biography in total. I am anticipating the final biography to be between 80,000 and 100,000 words and I am aiming to complete a full draft by the end of September (when the Cambridge academic year starts) 2005.

Thanks to Mike Martin, the archival work in the Gore Papers at the Center is largely complete. This summer I was also able to complete the work at the LBJ Library. Mike Martin had already completed the work at the Kennedy Library. I still need to make visits to the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower Libraries but I do not anticipate these will be time consuming.

Getting the newspaper reading completed is time-consuming. Thanks to Sean Smith, the 1964 and 1970 election campaigns have now been fully covered in the state press. He is now working on the 1958 election. I still have some work to do on 1952.  I will also need to do quite a bit of work in the press on Gore’s legislative record in non-election years, notably 61-63 and 1965-69.

On oral history interviews, in the past twelve months I had particularly useful interviews with Ted Kennedy and Jim Sasser, in addition to interviews in Washington with former senators John Culver and Dale Bumpers. I also had a rich interview with Gore’s primary opponent in 1970 Hudley Crockett, who has promised to set me up for interviews with other members of the Ellington faction in the state’s politics. Interviews with newspaperman, Larry Daughtrey, Gore’s doctor, Gordon Petty, and party activist Norman Ferris, threw light on the Senator’s life in Carthage and on the 1970 campaign. My main concern is to set up oral history interviews in Washington in December with the leading Republicans from the 1970 campaign, William E Brock, William Timmons and Kenneth Rietz. I also have a number of contacts as a result of the correspondence to the vice-president on his father’s death in 1998. Gore’s relationship with local African-American politicians will also need to be pursued through oral history interviews.

I have been promised an interview with Al Gore in December. [Scheduled for December 15, but cancelled due to death of Pauline Gore. Interview took place in April 2005 -- LJP].

I have given research papers on Gore and Modern Southern Politics in both Oxford and Cambridge. I also gave the Charles Griffin Memorial Lecture in Vassar on September 14 on LBJ and Albert Gore Sr: Southern New Dealers Confront Vietnam. I gave an earlier version of that paper at the annual conference of the British Association for American Studies in Manchester in April.

  Teaching, Research, Service, and Professional Development

In July, Dr. Pruitt attended the two-week Summer Institute on Oral History at Columbia University.  During the Fall semester, she taught History 6130/7130, Seminar in Jacksonian America.  She served on the Graduate Committee in the History Department and continue to participate in the development of the PhD in Public History.  She also began a three-year term of service on MTSU's Institutional Review Board governing human subjects research.  Her book, entitled A Looking-Glass for Ladies: American Protestant Women and the Orient in the Nineteenth Century, was released by Mercer University Press on March 31, 2005.