In July of this year, I had the pleasure of assisting on a photograph treatment of Ronald Reagan, which came to us as part of a collection of items belonging to UC alumnus Benjamin Gettler. It came with a small handful of very old jelly beans from President Reagan’s desk that Mr. Gettler had taken as a souvenir during his visit. While the image itself was in very good condition, it was mounted to an old backing board, which required removal and cleaning so that the image could be digitized and rehoused.
Photograph of Ronald Reagan, with backing
We started by carefully peeling away the old board. This had to be done very slowly, in order to prevent creasing of the high-gloss surface of the image. The adhesive was rather old, and quite a bit of backing was left behind that would require manual work to get at any information that might have been hiding underneath.
Next, Ashleigh and I set about the finer cleanup. With cotton swabs, very thin spatulas, and generous amounts of methyl cellulose, we removed the remainder of the board and adhesive. This had to be done in stages:
- Part one was a very general and simple cleaning of the unmarked portion of the back of the photograph. This portion was mostly yellowed water soluble adhesive that was removed with poultices.
After backing removal. Look at all that yellowed adhesive!
- Part two was much more methodical and time-consuming to clean the center area, as it contained ink and graphite that were vulnerable and also water soluble – which we did not want to loose! The smallest working areas around the ink were very lightly mechanically scraped with a scalpel to remove adhesive and small paper fragments.
After cleaning was largely completed. The newspaper ID stamp is completely visible.
When the work was complete, we revealed what appeared to be a handwritten graphite inscription, and an identifying stamp belonging to the late Bernie Boston (1933-2008), a photojournalist who was the director of photography for the now-defunct Washington Star at the time the photograph was taken. Mr. Boston was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1987, and his best-known photograph is known as “Flower Power,” a Pulitzer-nominated 1967 photograph depicting a Vietnam War protester placing a carnation into the barrel of a soldier’s rifle during a protest march in Washington, D.C. Discovering the stamp was a truly unexpected discovery that provided a new layer of importance!
For long term preservation, the newly unmounted photograph was humidified and flattened and stored in a polyester L-sleeve.
Sleeve photograph after treatment.
The sleeve image was stored in an unbuffered rag mat board package that passes the Photographic Activity Test (PAT), mounted with pressure sensitive photo corners. A surrogate of the image was created and housed with the jelly beans for context.
Sleeve photograph mounted with photocorners.
Photograph is stored long-term in a mat board package with a window and cover.
For more information about Benjamin Gettler and the jelly beans, check out Alex Temple’s blog posts for the University of Cincinnati Libraries blog series: Jelly Beans and Politics & The Benjamin Gettler Papers Processing Project Now Complete
Hyacinth Tucker (UCL) – Conservation Technician
Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer (PLCH) – Book and Paper Conservator