October 22, 1998-Vol30n09: Archivist's work on front burner

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 09 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1998

Archivist's work on front burner

For Densmore, it's been a year of professional production, recognition

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Services Editor

An American historian, author and respected specialist in several aspects of New York State history, Christopher Densmore recently was named director of the University Archives. After nearly 25 years in the vaults, his colleagues call his a promotion richly deserved, but it is just one of the high points of a year marked with professional recognition and productivity.

In August, after several invited talks throughout the state on the Quaker origins of the 1848 Women's Rights conference in Seneca Falls, Densmore was a special guest at a reception for the descendants of the original conveners during the 150th anniversary celebration of the conference and its "Declaration of Sentiments."

Earlier in the year, in connection with the same anniversary, he and his staff presented a symposium on the recent history of women's rights groups in Buffalo and a historical exhibition culled from their collection of material from Western New York's women's organizations.

On Saturday, the archives will open the "Frank Lloyd Wright in Buffalo" conference and a related exhibition of material from its Darwin D. Martin Collection.

In December, Syracuse University Press will publish Densmore's biography of the great Seneca diplomat and orator, Red Jacket, that examines the validity of various stories of his birth, activities, spiritual beliefs and death.

Among them are questions about whether or not Red Jacket was an unreconstructed pagan, and where his post-mortem corporeal travels took him. A folk figure and legend in his own time, it has been claimed that Red Jacket was both a Christian convert and a refusnik to the end. His body suffered several burials, exhumations, a possible snatching, retrievals and reburials before its final interment in Forest Lawn Cemetery.

"Although not particularly a nativist, he thought Indian peoples would and should adopt those aspects of European culture that were useful to them," Densmore said, "Red Jacket worked diligently to preserve a place for native culture within American society. It's ironic that in death, he and his words became ornaments in a white man's cemetery."

A graduate of Oberlin College who holds a master's degree in American history from the University of Wisconsin, Densmore joined the University Archives in 1974. He was named associate librarian/archivist in 1980 and acting director of the archives in 1995.

As indicated by his professional activities, Densmore has a particular interest in the social, religious and political movements centered in late 18th and 19th-century New York State. Because some of them were fairly squirrelly, he makes an interesting companion on a stroll from Capen to Clemens Hall.

There are tales of the Buffalo abolitionists, anecdotes about the region's Underground Railroad operations, the state's Utica-to-Rochester "burnt-over district" with its plethora of 19th-century radical religious communities from Millerites to Oneidans. He knows about the ideological restlessness that compelled thousands to travel hundreds of miles regularly to the (still) quiet country town of North Collins to hear dynamic speakers like Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth opine on the social politics of the day. A Quaker himself, he is deeply informed about the role played by the Society of Friends in pressing for radical social reform on many fronts.

In terms of the UB collections, Densmore's appointment is good news for those who troll the sacred bins and stacks looking for the historical sites of the three Norton Halls, that wax head of Richard Nixon or the mysterious payroll book. And yes, it is agreed that Densmore can be entrusted with Darwin D. Martin's paper-clip collection, which is curled up as safe and sound as Martin's many journals, clippings, notes to workmen and six decades of daily temperature reports.

The Martin-Frank Lloyd Wright correspondence constitutes one of Densmore's favorite collections.

"They were both intelligent, articulate men," he said. "They both wrote well, and were interesting people." Other favorites include the collection of the late UB philosophy professor Marvin Farber, "because it is tied in so many instances to the history of the 20th century"; the speeches of the late UB Chancellor Samuel Capen, whom Densmore calls "a remarkable person for his advocacy of intellectual freedom and academic innovation," the Western New York Women's Collection, and the papers of the late Milton Plesur, UB professor of political science, who, like Densmore, loved the irony and ensuing humor that attends the activities of so many of our public Pooh-Bahs. The wax bust of Nixon was Plesur's.

"Milton would have loved this Clinton-Lewinsky thing," Densmore said. Plesur was an expert in, among other subjects, the love lives and sexual peccadilloes of American presidents. "He would have had an absolute heyday."

A 1990 recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Librarianship, Densmore is acutely aware of the enormity of the issues facing archivists in the era of information technology.

"With the adoption of computer technology as a communication device," he said, "archival theory and practice are undergoing radical revision. Materials once saved because they had been identified as the "original" document, for instance, are no longer easily labeled as such, since the "original" is electronic and all prints are identical.

"Authentication of documents for legal purposes also is problematic and the proliferation of Web pages that change from day to day and week to week makes it more difficult to track the development of ideas over time through electronic documents," he said.

"Archival standards call for paper documents to last at least 500 years, but we don't know what happens over time to documents saved in a machine or on a computer disk or on a data tape. How long will these last? Two years? Two hundred? All of these issues are being discussed and solutions proposed. It is a very interesting time to be an archivist."