Sturdy boots
A colleague of mine at Flinders once commented that history can't be done sitting in a chair, and that real historians have sturdy boots. Although I'm still sporting Chuck Ts like some 90s throwback (see below), as time goes on I have more sympathy for this point of view. It's certainly better than the current shift, particularly in international history, towards panoptic histories culled from secondary sources that are starting to look like (and make the same mistakes as) international relations - losing their finger tip touch for detail and milieu and instead trying to generate grand unifying theories of everything which become increasingly self referential. With due regard to George Eliot, let's call it the Causabon tendency.
So in attempt to ensure I was across a relatively small detail in a few of my chapters, namely that many non-European royals visited Krupp's Villa Hügel in Essen, I spent yesterday at an archive. The Krupp archive at Villa Hügel in Essen, to be precise. There wasn't much to do and I thought I could finish it in one to three days. I was of course secretly hoping that there would be a document from, say King Chulalongkorn of Siam in which he ordered 100 pieces of field artillery from Krupp in a telegramme which said 'with these I will smash the French army should they try to destroy my kingdom'. But those documents rarely exist, so I just wanted to see what I could find.
Maybe it's interesting to see what an archival day in a new archive can be like. Think of it as scholarly Taylorism, or maybe an example of what Keith Jenkins was always banging on about:
6:15 - Alarm goes off and I tiptoe into the bathroom, trying to have a shower without waking the kids. They have to get up for school in 15 minutes anyway, but by then I'll be having a cup of tea and cornflakes.
7am - Jump on my bike and ride to Münster train station. It's a great time to ride around the Aasee and promenade, as there's scarcely anyone around. It's cool and the light is amazing.
7:30 - Buying a ticket. Holy crap! 40 Euros return to Essen - an hour and twenty away! I've tried to go to this archive twice before, but train strikes meant I'd had to cancel my tickets, so this time I'd held out for the actual day. Hang on, BahnCard 50 means it's only 20 Euros. Still a lot (but then Frau G tells me my idea of prices is stubbornly stuck in 1994, along with my musical tastes. There'S some truth in this). Up onto the platform and the train is waiting. It has free wifi - win! But it's dodgy and doesn't really work. I can offer a few likes on facebook before it freezes up entirely. That's fine - I've brought Gerd Fesser's book on Bülow with me and I'm enjoying it.
8:50 - I'm getting entirely turned around in Essen station, as the S.Bahn to Villa Hügel isn't running. I find the replacement buses out the back of the station and hope I can guess correctly where to get out.
9:20 - I'm out at a lake - beautiful and a slight hint of mist. I ask a woman out walking where Villa Hügel is and set off, only to find that because of track works, this entrance to Villa Hügel has been closed. I can either climb the largish fence or catch another bus back up the hill and try and find the other entrance. It takes me about 20 minutes to decide. I decide to catch another bus, because the grounds are huge (this is an estate for one of 19th century Germany's richest capitalists) and I don't know how many other walls and fences there are.
10:20 - I'm still walking to the other entrance after catching a bus. I'm cranky now, because I didn't know the usual entrance was closed and the archive opened at 10 and I wanted to do everything in one day if possible. I finally get to the gate. There are about 4 different security people to get through before I finally get to the archive.
10:45 - Hot and flustered, I find out that orders for archival records are taken at 10:30 and 12:30. I could weep. Kindly, as I'm the only researcher there that day, the archivist says she will get them for me as soon as I'm finished finding the files I need in the catalogues she's prepared for me. They're well organised and it takes me about 20 minutes to locate the files. By the time she comes back, I've got a list of 15 files, dealing with the visits of Zaifeng of China and Chulalongkorn of Siam. Plus one random one about a telegram sent to Krupp by the Kaiser during the Boxer War. The archivist takes my list and I go back to my bag and wolf down half a sandwich, because I want to keep going once the files arrive. After that I pick up a book off the reading room shelves. It's an intergenerational biography of the Mommsens and in 2 minutes I'm engrossed in it.
11:40 - Where are the files? I'm getting nervous about time. The place closes at 3. The files arrive! 5 of the files are of photos from the visits - super quick to deal with. The rest are on microfilm - annoying, but they come with exact page references for where my files start on it. Super helpful and a great time saver. I ask her, and the archivist says that up to 5 high resolution reproductions of the photos will be sent to me for an academic book free of charge. Win! I choose 3 really great photos - including one of Chulalongkorn inspecting Krupp artillery! So suggestive.
12:15 - I'm onto the written files now. There's no table for my laptop in the A/V room (one microfilm reader and some seriously out of date video technology), so I have to juggle it on my knee while I scroll through the files. The machine is a bit tetchy and doesn't load the rolls terribly easily. But I quickly establish that the files are all pretty short. A few hours work. Disappointing in some ways - I want some big revelations! There's really not much on Zaifeng at all, but there are some detailed programmes for Chulaongkorn's visit, including a newspaper report talking about how very interested he was in the field artillery. This will go well with my photo. Not quite the bellicose statement of anti-French intent I had fantasised about, but it's an interesting detail. I laugh out loud when I see that on the first night the entertainment includes music from Sidney James' The Geisha (straight after some Wagner), as if to offer something 'oriental'. Such a predictable move.
13:30 - It's slow going, making sure I'm not missing anything. No worries. I'll just come back next week.
14:00 - I've got about 45 minutes before they kick me out of here and suddnely only have 2 files to go. Next one is the random one from the Kaiser. It's only about 10 pages long. It's the Kaiser accusing Krupp of war profiteering during the Boxer War, followed by the company's response. It's vintage Wilhelm II . His facts are wrong and his intemperate statements utterly miss their mark. But again, it's a good detail to tuck away for later.
14:35 - I'm done, with 10 minutes to spare and with everything accounted for. It's a modest but worthwhile haul that makes sure I haven't missed any major correspondence. I profusely thank the archivist. Her preparation, following up on our email correspondence a few weeks ago was faultless and saved me bucketloads of time, compared to when I go to the larger federal archive in Berlin and really have to spend hours on the groundwork (to be fair, that's not their fault - they're flat chat there all the time).
15:00 - I wind my way out of the villa, trek through the grounds, up the hill and down to Stadtwaldplatz bus stop. It's a long walk but I needed it after sitting crouched over a laptop for hours.
16:30 - With cola and chocolate in hand, I'm on the train back to Münster, catching up on the Kaiser's visit to Morocco courtesy of Fesser. IThe trip is a bit over an hour, after which I ride my bike back home. Frau G is out with the kids in the palace gardens, but they're back only minutes later.
18:00 - Our Friday night Stammtisch with ex-Melbournites, now Münsteraner Frau J and Herr M is well underway. Bean burritos, beer, followed by red wine and some decent conversation finish off the night. I get a sneak peak at Frau J's new article manuscript, which I'll read next week, and we make some plans to go to Send, the local fair, tomorrow with the kids.
So in attempt to ensure I was across a relatively small detail in a few of my chapters, namely that many non-European royals visited Krupp's Villa Hügel in Essen, I spent yesterday at an archive. The Krupp archive at Villa Hügel in Essen, to be precise. There wasn't much to do and I thought I could finish it in one to three days. I was of course secretly hoping that there would be a document from, say King Chulalongkorn of Siam in which he ordered 100 pieces of field artillery from Krupp in a telegramme which said 'with these I will smash the French army should they try to destroy my kingdom'. But those documents rarely exist, so I just wanted to see what I could find.
Maybe it's interesting to see what an archival day in a new archive can be like. Think of it as scholarly Taylorism, or maybe an example of what Keith Jenkins was always banging on about:
6:15 - Alarm goes off and I tiptoe into the bathroom, trying to have a shower without waking the kids. They have to get up for school in 15 minutes anyway, but by then I'll be having a cup of tea and cornflakes.
7am - Jump on my bike and ride to Münster train station. It's a great time to ride around the Aasee and promenade, as there's scarcely anyone around. It's cool and the light is amazing.
7:30 - Buying a ticket. Holy crap! 40 Euros return to Essen - an hour and twenty away! I've tried to go to this archive twice before, but train strikes meant I'd had to cancel my tickets, so this time I'd held out for the actual day. Hang on, BahnCard 50 means it's only 20 Euros. Still a lot (but then Frau G tells me my idea of prices is stubbornly stuck in 1994, along with my musical tastes. There'S some truth in this). Up onto the platform and the train is waiting. It has free wifi - win! But it's dodgy and doesn't really work. I can offer a few likes on facebook before it freezes up entirely. That's fine - I've brought Gerd Fesser's book on Bülow with me and I'm enjoying it.
8:50 - I'm getting entirely turned around in Essen station, as the S.Bahn to Villa Hügel isn't running. I find the replacement buses out the back of the station and hope I can guess correctly where to get out.
9:20 - I'm out at a lake - beautiful and a slight hint of mist. I ask a woman out walking where Villa Hügel is and set off, only to find that because of track works, this entrance to Villa Hügel has been closed. I can either climb the largish fence or catch another bus back up the hill and try and find the other entrance. It takes me about 20 minutes to decide. I decide to catch another bus, because the grounds are huge (this is an estate for one of 19th century Germany's richest capitalists) and I don't know how many other walls and fences there are.
10:20 - I'm still walking to the other entrance after catching a bus. I'm cranky now, because I didn't know the usual entrance was closed and the archive opened at 10 and I wanted to do everything in one day if possible. I finally get to the gate. There are about 4 different security people to get through before I finally get to the archive.
10:45 - Hot and flustered, I find out that orders for archival records are taken at 10:30 and 12:30. I could weep. Kindly, as I'm the only researcher there that day, the archivist says she will get them for me as soon as I'm finished finding the files I need in the catalogues she's prepared for me. They're well organised and it takes me about 20 minutes to locate the files. By the time she comes back, I've got a list of 15 files, dealing with the visits of Zaifeng of China and Chulalongkorn of Siam. Plus one random one about a telegram sent to Krupp by the Kaiser during the Boxer War. The archivist takes my list and I go back to my bag and wolf down half a sandwich, because I want to keep going once the files arrive. After that I pick up a book off the reading room shelves. It's an intergenerational biography of the Mommsens and in 2 minutes I'm engrossed in it.
11:40 - Where are the files? I'm getting nervous about time. The place closes at 3. The files arrive! 5 of the files are of photos from the visits - super quick to deal with. The rest are on microfilm - annoying, but they come with exact page references for where my files start on it. Super helpful and a great time saver. I ask her, and the archivist says that up to 5 high resolution reproductions of the photos will be sent to me for an academic book free of charge. Win! I choose 3 really great photos - including one of Chulalongkorn inspecting Krupp artillery! So suggestive.
12:15 - I'm onto the written files now. There's no table for my laptop in the A/V room (one microfilm reader and some seriously out of date video technology), so I have to juggle it on my knee while I scroll through the files. The machine is a bit tetchy and doesn't load the rolls terribly easily. But I quickly establish that the files are all pretty short. A few hours work. Disappointing in some ways - I want some big revelations! There's really not much on Zaifeng at all, but there are some detailed programmes for Chulaongkorn's visit, including a newspaper report talking about how very interested he was in the field artillery. This will go well with my photo. Not quite the bellicose statement of anti-French intent I had fantasised about, but it's an interesting detail. I laugh out loud when I see that on the first night the entertainment includes music from Sidney James' The Geisha (straight after some Wagner), as if to offer something 'oriental'. Such a predictable move.
13:30 - It's slow going, making sure I'm not missing anything. No worries. I'll just come back next week.
14:00 - I've got about 45 minutes before they kick me out of here and suddnely only have 2 files to go. Next one is the random one from the Kaiser. It's only about 10 pages long. It's the Kaiser accusing Krupp of war profiteering during the Boxer War, followed by the company's response. It's vintage Wilhelm II . His facts are wrong and his intemperate statements utterly miss their mark. But again, it's a good detail to tuck away for later.
14:35 - I'm done, with 10 minutes to spare and with everything accounted for. It's a modest but worthwhile haul that makes sure I haven't missed any major correspondence. I profusely thank the archivist. Her preparation, following up on our email correspondence a few weeks ago was faultless and saved me bucketloads of time, compared to when I go to the larger federal archive in Berlin and really have to spend hours on the groundwork (to be fair, that's not their fault - they're flat chat there all the time).
15:00 - I wind my way out of the villa, trek through the grounds, up the hill and down to Stadtwaldplatz bus stop. It's a long walk but I needed it after sitting crouched over a laptop for hours.
16:30 - With cola and chocolate in hand, I'm on the train back to Münster, catching up on the Kaiser's visit to Morocco courtesy of Fesser. IThe trip is a bit over an hour, after which I ride my bike back home. Frau G is out with the kids in the palace gardens, but they're back only minutes later.
18:00 - Our Friday night Stammtisch with ex-Melbournites, now Münsteraner Frau J and Herr M is well underway. Bean burritos, beer, followed by red wine and some decent conversation finish off the night. I get a sneak peak at Frau J's new article manuscript, which I'll read next week, and we make some plans to go to Send, the local fair, tomorrow with the kids.
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