The Paul Baker Experience: Crossing the Finish Line

“The time has come” the walrus said “to wrap this thing up; you’re not even a student anymore.” Well…it was something like that. I wasn’t really listening.

The completion of the Great Process Paul’s Papers Project has mirrored my exit from Trinity. Each time I say goodbye, it turns out there’s an opportunity or responsibility that keeps me on campus a little bit longer, and it’s been that way with Professor Baker. Trying to make the collection as sensible, orderly, and lasting as possible has meant going back and making little changes, not quite letting go. But now our days are numbered. I project that Paul’s papers will be processed post haste just as my time at Trinity (and in Texas) trickles from tide to tiny tributary before it terminates. I’m going to miss it of course. All of it. Working in the archives for four years has given me a special insight into the history of our institution. I consider all of the personalities preserved here my intellectual ancestors, and I have fit myself and everyone I’ve ever met at Trinity into the fabric of our collective story. 

Hanging out with Paul Baker has only reinforced this feeling. The plans, notes, and photographs of the first Ruth Taylor Theatre, the barely recognizable old Attic theatre space, the dressing rooms with their familiar concrete walls and forever-worn out lighted mirrors—these look like home to me. Even in the records from Baylor and the Dallas Theater Center, it’s easy to trace the Baker influence as it made its way toward Trinity. As usual, I find the collection’s photographs most compelling and exciting. Those pictures of Professor Baker and Charles Laughton that thrilled my little heart at the beginning of the project are still there of course, along with an unidentified photograph that I am determined is of Katharine Hepburn. My favorites, however, are pictures of a 1946 production of The Skin of Our Teeth, the first play directed by Professor Baker after his return from serving in WWII. They are beautiful and reminded me of what a wonderful time I had in Trinity’s 2014 production of the same play. It’s important to me that they be preserved and seen. 

Then there’s one more reason I’m so fortunate to be closing my time here with Paul Baker. In the first week of August when I start my internship for the Actors Theatre of Louisville, I’m going to be officially really and truly untethered from Trinity, from my cherished faculty, the theatre department, and the archives. I’m hopeful that my studies of our theatrical and educational past will arm me for my future, that I will be able to embody the tirelessness, passion, and stubbornness so clearly visible in the remnants of Paul Baker—my intellectual ancestor. 

There’s not much time left here for me, Trin-Trin, but Professor Baker will be here and available to you for years and years to come. I recommend you get lost down in the archives once or twice before the time comes for you to untether.

Don’t let these humble boxes fool you. #yesfilter

1960s photograph of actresses in the stage right dressing room of Trinity University’s Theatre One

--Kate Cuellar, Class of 2015

The Paul Baker Experience: Embarking

There are a lot of reasons to love working in Special C., not the least of which is digging up old photos of your professors and sharing them with your friends (Nice hair, 1990s Tim Francis!). I thought that over the course of three and a half years here, I had dug up and poured over every piece of information about my beloved theatre department that the university had retained here. Imagine my surprise when I learned that we have been housing a collection of papers from Paul Baker (Wow, right?!). Okay, maybe you don’t know who Paul Baker is, so my surprise is difficult for you to imagine. 

Some context: Paul Baker was a theatre teacher, who came to Trinity from Baylor in 1963 after the Baptist university closed his production of Long Day’s Journey into Night. His move was more of a return, since he graduated from Trinity’s Waxahachie campus in 1932. What little I already knew about him was colored by the vague sense of reverence with which members of the current faculty occasionally mention “the Baker years,” but I knew that he had essentially established the theatre department at Trinity by bringing along all eleven members of his Baylor staff and that he had designed Trinity’s Theatre One, which preceded the Stieren Theatre that we all know and love. This collection was big news for me, promising an insight I’d never had. If I’d been making a little “Ancestry.com” hobby of the archives’ theatre records, this was one big green leaf. 

Having forced Megan to stop everything and take me to the boxes, I selected one at random and opened it. The first photo inside was a picture of Paul Baker huddled over a script with Charles Laughton (Google him). My nerdy heart exploded.

 Most of the materials need some TLC if they're going to last.

Much better! (And safer!)

So here we are a few months later, and I’m up to my elbows in Paul Baker. Though there are numerous press releases dated from his time at Trinity and some information about the architecture of his theatre here, the bulk of the collection dates earlier, detailing the development of his theatre program at Baylor and at the Dallas Theatre Center, where he served as founding artistic director.

I’m looking forward to many surprises. The cursory glance I took at the papers was not enough to get a real idea of the exciting things I know are there. The first real delight was a “Campus Sketchbook”—kind of like a tiny yearbook--from Waxahachie in 1931! Who knows how many of those are still floating around in the world? Then I must admit I was a little moved. See, that’s the other thing to love about working in Special C. There is something especially personal—even intimate—about searching through and caring for people’s papers and photographs. I can’t wait to get to know Paul Baker better over the course of the semester, and I’m hoping that when everything’s processed, the rest of our campus community can get to know him better too. 

Paul Baker's Papers should be processed and ready for visitors by the end of the Spring 2015 semester.

--Kate Cuellar, Class of 2015

In the Archival Trenches

It has been a few months since I began work with the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers here at Coates Library.  The majority of the first two months work was primarily a combination of surveying, physically acquiring, and preliminary accessioning and processing, all at once.  The following photos will give a glimpse into that journey.

  The collection in its raw state --

not for the faint of heart!

Sifting through dusty, deep piles of  materials (wearing nitrile gloves) across three rooms of a house, a remote office and an outdoor shed, has yielded approximately 100 cubic feet of an archival collection.  The three pictures seen above give a candid view into what an archivist might find as the original point of entry -- somewhere in there I had to find the collection. The endeavor took 120 hours of February and March afternoons. Happily, I found a very willing volunteer in Elias Guetaneh, who had been an intern extraordinaire for me at the City of San Antonio Municipal Archives and Records. Elias joined me for the March portion of this treasure hunt.  His cheerfulness, excellent eye, and enthusiasm (and height!) made the evaluation, heavy lifting, photographing, access to materials near the ceiling,  and copious note-taking much less daunting.
Spying original order was a challenge, but it was possible to find meaningful arrangement -- each physical location revealed rough time frames and materials relevant to them. The attic, for instance, had some of the earliest records (from the turn of the century), and most of the Baptist Convention materials (Reverend Black was active with the American Baptist Convention for many years), and most of ZerNona Black's community organization records and educational materials.

Progress, ready for pickup, as shown in the office

When packing materials up, I retained meaningful groupings whenever possible and made notes on the box itself and on a spreadsheet, giving each box a unique identifier with an indication of the room it came from.  In my experience, you never know how useful that information can be until after the fact, at the time of processing and creating the finding aid. Because the storage of the collection over many years has been in a hot attic, a turn-of-the-century home with highly fluctuating environmental conditions, and an outdoor shed, the materials are being treated anaerobically (no chemicals, but deprivation of oxygen in a vacuum chamber) for pests and cleaned by hepa vacuum. I eagerly await the arrival of a clean collection any day now.

After having gone through this process, I have laid eyes on most of the items in the collection. In addition, with all the documentation so far, I have started background research, put together a preservation supply order for the entire collection, begun solid work on the finding aid in Archon, and am exploring digitization needs and costs for formats that we cannot do in-house.
So, for now, "Onward, ho!"