Research and Archiving

This week, while in Sanford, I continued to do research on the sites that could potentially be nominated to have a historic marker. While many of the sites have amazing historical value, I am realizing that one of the biggest factors that goes into whether or not a site will be nominated is if there is a piece of public or city property nearby that the sign can physically go on. If the historic structure is or was on what is now private property, this can make adding the sign difficult. This makes sense, but it is not a thought that really would have crossed my mind before.

Also, many of the potential sites are significant at a local level, although that does not mean they are not interesting. What it does mean, though, is that for many of the individuals involved in their history, it can be difficult to find confirmable information about them. Much of the information on the web that has proven useful is the result of local oral histories that have been done in and around the Sanford community today. One of the interesting individuals I have had to do some research on is Dr. George Starke. Dr. Starke was a well-known physician in Sanford, having been amongst one of the first few African Americans to be accepted by Harvard for residency, and was the first to become a member of the Florida Medical Association and the Seminole County Medical Association.[1] Meanwhile, his son, George H. Starke Jr., was the first African American student to be admitted to the University of Florida. That being said, I could find next to nothing on Hattie Ruth Starke, Dr. Starke’s wife, which has been very frustrating.  

In an attempt to find a little bit more about the history of some of these properties, I have been learning about how to access Sanford’s property records and track the ownership of the buildings and also determine when the properties were constructed. This has certainly been challenging. Depending on the property, there are a few different sites I can look at, but I often have to cross-compare information in order to understand the full picture.

This week, I also received a brief introduction to some of the archiving materials that I will be working with throughout this semester. The materials in question so far include scrapbooks with newspaper clippings, maps, government projects (some of which never came to fruition), and older property records. Sometime in the next few weeks, I will learn how to stabilize the documents, organize them, and create a finding aid. The contents of these documents seem to vary greatly, and it should be interesting getting to know them.

[1] Riches, "Dr. George H. Starke https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/items/show/4728