Heat waves and redaction

As Seattle continued to bake in even hotter temperatures amid the very un-New Mexican humidity, I ventured north to Bellingham with my local advisor to brave resistant archivists and to scour boxes of documents. We were told that everything that was related to Washington sterilization was contained in one folder, consisting of about 100 photocopies. We already had in our possession all of these documents and had also found other boxes listed online at the Washington State Archives website. Resistant as he was, he also dug out the boxes we requested without complaint.

We spent seven hours flipping through folders. I started with patient inquiries (sad, longing letters from friends and family looking for lost loved ones), progressed through receipts for potatoes, eggs, cheese, and 'agate' buttons, and finished on parole reports seemingly unrelated to any of the patients in the lengthy sterilization reports found in two other boxes. Oh yes, that's right - we found about eighty reports, including family histories, of patients who had been presented to the Institutional Board of Health for sterilization.


Our noble archivist made copies diligently, if somewhat disgruntledly, and just as diligently redacted the names and case numbers from the copies. (Don't tell the Archives - you can still just read most of the names below the black marker!) They have no reason to worry - we have a purely academic interest with no intention of hurting anyone and will be using pseudonyms. But medical privacy laws are as immutable as the virtuous archivist. He did his job; I will do, well, whatever my 'job' seems to be at the moment.

Archival hunting

So tomorrow is my first big trip to the archives in Bellingham. My guide is a UW professor who has extensive experience studying this topic. Fortunately or unfortunately (I can't tell) we have to spend a lot of time finding documents that she already has copied and in her possession, since the person who dug most of them out did not cite their source. We are not even entirely sure in which archive they reside. A research assistant in Bellingham says he doesn't think that they have them up there, so I'm crossing my fingers that I'm not getting up at six in the morning for nothing.

Today I downloaded NoteBook and began the task of outlining my thesis so that I can see where the gaps in my research are. I also need to organize all of my .pdf files so that I know what I have and what I still need to read.

Other than that, little progress has been made. I'm hoping for some good advancement this week so that I can contact my advisor at UNM and impress him with some good news!