Across the span of three years, I have repeatedly turned to archival work as a method in my academic research. As a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, I sat in the library’s basement, combing through Seacoast newspapers in search of public opinion on a proposed oil refinery project. Now, as a second-year master’s student here in the Geography and Environmental Systems department, I use Baltimore City newspapers to assess who was portrayed as at fault for the Baltimore lead poisoning crisis and how mothers were often unjustly blamed for the poisoning of their children. After all of this research experience, I realized there must be something about the archives that keeps me crawling back.
This lightbulb moment gave me the idea to volunteer at UMBC’s Special Collections, where instead of using archives as a research methodology – I can be on the “other side,” learning how archivists work to make historical materials accessible to the public. I ended up under the advisement of Mark Breeding, Maryland Traditions Archivist, where my primary responsibility was archival processing. I combed through a few boxes of Collection 348 – the Oella Company Records – and inputted their contents into a container list. I recorded housing applications, nearly 70 folders on Oella, Maryland restoration efforts and town happenings, and – strongly related to my master’s thesis research – processed a box on lead paint materials. Processing the latter was especially meaningful, thinking about the possibility of someone using these records to reclaim stories, as I have done with newspapers.
When I first started volunteering at Special Collections, I never imagined reading so many financial documents, learning about water treatment plans for nitrate-contaminated wells, or seeing pretzel-related crimes documented in such detail. Because of it, though, I have realized why I keep coming back – the ability of archives to tell stories lost to time. I now possess a deeper understanding of the work of archivists and the power they hold to preserve and share people’s lived experiences. This experience of volunteering at Special Collections was invaluable and will no doubt sway my future path.
This post was written by graduate student volunteer, Samantha DiNatale, M.A. ’25.