Well played, Ms. Sanford

Many people destroy the deeply personal papers that chronicle their broken relationships. Jenny Sanford, the former First Lady of South Carolina, seems to be made of sterner stuff.

In June 2009, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who had told aides that he was planning an Appalachian Trail hiking trip and would be out of touch for a few days, tearfully admitted that he had been having an extramarital affair and that he had actually been visiting his mistress in Argentina.  Sanford's marriage fell apart, and in 2010 Jenny Sanford published a best-selling memoir detailing her former husband's stinginess, emotional tone-deafness, and other defects.  The book -- at least according to the reviews I've read -- also makes it plain that, politically, the two were well-matched. Both Sanfords are staunch conservatives, and she was his closest adviser and his phenomenally effective congressional and gubernatorial campaign manager.

Mark and Jenny Sanford's post-divorce relationship is apparently pretty contentious.  Nevertheless, when Mark Sanford decided earlier this year that he would run in a special election for a congressional seat, he asked Jenny Sanford -- who is now an adviser to South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley -- to serve as his campaign manager.  She said no.

Much to everyone's surprise, a few weeks ago Mark Sanford -- who is now engaged to his former mistress -- won the special election.  And earlier this week, the College of Charleston made available to the public the Jenny Sanford Papers.  Sanford said that she donated her personal papers to the college in summer 2012 because she was moving and needed to downsize and because she thought they would be of interest to scholars of political campaigns and, in future years, her sons.

In addition to political materials, the Jenny Sanford Papers include letters that the Sanfords wrote to each other, a scrapbook that she created to celebrate their fifteenth wedding anniversary, and photographs and other materials documenting their public and private lives.

Jenny Sanford has not restricted access to any of this material. Every item in the collection is open to anyone who wishes to see it.

Catching up

The American Southwest, as seen from Continental Airlines Flight 362, 28 September 2010, 4:44 PM Mountain Standard Time.

Sorry for the sparse posting as of late. I'm currently in Phoenix for the 2010 Best Practices Exchange (BPE), and getting ready to spend a few days out of the office took up all of my time. I'll be posting about the BPE during the next few days, but in the meantime here are a few things that you might want to check out:

• Earlier this evening, Academy Award^®-winning actor and passionate proponent of civics education Richard Dreyfuss received the 2010 Empire State Archives and History Award from the New York State Archives Partnership Trust. This morning, Dreyfuss spoke to WAMC morning host Joe Donahue about the award and the value of civics education, and you can listen to their discussion here. WXXA has just posted a brief clip of his
• In other Richard-related news, Digital Preservation Pioneer Richard Pearce-Moses, formerly of the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, was the subject of a great profile concerning his new gig: he's the first director of Clayton State University's Master of Archival Studies program. Unlike most other American archival programs, the program that Richard is building is fully free-standing; it's not part of a larger library/information science or history program. It's going to be really interesting to see what Richard does with this program and whether it leads to the creation of more archives-centric graduate programs.
• The cover story of last Sunday's New York Times Magazine highlights the complicated, fraught, and -- there really no other word for it -- Kafkaesque custodial history of some of Franz Kafka's manuscripts.
• Microsoft expects that Blu-Ray discs will soon become obsolete, but Jason Mick at Daily Tech and Robert Butler of the Kansas City Star note that, for a variety of reasons, commercially produced Blu-Ray discs and DVDs will no doubt be around for a little longer than the entertainment industry might like.

Soldiers' letters to Donna Reed

Just in case you missed it . . . the online edition of today's New York Times highlights the survival of a cache of letters that servicemen wrote to Donna Reed during the Second World War. In most instances, these letters, which typically requested pinup photographs, were handled by studio personnel and then discarded. However, Reed kept 341 of these letters, and her children has just made them available to the public. Digitized copies of two letters are also available on the Times Web site.

These letters vividly chronicle the experiences of rank-and-file military personnel who served overseas. One of the letters was written by Sgt. Edward Skvarna, is now 84 and is pleasantly surprised that Reed kept his letters. Skvarna danced with Reed at a USO event and sporadically exchanged letters with her. He wrote the letter featured on the Times Web site while he was in the Marianas, but the letter and enclosed photographs document his time in India.

The other letter was written in April 1943 by Lt. Norman P. Klinker, who was in North Africa at the time and who succinctly contrasted the actuality of combat with Hollywood's depictions of it. Klinker was killed in action at Mount Porchia, Italy on 6 January 1944. His letter to Reed is a simple and poignant reminder of the real meaning of Memorial Day.

Film review: Heir to an Execution

This afternoon, I watched the documentary Heir to an Execution: A Granddaughter's Story, in which first-time filmmaker Ivy Meeropol explores the impact of the 1953 execution of her grandparents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, upon her family. The film blends archival images and footage with Meeropol's interviews of family members and her grandparents' friends and associates, and it makes no apologies for its sympathetic treatment of the Rosenbergs or for the Rosenberg-Meeropol family's left-of-center politics. However, it is not a whitewash.

Meeropol and her father, Michael, accept the possiblity (now confirmed) that her grandfather engaged in some form of espionage and that her grandmother knew about and supported her husband's activities. They are nonetheless convinced that Julius Rosenberg was not passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets and that the federal government sought the death penalty against Julius and Ethel because it wanted them to implicate other Communists; they refused, despite their deep love for their sons, to betray their friends or one another by doing so.

Michael and Ivy Meeropol both believe that the Rosenbergs' steadfastness constituted an important family legacy. Although viewers might reach rather different conclusions about the Rosenbergs' degree of guilt or the wisdom of their decision not to cooperate with the government, it is plain that Michael Meeropol and his younger brother, Robert Meeropol, were devastated by the loss of their parents. Fortunately, they managed, with the help of loving adoptive parents, to build meaningful lives. Michael is an economics professor, and Robert is an attorney and head of a charitable foundation. Both of them have been happily married for decades and enjoy close relationships with their children, all of whom seem to be well-adjusted and successful people.

It is nonetheless evident that both Michael and Robert were permanently scarred. One of the most low-key yet vivid demonstrations of the persistence of their past suffering occurs when Michael Meeropol takes his daughter to the bank vault that houses family letters to and from his imprisoned parents. Michael hastily starts pulling file folders out of a large safe deposit box, and photographs and documents start flying out of the folders and onto the floor as a horrified Ivy looks on.

Ivy Meeropol: Oh, my God! Dad! I can't believe you did -- you've gotta take care of these. You're really rough with those --

Michael Meeropol: Ahh, I know. Comes from having lived with it for so many years.

Michael shows Ivy the hand-drawn cards that he and his brother sent to their parents, and then pulls out the letter that his mother wrote shortly before her execution. It's obvious that he's given a lot of adult thought to his parents' writings -- he's well aware that his parents saw their letters not only as missives to their children but also as historical documents asserting their innocence -- but it's also apparent that they evoke difficult memories.

Michael Meeropol's seemingly indifferent handling of these documents underscores the deep ambivalence that people sometimes have toward their personal or family papers. It's good to be reminded that the archival professsion's unalloyed enthusiasm for the documentary record isn't always shared. Those of us who don't often work with prospective donors sometimes forget that records creators and custodians' relationship to their records may be fraught with intense and conflicting emotions.

Archivists should also note that Heir to an Execution also depicts Ivy Meeropol's examination of Rosenberg trial records held by the U.S. National Archives and Records Aministration's New York City regional office. However, one need not be an archivist to be engaged by this thought-provoking, intimate, and deeply personal film.