INTRODUCTION & SCOPE OF PROJECT

This project would not have been undertaken without the original grant awarded by the Missouri Historic Records Advisory Board of the Missouri State Archives. The Powers Museum Board and the grant project staff are grateful to the MHRAB for this opportunity and thank Grant Administrator Kevin Edwards for his assistance throughout the project.

The museum's grant was classified officially as an "access grant" with the purpose of making information on partially processed holdings complete and accessible through finding aids, box lists, and other related archival cataloging procedures.

The portion of the Powers Museum Archives selected for attention under the MHRAB program were its three largest individual collection holdings:

1) Wright-Powers Family Correspondence from the initial founding collection as given by the Marian Powers Winchester estate,

2) the Bank of Carthage Collection donated by NationsBank, and

3) the Jasper County Savings & Loan Association Collection donated by Mercantile Bank at the time they assumed property of the Home Security Savings and Loan at the latter's failure in 1993.

Attempts had been made to begin processing all three collections subsequent to their acceptance into the museum's holdings, but due to their size, no single collection had ever been completed for a variety of factors — the chief reason being a lack of project specific personnel committed to the project without any other work responsibilities to interrupt processing. Volunteer attempts to assist had not been successful either.

Therefore, it was the goal of the Powers Museum to contract for a reader/processor with other museum staff and volunteers performing basic preliminary processing and cleaning/unfolding duties, data entry coordination with the museum's overall collection/archival management software ("Past Perfect"), research of subjects, indexing special subgroups of records, etc. The contract reader/processor would read letters, journals and ledgers, company files, etc., and provide final organization with assistance from the museum/project director. In addition, the reader/processor would create the individual box lists and letter summaries would be attached to specific archival box records in the museum's collection management software "Past Perfect." But most importantly, receipt of the grant would serve notice to all involved at the Powers Museum that this project was a work priority during late 2001 and most of 2002.

As a wrap up to the entire project, a single finding aid would be prepared to help future researchers acquaint themselves with the holdings of these three collections. Also a companion Web site with the same information was planned. Both items will be expanded in the future with updates on the remaining archival holdings of the Powers Museum once they are processed in a future focus project.

As the project turned out, just one collection would have been big enough for the entire grant project and small portions of each collection remain for processing in 2003; however, it is not anticipated general subject listings will be altered much from this final finding aid. Any additions or corrections will be recorded to the online version of this finding aid. In addition, some additional information created prior to the MHRAB grant (or finished up during the grant period) focusing on general resources of the Powers Museum Reference Library has been included here as well.

Michele Hansford
Director/Curator, Powers Museum & MHRAB (cycle one) Grant Project Director

Other Project participants: David Cunningham, Amanda Dickson, Jeanie Hill, Valerie Nelson, Elizabeth Sanderson, Cecily Tubbs and Jessica Whitehead

Prior appointment necessary for use of all archival collections. This material is not available for walk-in, on-demand use. Consultation by phone or email prior to your visit, will result in a more successful research visit and allow museum staff to prepare materials and also a work space for your use on site.