ARCHIVES FROM THE

By: Brittany Strobel Processing Archivist

Deep in the recesses of the State Archive Preservation Facility (SAPF) on the east side of Madison, Brittany Strobel , the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Processing Archivist, has the privilege of preserving the significant events and innermost thoughts of some of our veterans.

The processing archivist has the official responsibility of the archival accessioning, processing, catalog maintenance, collection locations, and digitization of archival collections. This means that anything that is paper (diaries, letters, newspaper clippings, orders, photos, and scrapbooks), video, or audio materials that the museum adds to its collection, Strobel reads and reviews. She feels it is an honor to perform this work.

This photograph was taken by Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Hall Custodian Hosea Rood on November 18, 1907. It features four veterans who were all at Andersonville Prison, Georgia on October 17, 1907 as part of the Andersonville Memorial Park Commission. The veterans are Alexander B. Campbell [1], John C. Marlin [2], Charles H. Russell [3] and Charles H. Wannemaker [4].

Campbell served with Company A, 13th Wisconsin [Veteran Volunteer] Infantry Regiment. Campbell was a prisoner of war for 8 months and 11 days at Cahaba Prison, Alabama, Macon and Andersonville, Georgia.

Marlin served with Company H, 1st Wisconsin Heavy Artillery. He was later the Department Commander for the Grand Army of the Republic. Russell served with Company E, 1st Wisconsin Cavalry, and was a prisoner of war at Andersonville.

Wannemaker served with Company E, 25th Wisconsin [Volunteer] Infantry Regiment, and was a prisoner of war at Cahaba Prison, Alabama.

In the image, the veterans are gathered around a print of Andersonville Prison, looking west. Campbell’s hand is resting on a piece of the Andersonville stockade, which was donated to the GAR Memorial Hall.

(Top Right) Part of a stockade post from Andersonville Prison that was in the ground. This log was dug up October 17, 1907 by Commander John C. Martin & Alexander B. Campbell. Campbell served in Co. A 13th Wisconsin Infantry and he was imprisoned at Andersonville for several months. He survived and mustered out on May 30, 1865. You can see Campbell holding the log in the photograph.

“Due to the innately personal nature of our collections, I become familiar with family news, new experiences for servicemembers, real-time accounts of romances, travel, and the realities of being far from home, often for the very first time. Processing collections gives me unique insight into the personalities of veterans and their families and can often feel like getting to know someone. It is a very personal thing to read someone’s innermost thoughts and secrets that they share with friends and family, and it is a real privilege to interact with the collections,” Strobel says.

While describing the work she has been doing full-time since 2016 can be technical and dry, the care and conscience behind Strobel’s work is evident in how she approaches her tasks. Strobel says, “I always give myself a few moments with each collection to appreciate how unique the story is, and how lucky I am to get to interact with the collection, summarize the stories and put records up online so people all over the world can find it.”

Strobel is often the person that family members speak with to learn about the service of their ancestors. Because of her intimate knowledge of the veteran’s collection, she can recount experiences the veteran may never have shared with their family. Those revelations often bring the family to tears, and that’s when Strobel knows she has done her job well.

Even though she spends much of her time in the past with other people’s papers, during her time out of the SAPF, she enjoys searching unique cookbooks for new recipes to try. She loves to cook the items she finds at farmers markets and specialty grocery stores.

When planning for stories in this publication, social media posts, traveling exhibits, window displays, gallery exhibits, and for many other information requests, Strobel’s work animates our core belief that Every Veteran Is a Story.

By: Jennifer Stevenson Marketing Specialist, Sr.

The State Archive Preservation Facility or SAPF, pronounced by staff as “safe,” is a purpose-built, state-of-the-art space designed to care for Wisconsin’s historical artifacts and archives. The State of Wisconsin completed construction in 2017 and in 2018 the Wisconsin Veterans Museum moved its collections storage from the basement of the museum building on Capitol Square to the SAPF. The 188,000 square foot building is shared with the Wisconsin State Historical Society, the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, the State Capitol, and the Executive Residence for housing all sorts of historical collections not in use elsewhere.

Currently, a rough estimate for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum’s archival holdings, which includes anything that is paper, audio, or video, is measured at 3,000 cubic ft. of collections. This grouping contains over 2,000 processed collections and hundreds more that still require review and arrangement to make them more easily usable. Artifacts, threedimensional items like flags, uniforms, and swords, number more than 26,500. The museum collection is broad and vast, and the SAPF building was designed to accommodate the special conditions needed to preserve a breadth of items.

The Wisconsin Veterans Museum portion of the SAPF contains climate-controlled storage spaces which adjusts both temperature and humidity conditions to slow deterioration of leather, wood, wool, cotton, paper, recording tape, etc. It also houses freezers to eliminate insect infestations in artifacts, cold storage for sensitive materials like film, a photography studio for documenting artifacts, a conservation lab to restore and clean artifacts, and dedicated spaces for object preparation and archival digitization projects. Through the series of profiles in The Bugle, you’ve met everyone who is headquartered there and cares for the museum collection: Andrea Hoffmann, collections manager; Sarah Kapellush, registrar; and Brittany Strobel, processing archivist.

By: Jennifer Stevenson Marketing Specialist, Sr.

Currently in the conservation lab, contracted conservator, Craig Deller, is cleaning and restoring six chromolithographs from the 1870s that were rescued from the basement of a private home in Milwaukee. Here, Deller is cleaning an oxidized linseed oil layer to brighten the chromolithographs of Admiral David Farragut. In the background is a restored portrait of General William T. Sherman. The restored pieces will be installed in the G.A.R. hearing room at the Wisconsin State Capitol, which is the original location of the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Hall, the precursor to the Wisconsin Veterans Museum.

As time marches on and the gallery space at 30 W. Mifflin St. remains the same size as it was in 1993, the space at the SAPF becomes increasingly important to the future of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. Most museums of our size exhibit about 20% of their total collection. The Wisconsin Veterans Museum currently exhibits just 3%. Without the space at the SAPF to house its collections, the museum would run out of room to properly care for the items entrusted to it, let alone continue to have the ability to bring in the collections of recent service members.

A visit to the current Wisconsin Veterans Museum impresses visitors for certain. Behind these exhibits are hundreds of additional stories locked away in the SAPF. The SAPF enables the museum staff to continue to collect stories of our veterans and care for their historic archival pieces and artifacts. Being able to publicly tell the stories of a wider array of our veterans in a new purpose-built museum is the next logical step to honoring the service of all our veterans and encouraging an intelligent love of country for the next generation.