Most families have stories from the past handed down from the oldest to the youngest, recalling the history of the family through major and minor events – sometimes tragic, sometimes funny.  Most families also have memorabilia of some sort, often connected directly to those stories. This physical material helps keep these stories alive and relevant, making them more meaningful and giving a ‘voice’ to the past generations.  

If a family wants to maintain its history, and keep those stories alive, it is important to preserve that material as best we can. As conservators working at Preservation Australia, we work with families in conserving their objects and advising them on how best to store and preserve their family history material.

A family of four siblings approached Preservation Australia to help them preserve their family history collection of 100 WWI postcards. These postcards were from their grandfather who had served at various posts overseas during the war.  His stories were inscribed on the back of the postcards, and unusually, many stories continued over several postcards. These four siblings all loved the postcards and the stories they told. The siblings are now dispersed around Australia and all wanted access to the postcards and to share the stories with the next generation. They were also concerned about how best to preserve and conserve this important family collection.

Condition

The postcards represented a variety of styles and media all typical of the era – black and white photographs, photomechanical copies and also the beautiful silk embroidered postcards. Most of the handwriting was in blue/black ink, pencil or iron gall ink, some inscriptions were fading and becoming harder to read. Many of the postcards had typical wear and tear from handling and age – dog-eared corners, stains, surface dirt, creases, small tears and the dreaded “sticky tape”. It was obvious that the collection had been regularly handled by the family in order to re-read the stories and look at the images.

The postcards had been placed in standard photograph albums for easy access and viewing. These albums were plastic covered ring binders with PVC (plastic) sleeves.  In earlier days, before they had been put into these albums, the postcards had been pasted into a more traditional album with green paper pages. Some of this paper residue was still present on the back of the postcards and was obscuring the inscriptions.

While physical damage was minimal considering the age, had the postcards remained in the PVC pages severe deterioration, embrittlement and fading would have continued. The PVC album pages had begun to degrade, evidenced with a slightly sticky feel and an unpleasant smell. As PVC deteriorates it off-gasses chlorides, and the plasticisers present (to keep the plastic soft and malleable) migrate to the surface making it tacky. The material in contact with the PVC (such as the postcards) absorbs the chlorides, which contributes to its active deterioration through weakening the cellulose chains of the paper fibres (known as embrittlement).

Photographs are particularly sensitive to gaseous pollutants, such as the chlorides, and are permanently damaged through fading and discolouration of the image. Pollutants combined with moisture and heat (particularly relevant with our Australian summers) cause photographs to “mirror” in the dense areas of the image. ‘Mirroring’ is seen when the black areas of the photograph reflect a silver/blue sheen in certain light.

A loss of physical strength, such as that caused by the weakening of the cellulose chains through contact with the PVC, along with acidic storage material, is a common problem with historic material. Regular handling results in tears and fractures of the material, along with accumulation of surface dirt. This is the main reason for storing photographs and documents in clear plastic pages. However, it is critical to use archival plastics, such as archival polyester (known as Mylar or Melinex) or polypropylene – not PVC. The advantages offered by archival plastic are numerous, with one of the most useful being the ability to view, copy and handle the historic material, without it being removed from the sleeve. This is particularly the case with polyester as it has a greater clarity and rigidity than polypropylene.

Any dirt, however minute, on the surface of photographs can scratch the image or even become embedded in the image layer, while fingerprints can discolour and stain the image. When dirt remains on paper surfaces the fine particles will work their way into the paper fibres leaving smudges that can be difficult to remove, while abrading the fibres of the paper resulting in a weaker sheet of paper.

‘Sticky tape’ (pressure sensitive tape) will leave a stain too. While the stain is visually disturbing, it also represents deterioration of the cellulose fibres and a weakening of the paper. There are a variety of adhesive tapes available, and unfortunately, they are all bad for family history collections. The removal of the tape is difficult and unless treated by a conservator the paper or image underneath may be damaged. The stain is generally permanent unless treated with solvents.

Treatment
The client brief was to conserve the original postcards and re-house them in an archival album. Four identical copies of the collection were to be made for the four siblings and they were also to be housed in archival albums. This was to ensure that they all had archival copies of the postcard collection and that the original could be safely stored with little need for access. Should any other copies be needed in the future they could be produced from the digital masters already created. A very good solution to long-term preservation!

After full documentation of the collection, consisting of photographic and written documentation of its condition, conservation treatment began with gentle surface cleaning of all the postcards to remove the loose surface dirt. The damaged and dog-eared corners were then repaired and strengthened with Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste – a fully reversible process.  The green paper residue was carefully removed to expose the underlying writing. The post cards were then digitally scanned and copies of the back and front of each postcard were printed.

The albums were made with archival covers (archival board, paper and bookcloth) and archival polyester sleeves. These polyester sleeves are made at Preservation Australia, which means that we can essentially make any size sleeve required – as we have the only long, fully open-ended welding machine in Australia. The sleeves are heat welded which gives a smooth, rolled edge to the sleeve and has the same polymer strength as the polyester sheet. We also have a cross-welding machine that allows for ‘seams’ to be welded down the middle of the sleeves. While not as beautiful as the rolled edge seams, it means that ‘pockets’ can be created in sleeves that are suitable for storing photographs in an album style presentation. These were the style sleeves made for this particular project.

The originals and the copies were all re-housed into these albums, each with their own archival slipcase also. These new albums have provided a beautiful and archival storage system for this important family collection, which can now be easily and safely accessed by all members.

And the original collection of postcards will now last a great deal longer – telling the family’s story for many more generations to come.