CALDWELL HIGH SCHOOL - YEARBOOKS

Tuesday

February 28, 2012

1:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Week 3 Day 3

 Caldwell High School Yearbooks

Previously, research of newspaper clippings revealed that Caldwell High School began in the 1970-1971 school year, in Columbus, Mississippi. The Robert S. Caldwell school had been an all-white junior high school since 1963, and changed to an integrated high school after court ordered desegregation in 1970. At this time there was currently an all-white high school in Columbus, which had been in existence since 1918, called the Stephen D. Lee High School. Articles indicated that Caldwell became the Columbus West Campus high school, with grades 11 and 12 and the Stephen D. Lee became the integrated Columbus East Campus High School, with grades 9 and 10.

A search of Caldwell High School yearbooks in the collection of the Billups-Garth Archives, in the Local History department of the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library, told a slightly different story than the newspaper articles.

  "Brothers are we all
—the black and white—
together."

The 1971 Excalibur yearbook began with a poem on page 4, of which the author was not given. A class poet was named on page 150, who was Cheryl Rappe. There was no indication found  verifying who wrote the following, which was on a page with a photograph of two arms reaching to touch in a peak over a church steeple in the background. The words were indicative of the circumstances of desegregation of the public schools in Columbus, Mississippi during this time.

  “Yesterday we said it wouldn’t happen.

Today it’s here.

  Brothers are we all—the black and white—together.

  We strive for the future, our future, a better future.

  Here we are, facing each other, opposing each other, working with each other.

The future…What does it hold?” (1971 Excalibur, p. 4)

The Homecoming festivities showed an all-white homecoming court, which was described as the first homecoming court for the new Caldwell High School, held on October 30. In fact, it was a double homecoming for both Caldwell and Stephen D. Lee High Schools. This year, the two schools combined football players and the “Generals” defeated the Tuscaloosa Black Bears 20 to 7. The 1970 football season had ended with a winning record of 9 and 0 (p. 25).

The examination of the remainder of the 1971 Excalibur Yearbook for the Caldwell High School specified that the mascots of the Caldwell basketball and baseball teams were the "Bobcats". The previous paragraph noted that the combined football team was called the “Generals”, which was the Stephen D. Lee High School mascot.

The 1972 Robert S. Caldwell High School yearbook (Volume II), noted that this was “Caldwell’s first Homecoming”, on October 22, 1971. The 1970 football season was featured in the 1971 Caldwell yearbook and the 1971 football season was in the 1972 yearbook. Although Caldwell’s first “combined” homecoming was in 1970, the next year was also considered a first homecoming, because it was not combined with Lee High School.

Eugene Bailey is on the left

Each consecutive yearbook was looked at for additional clues about Caldwell High School. The 1976 Excalibur featured an outdoor brick sign, with the name of R.S. Caldwell Senior High. Yearbooks continued to feature high school teams for football, basketball, baseball, etc. The 1977 Volume VII of Excalibur was dedicated to Mr. Eugene Bailey (p.3), who was described as a counselor, National Honor Society sponsor, and the Annual and Newspaper Staff photographer. Since the slides that are being accessioned into the Archives, are dated from 1975 – 1981, it is possible that Mr. Bailey could be the photographer responsible for the slides. Another probability is that some of the students on the slides could be from the Honor Society. So far, there has not been a connection made between the people in the slides and those in the yearbooks, but all of the slides have not been processed at this point.

1978 Excalibur yearbook
inside front and back cover

The 1978 Caldwell yearbook indicated that the name Excalibur described the Arthurian Legend, where the sword, Excalibur, was created to serve. The yearbook was created for “preserving memories of this past year”. This text was found inside the front and back covers of the 1978 yearbook. The R.S. Caldwell Gymnasium was also noted as being erected during this same year.

The Caldwell High School newspaper staff had an unusual group photo in the 1979 yearbook. It was a “Bonnie and Clyde” styled two-page photograph, with costumes, an old car, and guns (p. 120). Each yearbook featured some unique themes of photography for the staff of the newspaper, which was known as the      Kaleidoscope.

1979 Caldwell H.S. newspaper staff

There were twenty-one years that Robert S. Caldwell High School existed. The Billups-Garth Archives have all of their yearbooks from 1971 through 1992, with the exception of four years. The missing four years of Caldwell High School yearbooks are 1984, 1985, 1990, and 1991.

The 1992 Caldwell yearbook was the last yearbook of Caldwell High School, in Columbus Mississippi. Some additional notes were: their school colors were red and white, they were referred to as “Big Red” and “Topcats”. All of the other Caldwell High School yearbooks were prominently named Excalibur, but the last one was titled, “The Final Chapter.1992”. Excalibur was featured below that.

Student Journal Reflections

Researching the Archives’ collection of Caldwell High School yearbooks was a continuation in seeking information to complete the “Historical Note” section of the inventory for the Caldwell High School Slides. Previous information from newspaper articles was contradictory and confusing. The yearbooks were an excellent source for more specific and credible information about the history of the school. The next area of research will be the yearbooks for the Stephen D. Lee High School, which should verify the findings from the Caldwell High School yearbooks.

CALDWELL HIGH SCHOOL - SLIDES TO PHOTOGRAPHS

Screen photo of software
to convert slides to photographs

CALDWELL HIGH SCHOOL
SLIDES TO PHOTOGRAPHS   

The Caldwell High School slides needed to be converted into a photograph format. Previously, the slides had been removed from the slide carousel in the original order they were found in. 

Each slide was inserted into archival slide notebook sleeves (See photo of slide notebook below). An archival marker pen was used to consecutively number each sleeve insert at the bottom-left corner.

Archival notebook
sleeves for slides

The box with the slide notebook and control file was opened and the slide notebook was removed. Each slide would need to be scanned and saved into a computer file. 

The scanner used for this purpose was an “Epson Perfection V500 Photo”. The scanner had a slide tray that could be placed upon the glass, which would hold up to four slides (See slide tray photo below). 

Only one slide at a time was scanned, due to the time needed to scan more, plus the file names and numbers would be easier to keep up with one. In addition, the insert attached to the inside of the lid had to be removed in order for the slide tray to work properly.

Example of Excel files with slide number, date, & photo description:

Slide 1:	1978 May	Basketball players (Males-10) standing in front of charter buses. Some names/initials on front of caps, including: RJJ, JOHNNY, ROY, AL, & KENNY.
Slide 2:	1978 Mar	Basketball players (Males) on court during game
Slide 3:	1978 Mar	Basketball players (Males) on court during game, while making a free-throw shot
Slide 4:	1978 May	Basketball players (Males-7) standing in front of charter buses. One is on the shoulders of two others, & holding a trophy

An Excel file was used to keep notes about each slide, such as number (a total of 137), date, and a photo description. This was printed and kept nearby to write details as each slide was scanned. The Epson Scan application was opened on a computer connected to the scanner. The settings used to scan each slide were the following:

Photo of scanner
with slide attachment
and slide ready to be scanned

Mode – Home

Document Type – Positive Film

Image Type – Color

Destination – Printer

Target – 4 x 6 in.

Image – Color Restoration, Backlight Correction, and Digital ICE Technology

Before a slide was inserted, a date stamp was looked for on the slide. If there was a date given, it was written down on the printed Excel sheet for that particular slide. The direction the slide was placed into the frame did not matter, but after you do a few of them, you know which direction to place the slide, in order to skip adjusting the frame 
                                                         direction during the "Preview". 

After the scan for preview is completed, you can double-click on the photo to enlarge it. If you need to adjust the frame direction, it can be done at this step. There are also options to reverse or mirror the photo direction. The need for this can be determined by looking at any signs or lettering in the photo, to see if it is reversed. Once any adjustments are completed, you click on the "Scan" tab. This scan usually takes several minutes to complete. (The “dpi” can be set to the number desired during an advanced setup.) While this is occurring, notes can be made upon the Excel page about the dates and details noticed about the photo. This will become a finding aid for the collection once the scans, from slides to photographs, are completed.

When each scan is completed, you save and name the file. The slides were saved as JPEG image format, in a file titled CHS Slides to Photographs. Each slide was renamed with the prefix Caldwell Slide, the number of the slide, and the processed file name. For example, the file would be named: Caldwell Slide 15_MS 451.jpg

After a number of slides had been scanned and saved, each was emailed to the archivist, Mona Vance. Only two slides were sent with each email, since each took several seconds to load. This work was being done on another worker’s computer. The email was sent from my personal email account, which also enabled working on the finding aid at a later time, because the images were accessible through the sent mail settings regardless of location or computer. The archivist could study the images and possibly load some onto the library’s local history blog, to inquire about knowledge of the content, from patrons.

Student Journal Reflections

This stage of the project has revealed how much time is spent preparing a finding aid. In addition to the preliminary time the archivist had already instilled in creating the control file; as a practicum worker, I have accumulated almost 20 hours on-site with the project, and still have a lot or work to do. Also, many hours have been spent off-site in further research. 

I can see the value of the information that has been learned about the slides. There is very little information about Caldwell High School to be found. The newspaper articles from the Archives’ vertical file was a good starting point, but further research proved that there were some mistakes in them. So far, the yearbooks in the Archives have been the most revealing about the history of the school. 

Now that the research for the historical description is completed, the progress on the "slides to photographs" scans can proceed without interruption. As further details are derived from the photos, it may be possible to identify more specific information, which may lead to the public bringing in more items related to Caldwell High School.