This week, I continued my research into Sammy Skobel and building a solid timeline of his life and career by cross referencing newspapers, items in the Historical society collection, and his autobiography. I’ve also been researching some of his fellow skaters and their stories to get a better idea of what the roller derby scene was like in the 1950s. Through this line of inquiry, I’ve been able to find out more about Sammy. One roller derby program I found references his dedicated fan clubs and when researching female skaters I found an Oscar nominated short film he took part in. My working idea is to have two parts of the exhibit, one dealing with the history of roller derby and Sammy’s contributions to it and the other focused more on Sammy’s achievements as a citizen of Mount Prospect.
I’ve digitized several more Super 8 tapes and I’ve gotten very good at it. I’ve digitized two more tapes, the most recent being videos of a elementary school Christmas program and an outdoor school picnic. So far I’ve digitized 4 tapes total. Below is one my most recent captures, the Patrol Picnic. You can really tell this clip is from the 60s based on the fashion alone!
I also got to meet one of the board members and get a feel of what the relationship is between historical society employees and the board. Turns out, it can be hard to get things across to the board because of the disconnect that comes from lack historical training. Additionally, we’ve had a lot of technology problems, with the upstairs computers shutting down due to age. It can be difficult to convince the board to permit money to go towards technology, as the employees have been requesting new computers for a few years now. Sometimes it has to take something serious (like a computer breaking) to prove that a cost is necessary. Otherwise, I’m becoming much more bedded in at the historical society!
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