Week Four: Archives and Wills

          This week I spent my ten hours working remotely. Tuesday I used the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia’s inventory of African American Historic Churches in the City of Philadelphia, available on their website, to narrow down possible churches Arthur Laws may have attended. The work was time consuming—I couldn’t devise a better system than simply cross-referencing the addresses and dates on the Preservation Alliance’s list with Arthur’s addresses according to censuses using Google Maps. I’ve narrowed the list down to nine possibilities, with three that are much more likely than the others. Unfortunately most of the nine churches are no longer in existence, and the inventory listed no records remaining in existence. If possible, I will contact the churches that retained their records for any information on Arthur Laws or his family members.

Thursday I spent most of the day at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania doing research. I learned that the HSP holds the collection of Percival Foerderer—son of Robert and Caroline Foerderer (Caroline first employed Arthur around 1910) and brother of Florence (who continued to employ Arthur through at least 1930). The collection contained “The Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Robert H. Foerderer,” delieved in the House of Representatives April 10, 1904. Reading the sentiments of several United States Representatives proved slightly helpful in learning about Robert Foerderer’s early life, as well as his industrial achievements. At some point this semester I would like to take a break from Arthur Laws research and attempt to research Robert Foerderer’s company and leather factory. As I am focusing on working class history, I would specifically research the lives of the factory employees.

Much of Percival’s collection was made up of his daughter Mignon Foerderer’s scrapbooks, containing newspaper clippings about the family and society event invitations, as well as photograph albums. Unfortunately much of the collection focused on the years after Arthur’s employment with the family (and probably after his death). Still, I found the information useful in providing a background and personal information about the family who lived at or frequently visited Glen Foerd. Incorporating interesting information about the lives of those who once walked the halls of Glen Foerd could provide a more exciting tour, placing the objects in the home into context for the visitors.

While I was researching, I couldn’t help but consider the difficulties historic sites encounter because of the wills of those who once occupied the locations. Take the example of the story of the Foggs-Rollins House in Exeter, New Hampshire. In their article, “Does American Need Another House Museum?” included in the Summer 2004 publication of AASLH History News, Carol B. Stapp and Kenneth B. Turino described the story of this specific historic site. The last owner of the Foggs-Rollins House, Beatrice Rollins, formed a trust to turn the house into a house museum upon her death. Unfortunately, while Rollins formed this trust, she left the majority of her financial assets in a fund to her cats. This left the property in Exeter without enough funding to maintain it, and left trustees of the estate, as well as local historians, with the question of what to do with the house.

Though a much less severe problem, the wills of the Foerderer family members have left Glen Foerd in an interesting position. A religious woman, Florence Foerderer Tonner left Glen Foerd to the Lutheran Church upon her death in 1972. She also stipulated that the house be left to the local community, should the church no longer be able to maintain it. This transaction occurred in 1988, when Glen Foerd was put in the care of the Fairmount Park Commission. Though the house became property of the city, the Lutheran Church still owned its contents, which over the years had been moved, both within the house, to other structures on the property, and to unknown locations off of the property. This movement and loss of Florence Foerder’s property has caused a difficult issue for the staff of Glen Foerd the museum. There are no known plans of the original furniture layout of the entire building, so what objects were central to the home, where they belong, etc. remain questionable. This makes it difficult to know if the set up is historically accurate. Not nearly as difficult a question to answer as the Foggs-Rollins House, but certainly a challenge as the question of what to do with the excessive collection remains. I suspect in the next few months, a solution for this question will be offered, through research in the archives of Glen Foerd, as well as advice from historic architects.