Preservation, Access, and Digital Connections: Processing the Blanche Payne Yugoslav and Other Regional Costume Photograph and Drawing Collection

Abstract

This thesis project seeks to process, make accessible, and virtually connect the Blanche Payne Yugoslav and Other Regional Costume Photograph and Drawing Collection, held at the University of Washington Libraries’ Special Collections, with its associated costume materials, which are held at the Henry Art Gallery. In doing so, this project provides a context for understanding the collection as a whole. Processing the materials held in Special Collections allows them to be preserved, while intellectually arranging and integrating materials that had been held in different areas of Special Collections. It provides access to the collection for researchers, educators, and students at the University of Washington. Placing the collections and finding aids online also provides access to distance researchers. The materials held in the Blanche Payne Yugoslav and Other Regional Costume Photograph and Drawing Collection in Special Collections are photographic prints, pattern drawings, watercolor paintings, and postcards that Blanche Payne had collected or created on her trips to the former Yugoslavia and various other countries during 1930 and 1936‐1937. These materials depict regional costume worn in the former Yugoslavia, as well as daily activities of the people who lived there. It was important to make the materials accessible to researchers because they provide information about the costume materials held at the Henry Art Gallery, and also depict a time when regional costume was still worn, but was rapidly disappearing. This information is invaluable to researchers interested in regional costume, and also provides an opportunity for people in the Seattle area and abroad to reconnect with their cultural heritage.