Since I first posted a page on my archive research, I've had a few email enquiries, which I've drawn up into the Frequently Asked Questions below. If you have any other questions, please let me know!
- What sort of documents are you looking at?
- Do the documents give you a complete written history of gas masks?
- Is all this documentary information actually correct?
- Are you going to use any of the archive photographs you've found on your website?
- How many files have you looked at to date?
Q: What sort of documents are you looking at?
A: All sorts; there are memoranda, technical and intelligence reports, photographs, manuals, minutes of meetings, letters and mundane day-to-day notes. There are also several monographs, which are written-up histories on certain topics, based on the sorts of documents listed above. Monographs provide analysis of the primary documents, and are a good starting point, particularly if they contain a document bibliography.
Q: Do the documents give you a complete written history of gas masks?
A: Absolutely not! Many people mistakingly believe that the archive contains a nice set of gilt-edged volumes containing lots of pretty photographs of gas masks with accompanying text telling me everything I ever wanted to know about them. Although monographs, where they exist, provide 'mini-histories' of certain topics, the day-to-day documents are confusing, contradictory and frequently missing. As an historian I've occasionally had to read anything from one to two hundred sheets of paper to be able to write a single academically-acceptable sentence on a particular topic. The documents very rarely provide a complete picture of what went on.
To get a feeling of this, try the following exercise: when you're next reading through your email at work, take a look at what's in your inbox. Does the run of email tell the full story of what you and your colleagues have accomplished in the past year? Very probably not; you'll have deleted a lot of email because you didn't consider it worth keeping for whatever reason. Not every decison that was made will have been recorded, and you may not have bothered to respond to that email from your boss asking you to do something, to say that you'd actually done it, because you spoke when you met by the photocopier. See how easily the trail of information goes cold? However, when the paper trail ends, actual artefacts can sometimes provide the answer to the outcome of a particular issue - see the question below.
Q: Is all this documentary information actually correct?
A: No. Many documents are intelligence reports
that contain inaccurate information. (Intelligence involves a lot of lateral
thinking and guesswork!) However, it is very satisfying when information
ties in with a piece from my collection. For example, the following statement
comes form an intelligence report of April, 1929 that I found in WO 188/780:
"Several types of gas masks have been tested recently in Sweden and that the DEGEA mask made by the AUER Company is most favoured."
Although this information is not conclusive, it is confirmed by the mask seen at right. When I acquired it in a batch of German World War II masks from a dealer, I took one look at it, and decided that it was a German Auer 747 facepiece, a common variety. I was almost right. Upon cleaning it up, I found "SVENSK TILLVERKNING" and "BICAPA STOCKHOLM" rubber-stamped on the inside, confirming Swedish manufacture and that the Degea mask must have been favoured.
Another document in the same file records that a company brochure was procured from a 1929 Degea gas mask exhibition in Landskrona. It gave contact addresses, one of which was for a company known as BICAPA in Stockholm.
Q: Are you going to use any of the archive photographs you've found on your website?
A: I hope to in the future, but as they are protected by copyright law, I have to ask permission first and pay for the privilege of using them. Before I pay to use any however, I need to see how much of my information and images are used elsewhere on the web without my permission!
Q: How many files have you looked at?
A: 561 files so far, although a file can contain anything from 1 sheet of paper, to over 200 - browse the Finding Aid for a complete list.
Any more questions? Just email me!