Papers of Sally Anne Duncan, 1895-2013

This collection is composed of materials relating to Sally Anne Duncan’s (née Pickhardt) research on Fogg Museum Associate Director and Harvard University Fine Arts Professor Paul J. Sachs’s course “Museum Work and Museum Problems,” commonly referred to as the “Museum Course,” and its students for her master’s thesis and Ph.D. dissertation, as well as the process of publishing said thesis and dissertation. It includes Duncan’s dissertation correspondence and appendices, research notes, copies of articles and journals, images of Sachs and his museum students, Museum Course reading lists, telegrams, pamphlets, floor plans of the Fogg Museum, and phone interviews with surviving students or their family members recorded on audio cassette; some of the interviews have been digitized. Other materials include photocopies of Sachs’s correspondence with his students and colleagues, as well as exhibition catalogues, newspaper articles, and journal articles that discuss Sachs and his students. Duncan’s academic advisor at Tufts University, Andrew McClellan, contributed to the collection after Duncan’s death in 2007. The materials date from 1895 to 2013, with the bulk falling from 1932-1939 and 1994-2000. There are significant notes made by Duncan throughout the collection.

The collection is divided into three series: Museum Course Research, Museum Course Students and Faculty, and Interviews. Series I, Museum Course Research, contains Duncan’s general research regarding Sachs’s course. It includes Sachs’s lists of Museum Course students and his correspondence with them, Sachs family photographs and Harvard Fine Arts Department faculty photographs, newsletters, bulletins, exhibition catalogues, and question lists for the former student interviews written by Duncan.

Series II, Museum Course Students and Faculty, contains Duncan’s research on Museum Course students, faculty, and related individuals. It includes correspondence with these students as well as their family members, interview transcripts, handwritten and typed notes, and exhibition catalogues. Duncan added the student’s Museum Course enrollment years in each folder’s title.

Series III, Interviews, contains Duncan’s interviews with students or their family members regarding their memories of the Museum Course; these were recorded on audio cassette, and some have been digitized.

As much of the material related to Paul J. Sachs in Series I and II consists of research photocopies of original correspondence or similar materials, the processing archivist elected to date folders so that the dates reflect when the content of the original was created in addition to when copies were made. Photocopies and notes throughout the collection, both typed and handwritten, may be undated but were probably written in the 1990s or 2000s; these estimations are reflected in the date ranges.

The materials have been re-housed into archival folders and boxes. Containers and their contents have been kept in original order, and materials that were kept in binders have been foldered and numbered to indicate that they represent a part of a larger whole (for example: “folder 1 of 2”). Original folder and container names have been retained where applicable; artificially constructed titles for untitled folders/groupings have been written in brackets. Researchers should also note that folder titles are not always accurate or reflective of content. In cases where the folder title and content differ significantly, a note has been added at the folder level.

Post-It notes were employed by Duncan in her notes and removed by the processing archivist for preservation; those that were used to cross-reference pages, contained comments, or could not be read by the processing archivist were preserved. Preservation photocopies of the notes have been inserted behind the appropriate originals.