Brief Bio

Kate Colligan, the creator of this wiki, is currently a Research Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Public Health where she works on data collection and open access issues with developing countries as part of the VMI Project. Between 2000-2008 Kate served as an archivist at the Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh, and was the P.I. for the Allegheny County Coroner Case Files Project funded, through a grant from the PHMC.  Kate remains active professionally in the Society of American Archivists , and the School of Information Sciences and Women's Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. 

Notes and Thoughts on the Project 

January -May 2007

Well, we are off and running with the blog-this project began in January 2007!  I hope this site is useful for students during the course of their internships as well as those who are interested in the staus and development of our project.  Although presented on an earlier page, this project intends to preserve and make accessible nearly 225,000 case files produced by the Allegheny County Coroner Office between 1887-1973.  In order to better orient the students to record keeping practices we began the project with files from 1966-1973.  The files were mainly in good order and the students began to get a feel for the type of information the files contain.  It  has been helpful to have as much contact with the interns as possible, not only to make sure that files are ordered and preserved correctly, but to provide insight and support as they came upon grisley descriptions, artifacts, and even photographs of the dead.  Talking about these morbid encounters has relieved the stress of encountering the unknown and allows us to discuss the lives of Pittsburghers from a historical perspective.  I have been impressed by many of the questions and insights raised by the interns as they look for patterns or variation between years, gender, occupation, and other social observations.  If you haven't done so already, please check out the 1960's  for details provided by resourceful interns!

Files from 1900-1902 were a vastly different experience in our processing methods.  The case files themselves are often bound with faded red ribbon ("red tape") and are folded and rolled.  Some cases had a great number of witnesses, particularly in 1900, and unrolling, flattening, and gleaning information from one file can take a good deal of time.  During the early 1900's phase of the project  the interns are filling out forms that detail the names and associated case numbers.  The files in this era have posed significant processing challenges as they are disorganized, dirty (coal dust), and extremely brittle.  Interns have been wearing latex or cotton gloves to protect themselves from the dirt and making sure not to transfer more grime and fingerprints on to other files!  It is a messy process, with brittle rubber bands, staples, and paper shards littered about.  Given the mess, the result is very satisfying-all files are flattened and placed into new acid free folders and then labeled.  By the end of the semester we had made it up to 1905-1906 and discovered some of the first automobile accidents in Pittsburgh-which also contained information from the coroner about the lack of laws governing these vehicles!

So far, the project has collected over 60,000 names by processing 77 boxes of the original 758 boxes of files.  The names, case numbers, and dates will provide a cursory list/index to researchers at the end of the project and we estimate that this will include about 225,000 individual files.   Eleven students worked on the project this term (see Current Project Members and Retired Project Members (Jan-May 2007)) ~KAC Spring 2007

May- August 2007 Grant Begins!

The grant portion for the project, funded by the PHMC,  began May 1, 2007.  We were able to hire several of the students who had worked as interns during the spring semester.  This worked out well since the processors were already trained and had a good working knowledge of the records-and a keen interest in them!  At this time it was also necessary to adjust some of our processing practices to fulfill the requirements set out in our grant proposal.  To ensure that our preservation project wraps up on time (June 2008) we began only collecting docket- date ranges.   ASC staff (on department time) is creating an electronic file containing all of the docket-date ranges adding names when possible, which will eventually provide a comprehensive index accessible through a databse.  By following this procedure with minimal processing and description, we were able to complete 130 boxes of files this summer. 

Naturally, we have had some challenges associated with artifacts within the files.  One processor found a pile of white powder within and envelope relating to a suicide by morphine.  This material (and the prescription for the morphine) have been safely removed from the collection and filed seperately and documented.  It really isn't possible to guess what may be found in the files but processors are alerted to be on the look out for anything they believe to be blatantly harmful.  Processors will begin updating the Wiki again this fall, but we were on hiatus this summer and managed to process up to 1922.  We will be going back to fill in what information we can between 1906-1922 in the chronology section to give you all an idea of our findings-which included the 1918 Influenza Epidemic.  

Good news for the fall semester:  5 graduate students from the SIS Partners Program, and 3 undergraduate history interns will be joining us!  Additionally, we are retaining two of our processors who have worked on the project since January.  There should be a good deal to report over the next few months as everyone is required to update the Wiki as part of their assignment-including me!~ KAC August 2007

September 2007 

Training began for the new crew and I look forward to reading their postings soon!  I recently returned from the SAA Conference in Chicago where I gave a paper about about the concept of minimally processing sensitive material and how it relates to the Coroner project.  I'll post the link when it is available.  Meanwhile, I've been editing the Wiki site to make room for all of our new contributors! ~  KAC 09/07/07