Nerd!

[madbaker]

Like many of my friends, I'm an amateur history buff. So when the boss' boss asked me if I liked history, I gave her a noncommittal "yeah" so as not to break cover.

But I almost squee'd when she showed me what the renovators recently found moldering in San Francisco Treasury records: handwritten documents from day-to-day operations. Original 1910 deposit receipts from the Bank of Italy. Property tax records from the 1890's - which mean that you can document who owned where!

This is potentially huge for local historians. Yeah, there's a lot of crap there too: daily cash inventory levels for 50 years, who cares. But plenty of nuggets buried in the sand.

Comments

[finickynarcane.livejournal.com]

Were these docs shown to you "in the flesh" or are they scanned and online somewhere?

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

In the flesh. I handled one of the receipt books and some of the letters.

[fionnbharro.livejournal.com]

Does your office have the means to have the records reviewed by Professionals (and not just 'competent amateurs' such as yourself)?

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, they are being turned over to the city archivists for sorting and presumably scanning as appropriate.

[finickynarcane.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine is an author who writes of the history of San Francisco. He might be very interested in this find.

[finickynarcane.livejournal.com]

My friend (http://www.historysmith.com/) who writes history *was* very interested. Thanks for posting this.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Keen. I wouldn't expect any results any time soon - this is government we're talking about.

Think "Homer Simpson"

[fionnbharro.livejournal.com]

... Oh, and I forgot:

"Mmmmm! Sand nuggets!"

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Squee!

[aastg.livejournal.com]

OH, HOW COOL!!!!!! You lucky STIFF! I'd have squee'd in a pitch only dogs can hear.