Gwendolyn Brooks received numerous awards that vary widely in shape, size, and material. To safely house them and improve accessibility, I roughly organized them by size and created foam supports inside a box and trays for each award.
Many of Brooks’s awards are framed pieces or plaques, which are generally considered ‘flat’ objects, though some are quite thick. For efficiency and safe storage, I decided to store them vertically, adding padding as needed. For awards that did not fit in standard or large document boxes, I created a custom vertical box to accommodate the oversized pieces.
Newspapers and clippings make up a significant portion of Brooks’s collection. She enthusiastically collected newspapers, especially those featuring her and her work. Since newspapers are notorious for their poor aging quality, all were rehoused in polyester L-sleeves. This rehousing was completed with the assistance of Anna Sielaff and Sarah Peck, student technicians.
The Writing Series in Brooks’s collection includes all her manuscripts, drafts, and daily notes (she was known for diligently recording daily menus). This series contains many small spiral notebooks, which were housed in a document box but shifted loosely inside the folders. To protect the protruding spirals, I created a four-flap wrapper with padding to accommodate their thickness.
The Writing Series in Brooks’s collection includes all her manuscripts, drafts, and other miscellaneous notes. This series mainly consists of unbound sheets of paper, many with Post-it notes attached. Additionally, pressure-sensitive tape was applied to many pages—sometimes to repair tears and sometimes to edit or extend a sheet for continued writing. Since both tape and sticky adhesives can be harmful to adjacent papers, I separated these items by placing them in polyester sleeves.
The Photographs and Scrapbooks Series in Brooks’s collection includes photographs, negatives, photo albums, and scrapbooks. One photo album and one scrapbook were fully treated and rebound. Many individual photographs were rehoused in polyester sleeves. Some negatives were deformed and partially stuck to their original sleeves; these were carefully released and rehoused in polyester sleeves.
Along with her honorary degrees, Brooks received many doctoral hoods, which had been tightly folded and stored in boxes, resulting in strong creases and wrinkles. Due to their size, folding was necessary, so I added unbuffered tissue padding inside the folds and wrapped each hood in unbuffered tissue. They were housed in a large box with dividers for easy lifting, and I avoided overpacking to prevent crushing the lower ones.
