Client Stories

Anderson Archival sat down with Marie Cayce, Digitization Specialist and Collections Assistant at the National World War I Museum & Memorial in Kansas City, MO, to discuss their amazing collection and how Anderson Archival was able to help digitize some of the most difficult items. What has your career at…

“We’re digitizing our memories, we’re preserving them for future generations, but also connecting the dots and using the historical context to explain things. Not just filling out a chart. We’re more than birth and death and marriage dates. We all live lives.” So says Brent Trout, Department Manager of the…

The year was 1917. The US officially entered the first world war, Bolshevik forces abdicated the Russian Czar, and a group of investors created a forward-thinking manufacturing company in the quiet town of Dane, Wisconsin.  Named in recognition of their town, Dane Manufacturing Company (Dane) sought to revolutionize products for…

Preserving history is valuable, especially for a company over 100 years old owned by the same family. MLC, formerly known as Mississippi Lime Company, embarked on a journey to safeguard its corporate archives earlier this year. The story begins with MLC’s decision to expand their headquarters office in St. Louis.…

Heirloom books capture family legacy for the future James Fletcher Thompson, an attorney in South Carolina, was looking for a solution. He and his sisters knew what the end result should look like: heirloom books they could spend time with and pass on to future generations. But how to get…

Sally Johnston Reid with baby Sarah. Image provided by Sarah Gibson and used with permission.  In Part 1 of our interview with Sarah Gibson, we discussed finding a digitization solution that takes a different approach. In Part 2, we cover how that approach enhanced Sarah’s experience with the collection, and…

Mabel Johnston, Sarah Gibson, and Sally Johnston Reid. Image provided by Sarah Gibson and used with permission.  At Anderson Archival, we believe in the power of preserving personal histories and the profound impact it can have on individuals and families. In this blog, we share the heartfelt journey of Sarah…

By Farica Chang, Managing Principal Our client, Anna, created a powerful video to share with others on the importance of digitizing your family memories before it’s too late. We’re always grateful to learn about the impact our work has in protecting legacy, and we’re blown away when our clients take…

Anyone familiar with St. Louis’s history knows the impact the Busch family has on this region. Grant’s Farm, Busch Stadium, and the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales are some of the hallmarks of living under the Arch’s shadow, and St. Louis wouldn’t be the same without this historical family’s influence. However, when family…

https://vimeo.com/946624707/0fcb79fc4f In this clip from our webinar, A Legacy of Love: Digitized Letters Bridge Generations, guest Rosemary Cassie explains the emotional core this collection of letters holds for her family, especially after her mother passed away in early 2020. Making sure the letters were available to the family and using them…

Archivists are often eager to illustrate the one-of-a-kind perspective their collection presents. Artifacts like postcards, candid photos, and personal correspondence offer a way to tell previously untold stories about our origins. However, historical archives not only provide a peek into the past, but they also offer new context around the…

In this portion of our latest webinar, Protecting Family Legacy Through Digitization: A Conversation, Director of Operations Hadley Grow talks with Anderson Archival client Kelly Donovan about how her collection came to be digitized. If video isn’t for you, the transcript for this portion of the talk is below. To view…

Imagine discovering boxes of your loved one’s manuscripts and documents you never knew about until after they passed. Going through a late loved one’s belongings can be a daunting and emotional task. It stirs up memories and feelings long forgotten. Finding items you never knew about, like boxes filled with…

By Operations Manager Marcia Spicer We’re looking back on the work we did with Guarantee Electrical Company’s 100-year history, starting with the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Check out this fascinating project and how Anderson Archival helped them bring their company’s history back to them. Download the Case Study

POW belt buckle. Image provided by Christopher Parrish and used with permission.  By Team Lead Marcia Spicer While much of the country braced for a pre-Christmas polar vortex and snowstorm, I got to speak with Christopher and Molly Parrish via Teams from our respective homes. The Anderson Archival team has…

What do local historians and corporations around the country have in common? One answer: a passion for historical corporate legacy. St. Louis-based Guarantee Electrical Company has been lighting up communities since its inception in 1902 to power the 1904 World’s Fair. Over a century later, Guarantee continues to impact not…

For those in my generation, much of our lives have been lived in a wholly digital world. Maybe that’s what makes the collections we work with so fascinating. Instead of being automatically dumped in digital buckets, every album, letter, and photo is curated to what’s most meaningful to the family…

by Marcia Spicer Last weekend, my family was invited to dinner at a restaurant. Shortly after food was served, my youngest began melting down. Then, earlier this morning, I had to reschedule a meeting with a potential client. When we made the plans, everything looked great, then life happened. Just…

How do organizations decide to digitize regularly used collections? Infrastructural organizations like libraries, hospitals, schools, churches, and nonprofits rely on accurate, accessible records. Putting collections of essential records to the side for processing isn’t always feasible, and digitization isn’t fast when done correctly. Once an organization moves forward with digitizing…

These days, some might consider letter writing an outdated form of communication or even a lost art. But at a time when one couldn’t simply send a text or email to a faraway love, these collections are a testament to everlasting human relationships. Correspondence has the ability to tell a…

Recent Anderson Archival client Steve Brunkhorst found himself the caretaker of four old family albums. Like many others in the same situation, he didn’t know how to share the collection with his family in a way that was fair and sustainable for the materials. But the biggest challenge was finding…

Technology is so engrained in our everyday lives that it can be hard to imagine a time when the only evidence of one’s ancestry was a single handwritten line in an archive across the country. But before the age of virtual records and digital paper trails, this was the only…