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Letter from Dr. Robert J. Kapsch to Professor Mary Sies, Advanced Studies Office Winterthur Museum and Gardens, Dissertation Comments, December 2, 1992
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Letter from Dr. Robert J. Kapsch to Professor Mary Sies, Advanced Studies Office Winterthur Museum and Gardens, Dissertation Comments, December 2, 1992
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15220 DuFief Drive
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20878
December 2, 1992
Professor Mary Sies
Advanced Studies Office
Winterthur Museum and Gardens
Winterthur, Delaware 19735
Dear Mary,
Thank you for your letters and comments, sent November 23, 1992. And
thank you for your margin comments on the second draft -- unlike my
first mailing, it arrived on time and in good shape.
Introduction Based on your comments, it appears very necessary to
achieve agreement on the introduction, and the overall purpose and
direction of the dissertation. I am therefore enclosing, for your
review and comment, a revised introduction. In this revised
introuction I have addressed your comments on specificity,
periodization, methodology and others. I look forward to hearing your
comments.
Use of HABS Material What HABS did for the White House was to produce
high quality measured drawings and photographs of the building, many
of which are now restricted by the Secret Service. I intend to use
a small number of these drawings as illustrations to demonstrate what
was probably the finest stone work undertaken in the United States
in the eighteenth century. At what time I had hopes of matching mason
marks to pay rolls. This has not been possible to date due to lack
of access to masonic records. I have not captioned the illustrations
yet but when I do I think they will add some depth to the written
material.
Use of Original Material in Text I very much hear what you are saying
about using original material in the text. The reason that I do is
that it is so very unusual to find original records of building workers
from the eighteenth and early nineteenth century that I hate to lose
it and would like to include it in some form in the dissertation for
future researchers. I would like to suggest moving most of that
material to footnotes. It would make some lengthy footnotes but
wouldn't lose the material and make the text more accessible.
Review of Scholarly Literature I will do this but I am not very
hopeful. Yesterday, for example, I reviewed the 25 year index of
Technology and Culture and found nothing that I wasn't aware of. Some
of the colonialists have some material of relevance, such as Carl
Lounsbury, and I will include some of his works. I'll also review
the recent issues of Labor History. But generally I think my subject
is too late for the colonialists, not technological enough for the
technologists and not organization enough for the labor historians.
I look forward to your comments on the introduction.
Sincerely,
Robert J. Kapsch