My box told about the years leading up to Bankrofts death in Japan in the 1920s. The box included photographs, dinner invitations, letters, newspapers, etc. I could have spent all day looking at that stuff in that box. Unfortunately, I did not get to look at very much in it. However, it did tell me a lot about Bankrofts career. Information that I don’t think I would have thought about if only given the finding guide, even though it includes all of the documents in the boxes. It is one thing to see a seemingly endless list of papers, and it is another to sift through and analyze them.
I learned one particularly major thing from going through my box (although it is a bit of a sad topic). Reading letters about Bankrofts death, and the extent into his disease and how much it effected him. For me, reading about that really transformed Bankroft from some random historical figure into someone who really had a life and experiences, although it was a long time ago.
One thing that I did not really learn from my box was Bankroft’s personality or really his personal life at all. Of course, that information could have been included in other documents that I didn’t see, or in other boxes that I did not go through. But, I think that is one thing that my box could not teach me.
Your blog and Pietro’s blog work well together–he had the early years box that spoke more to Bankroft’s personality, and you had a box that spoke not just to his time as an ambassador but to his death as ambassador. It speaks to the richness of his collection that we could get both–not a guarantee by any means. It was also very cool in class to piece together his death from your and Saaras’s box!