Converting PDFs to Editable Text

 Or something like that.  We have about 58 (could be 57) PDF files of addresses given at Carnegie Hall in the 19th and 20th NYSEC seasons.   I have long wanted to convert them to something more readable and/or editable.  As the texts currently exist, they appear to be carbon copies of typed scripts.  The paper is yellowed with age, but it also seems to be a thin onion skin.  The carbon paper had, no doubt, been used several times already, hence the slightly blurred type.  The scans sometimes showed folded pages--obscuring text--and frequently were tilted to some greater or lesser degree from the horizontal.  To be honest--if also a tad biased--it's just not comfortable to read these texts.

I tried to convert the PDFs to Word files, so that they might be a bit more readable.  This was the result:

Not only was this even worse for reading, it was not going to be usable if we wanted to consider print publication.  

So I tried another method to create readable text:  Dictation.  Reading aloud to MS Word, I applied clear diction to spoken punctuation and formatting instructions and managed to read an entire address into Word.  This was much better.  It took awhile to figure out the command "lingo" (Word wants to hear "new line" rather than "paragraph").  The process was somewhat tiring.  Some measure of proofreading and reformatting would still be needed, but the outcome was readable.

Then my grandson asked "Why don't you just retype it?"  So I tried that, too.  Although I'm not a trained typist, I have gained some speed over the years, and I managed to retype about 4 pages in an hour. Retyping was, in my mind, the easier and more productive (less tiring) way to get a readable text (more attractive to the contemporary reader).  Even more important, retyping into a word processing program such as Word allows for easier copyediting and reformatting for print and online publication.

With that bit of "research," the project had to sit on the back burner while other projects took priority.  Eventually I was asked to talk about some of one of those projects for a Sunday gathering of the Ethical Society of Austin.  I presented:  "The Big Dig:  Delving into the History of Thought in Ethical Culture." Some of my talk was about online repositories of digital books and journals, but most of it was about the Bibliography of Ethical Culture.  I tossed out tidbits of (to me) fascinating information that I had been discovering as I worked on the Bibliography, and I took every opportunity to highlight points at which many hands could make the work light.  The good news?  Three new partners in the work!

For now the exciting news is that one of those partners, an excellent typist, will help pull the Carnegie Hall Project off of the back burner and get to work on giving us some new typescripts to work with.  Stay tuned.

Finding Matthew Ies Spetter

 

Matthew Ies Spetter

A few weeks ago, while visiting the New York Society for Ethical Culture (NYSEC), I had an opportunity to work with an archive box that I had previously "rescued" from the basement.  The basement area in which archives are stored is due for renovation, and there are ongoing discussions about where and how to store the archived materials now located there.  While "rescue" is too strong a term for my action, I did take the opportunity that presented itself to me to carry the box from the basement to the new "office" for the Archives Team in Room 406B at NYSEC for further study.  

What prompted this rather audacious act was the label on the box:  "Matthew Ies Spetter, Platforms 1970-1978."  I recognized the name and wanted to know more about this man who fought in the Dutch Resistance during World War II, survived Auschwitz, and became an Ethical Culture Leader when he immigrated to the US.  Who wouldn't?

The box contained 83 mimeographed platforms presented at the Riverdale-Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture (RYSEC).  The platforms were published by RYSEC for distribution to subscribers in a serial called simply The Platform.   (There were also 5 or 6 typescripts of speeches given elsewhere or drafts of the later platforms in the box.)  One of the basic tasks in working with the archives is to document what we have.  I have done just that, and all of the platforms in that box that were published in The Platform are now listed in the Bibliography of Ethical Culture.  The same list plus the typescripts has been prepared for inclusion in the archive box as an inventory of its contents.  Since Spetter served as leader for RYSEC, there are likely to be many more platforms to be documented, but, first, we'll have to find them.

Fortunately, there are also a number of platforms given by Spetter at NYSEC.  When he retired from RYSEC, Spetter became a part-time leader at NYSEC.  Many of these were published in The Ethical Platform, NYSEC's in-house serial.  More about those in another post.

Now we come to another basic task for this work:  digitization.  Digitization--or scanning--is a much more time-consuming aspect of the work, but it is needful since so much of the past work of leaders and thinkers in the Movement is out of print or unpublished or no longer being sold.  By digitizing these works, we can store them in offsite (or in the cloud) locations, which protects against the loss of items for which there are only one or a few copies.  

One further benefit of digitization is the possibility of making the work accessible to a wider audience.  Right now, unless RYSEC has the means to have a reading or lending library, these particular platforms cannot be seen by the general membership.  Once they are digitized, they can be stored on a website or drive that is accessible to members.  

There are a lot of steps yet to complete before that can happen, but the process has begun.  We have requested permission from RYSEC to post these platforms online once we have scanned them.  We still have to do the scanning, set up the online storage repository, and develop policies for access, but we have a tentative target of May 15, 2025, to have something ready for member, if not public, access.  May 15, 2025, will mark the beginning of the 150th year since the Ethical Culture Movement was founded.  We will have a lot of reading to catch up on before the 150th anniversary rolls around!

On the Dating of Adler's Platforms

I've just made a personal "joke," reminding myself of an incredibly minor article that I once published entitled "On the Dating of Utendi wa Ayubu."  The joke is as minor as the article, so I will leave it with the wry smirk that issues do seem to repeat themselves.  Today's repetition has to do with dating, as in "when was that publicly presented?"

I'm working on one piece of the project that I have named the Carnegie Hall Project.  We possess digitized copies of typescripts from two seasons of platforms presented at Carnegie Hall, and they are the current focus of some effort that will make them available online in the foreseeable future.  In the process of examining these files (digital only--the hard copies are still unlocated), I have discovered some "interesting" aspects of the dating of these documents.

First, Adler stated in his Founding Address that the Ethical Society would meet on Sundays.  He offered reasons that made sense at the time, and most Ethical Societies these days do hold their primary weekly meetings on Sundays, usually in the morning, but sometimes in the afternoon.

Second, indications from the New York Times coverage of these meetings in the 1890s indicates that NYSEC (and presumably the other early Societies) held their meetings in seasons which seemed to coincide roughly with the academic year.  If I understand correctly, the typical season began on the third Sunday in October and ended on the second (or third) Sunday in May, on which an anniversary speech would often be given.

The Carnegie Hall lectures for which we have digitized copies were given during the 1894-1895--or Nineteenth--Season, ending with the 19th Anniversary Address and the 1895-1896--or Twentieth--Season, ending with the 20th Anniversary Address.  (That sentence was harder to write than it might seem.)

Now, comparing a calendar for 1894 to the list of typescripts, I see that the first typescript is for November 4, so, if the season did begin in October, we are missing the record of the third and fourth Sundays.  (Did something happen to delay the season?  Are these records lost?)  I am also finding some potential for error in the use of calendars generated online (AI goofs?).  My "old reliable" yearly calendar template from Vertex gave 1894 dates a couple of days off, so I mistakenly developed a "theory" about all of the typescripts being dated as they were typed (on Tuesdays!) and not according to when the lectures were delivered.  (Oops! And that was a couple of hours wasted.)  A comparison to an image of a calendar printed in 1894 (thanks, Smithsonian!) set me straight--and serves as reminder that tracking the seasons for these early years of Ethical Culture can also be easier said than done.

Part of the Carnegie Hall Project is not only to publish (online or otherwise) the two seasons for which we have digital copies, but to locate the remaining seasons, running from 1893 to 1910.  One resource that I am looking at right now (because it is online, and I am in Texas) is the list of Finding Aids for the Felix Adler Papers at Columbia University.  Using 1893 and 1894 calendars, I am trying to track down any platforms that may be housed at Columbia with dates in the range of Season 18, the first season for lectures at Carnegie Hall.  I have managed to locate a few documents from that season, but in what format and whether actually delivered as addresses at Carnegie Hall needs further research.  Some of the files indicate dates ("Science and Ethics," April 22, 1894) but others give only the year or a month and the year.  Moreover, the documents listed comprise only half of the possible dates for Season 18, so there still remains the need (hope) to find more information in the NYSEC archives.  This whole process will be quite tedious--no joke!--but I believe it will be worth it to have a better understanding of these years at Carnegie Hall both for historical reasons but also for our contemporary Ethical consideration.  Issues do repeat themselves, and that's no joke either.

They Builded Better

Felix Adler

I'm still trying to find my rhythm after my trip to New York.  I'm not sure I'm there, but I am at least back in the mode to share the joys of old books and bibliographic work.  

One of the rewards of that trip to New York is that I now have folks who have joined me in the work.  Dan Hanson and Amy Schwarz, both members of the New York Society for Ethical Culture and both retired librarians, have begun the arduous task of developing an inventory of the Adler Study.  Dan is photographing the title pages (and reverse) of all the books in that collection.  Amy is straightening, organizing, and checking for Ethical Culture content.  The plan is to upload the photos to an online workspace so that I can convert the information to bibliographic entries.  

The value of this work is that it will help us identify publications that should be included in the Bibliography of Ethical Culture at the same time it can be used to create an inventory of the collection.  

This is a massive task.  There are 10 largish bookcases in the Adler Study with 6 shelves each.  On the first day of work, Dan photographed the contents of 5 shelves in the first case.  (The sixth has books that are fragile and need special care.)  That was 235 pictures (we don't have a count of the books yet).  So far I have created 23 entries for the inventory, cross-checking every title with online repositories to see what has already been digitized.  That takes time, because, remember, I'm having fun.  The top shelf on that first case has Carl Sandburg's multi-volume life of Lincoln.  I had to look at it and see what was there (a chapter on Lincoln's humor and his religion--I'll read that when I get a chance).  Ida Tarbell also made the shelf with her Lincoln biography.  Why so much about Lincoln, you ask?  One answer might be found in the Bibliography with the two platforms given by Algernon D. Black on Lincoln.  As we dig further into the archives at NYSEC, we may find more.  Then it will be interesting to see what our Ethical Culture leaders made of Lincoln and how they used his life to discuss ethics.  

In the meantime, one other find on (or around) this first shelf, Julius Henry Cohen's book, They Builded Better Than They Knew caught my attention with its archaic past tense.  Cohen's rather chatty book focuses on people and groups that he admired.  The chapter on Felix Adler was an entertaining look at Adler's sense of humor and praise of his contributions to legal ethics and labor relations.  The book was published in 1946, 13 years after Adler's death.  It is a valuable reminder at 90 or so years after Adler's death that he was human, not the cardboard figure that he might sometimes become in our thinking.  Cohen's small chapter helps to give us a more three-dimensional view of the founder of Ethical Culture.  There is also the reminder that Adler did not live a cloistered life of study and contemplation but rather involved himself rather deeply--and to good effect--in matters of the day.

Science for Democracy

Hiroshima Peace Memorial

Home again after almost three weeks at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, a time filled with many meetings and discussions of the archives of the Ethical Culture Movement, I am now trying to sort through my notes and papers to assess what was accomplished for the expansion of the Bibliography.  At the moment I am finding notes on Jerome Nathanson, NYSEC leader, mid-twentieth century.  One book that has caught my attention is Science for Democracy.  First published in 1946, the Internet Archive has a digitized copy of the 1970 reprint by Books for Libraries Press.  

Nathanson edited the volume and wrote a preface in which he argues that it is the role of scientists to insist on freedom of inquiry in a democratic nation.  It is the role of those who are not scientists to break any habits of complacency and educate themselves about the importance of science and free inquiry to a democratic nation so that they can support such inquiry for the sake of the nation.  

The chapters of the book are the results of several papers and two symposia that were presented as part of the Third Conference on Scientific Spirit and Democratic Faith, held at NYSEC, May 1945, and chaired by Nathanson.  He points out that the conference was held "weeks before a section of the earth was atomized, and before even those who knew were at liberty to say that such a thing as the atom bomb was in the immediate offing" (viii).  The questions/topics posed for the symposia were:

• Does private industry threaten freedom of scientific research?
• The role of science in the determination of democratic policy.

The sections on the symposia seem to be taken from transcripts, giving a strong sense of the give and take of the discussions among a diverse group of academic, industry, government, and religious speakers.  Eighty years on--just after a difficult period of shutdown in the midst of a global pandemic during which science was disvalued/disregarded by government as well as citizens--these discussions still seem relevant.  

Horace James Bridges, Firebreather

Horace James Bridges (1880 -1955), leader of the Chicago Ethical Society, "discovered" by Stanton Coit in England and sent to the US to apprentice with Felix Adler, is a delight to read--and to read about.  He rivals Arthur Dobrin in his output, of which I have documented in the Bibliography as much as I could manage, but Bridges is widely cited--into the current century--so tracking down secondary sources will take time and effort.  

I've known for some time that there was once a leader named Bridges, but I didn't actively seek out his works until several recent nudges made me actively wonder about who, exactly, this fellow was.  Long story short, I saw a copy of his book--On Becoming an American--in a photo of a shelf in the Adler Study and decided to search for it.  I ended up skimming the preface (and wrote about it here) and was hooked.  The man has a British sense of humor so dry it crackles off of the page.  I can't speak to the entire body of his work, but what I have seen suggests passionately held points of view that invoke the dragon as much as St. George.

There is an inkling of this in Our Fellow Shakespeare, when he talks about Shylock in humane terms and credits the Bard with similar sensitivity.  The more common attitudes of the period seem covered by the steady drip of acid.  That acid becomes even more evident when Bridges takes on the issue in more direct terms with Jew-Baiting, an Old Evil Newly Camouflaged.  

Less sympathetic to our hearts these days would be his take on conscientious objectors.  They get passing notice in the nonetheless fiery "The Duty of Hatred," published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1918.  It took a bit of searching, but I did finally see a copy of As I Was Saying: A Sheaf of Essays and Discourses at Hathi Trust wherein I could read Bridges' 1917 speech on ""Military Duty and the Conscientious Objector" (pp. 159 - 184).  And I wept to read it.  To accept his logic--which is as lovely as it is painful--is to accept that I, a bystander in the conflict between Israel and Gaza, am as culpable for the crimes of that war as is my government, given that I have done little to oppose--or stop--my government's actions in the Middle East.  Being only one individual among millions, I am nonetheless given no place to hide by Bridges' logic.  It is all the more impetus to work for peace--and shame on me if I have done nothing about it today.

Pivoting (less suddenly than it may seem) to matters of bibliographic interest, I have mentioned the work yet to be done in the search for articles and news reports.  There are also reviews and continued references to his work in journals and ephemera.  A good deal of his work before 1923--and a little afterwards--is available online in various repositories.  I created a section of the Bibliography to list some of those repositories a few weeks ago.  With Bridges' entries I am now making the effort to add notations of copies of his works in those repositories.  As I Was Saying, for example, is listed in Google Books, but that site does not link to a digitized copy of the work online.  Hathi Trust links to a copy available from the "University of California."  That link is now in the Bibliography following the entry for As I Was Saying with the symbol [HT].  I regret to say that it will take some practice to make this action a habit, so there is now some inconsistency.  Practice makes perfect, they say.  Let's hope so.

A little break now.

There may be intermittent or no posts for the next couple of weeks while I am in New York, working in the Archives.  I'm sure there will be much to report when I return mid-March.

A Bibliographic Puzzle: Goulding, Golding, or Bridges?

 

Henry J. Golding

Sometimes I find puzzling items that take a bit of searching to figure out.  One such item is an entry in the James F. Hornback's dissertation bibliography.  

GOULDING, HENRY J., ed., The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Ethical Movement. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1926.

Rather often, when I find a bibliographic entry in someone else's work, I try to track it down.  Sometimes a bibliographic entry doesn't include everything that the Chicago Manual of Style and I would like to see as part of the record, so I try find the missing piece.  Or I want to see whether the source is a primary source for Ethical Culture, a secondary source, or even has any relevance at all to this Bibliography.  Sometimes, I want to see if the source is available in a format that will be accessible to those who use the Bibliography.  The latter was the purpose of my attempt to track down this citation.  All the information is there in Hornback.  The title indicates its relevance.  I just needed to see if there might be an ebook out there for us all to look at.

No such luck.  I checked Google Books, Hathi Trust, Internet Library, and so on down the line.  I couldn't find much of anything by Henry J. Goulding.  Except, when I entered his name and the title exactly as Hornback had provided them, the search engine returned a single entry:  Hornback's dissertation.  I think we've been here before.  I think this is a typo.  

Horace J. Bridges (more on him soon) actually edited the Fiftieth Anniversary tribute to Felix Adler.  Henry J. Golding contributed an essay:  "The Spiritual Outlook on Life" (pp. 227-244).  I'm still looking for Henry J. Goulding.

On the other hand, serendipity occurred yet again when I went searching for Henry J. Golding.  Here's what Ladywell Live has to say about Golding:

Henry J. Golding (d.1931), writer and philosopher – Henry was a man of wide erudition who relinquished a successful business career in London to become an officer and lecturer of the English Ethical Society, before moving to the US to devote himself to the work of the Ethical Movement in America. Many of his articles appeared in the New York Times and he remained a popular speaker and lecturer, one observer generously noting in his delivery his ‘deep voice and virile figure’. Many of his moral insights often appear in more modern thought for the day aphorisms including Forbes Book of Quotations!  Often cited as H.J. Golding, he died in New York in 1931. Before departing for the US he lived at 16, Algiers road, Ladywell.

I expect there will more to learn about Golding, if not Goulding.