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Heather Connor
History Internship 1900
Darlington Library
24 April 2007
Darlington Library Project
For the past 15 weeks I have been interning at the Darlington Library helping to organize and document a collection of Allegheny county’s death certificates ranging from 1900-1970. The internship requires at least 150 hours of work, averaging about 10-15 hours per week. This project was coordinated by Kate Colligan. I wanted to participate in this internship for a few different reasons. I am a history major (concentration in American) and for the past four years I’ve been educated mainly in the classroom and I wanted to experience a different learning environment. I will be attending graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh this summer and I thought this type of internship would help prepare me for my new internship starting in June. This internship helped me manage my school and softball obligations with the required hours I had to maintain at the Darlington Library. I am going to graduate school to become a history teacher but I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing another history profession I otherwise would have missed out on.
The first few weeks of the internship we were introduced to the old filing system and the new one we would be establishing. The first set of files we started with were the 1960’s. They were some what organized, easier to handle and to work with when compared to the older files in the 1900’s. Our main goal was to document some interesting statistics that caught our attention and to re-file the case files, however, there
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were certain files that made you stop and investigate. Some of the most interesting files were usually the murder or suicide cases because they tended included actually notes from the deceased, photos and other intimate articles that almost took you back in time. There was one particular murder/suicide case that actually had hair and scalp fragments in small envelopes enclosed in the file. It was shocking to read some of the suicide notes left by some of the deceased, sadly one gentlemen’s note was covered in his own blood which was left for his family to find.
During our investigation into the 1960’s files I found two topics very interesting – women’s occupations and the language used to describe the deceased. For the majority of the female community during this time the most common occupation listed was ‘domestic’ or ‘housewife.’ During 1966 alone only 6 women had different occupations such as: teacher, waitress, buyer, electric inspector, nurse and restaurant owner. An interesting fact that I found was that among these six individuals – three of them committed suicide. Whether or not there is a correlation between these women working outside the home and taking their own lives cannot be determined – but it is very intriguing. I was very taken back by the fact that whenever a person’s race was listed on their death certificate it was simply by circling a ‘W’ (White) or ‘N’ (Negro). I realize that in was the 1960’s in the midst of one of the biggest civil rights movements but it was shocking for me to actually see this type of language used in this forum.
After becoming comfortable with the new filing system we moved back in time to the early 1900’s. Instead of writing small notes on the file folders we were now using data sheets to document the docket number, individual’s name and interesting facts about
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their case file. (I have supplied a copy of one of these data sheets at the end of my paper.) These files were much more brittle and were tightly bunched together in old boxes. Most often many of the files were out of order and the process of recognizing the order was a task in its self. These particular files were so old and kept in storage rooms that we had to wear latex gloves to prevent our hands from turning black from all of the dirt that had collected on the files. However, as we progressed into 1904 and 1905 the type of paper they used for the death certificates was much more durable and was much easier to open up and flatten. A fun fact caught my eye when we first starting on these early files that I did not know about Pittsburgh. Apparently in the beginning of the century the city attempted to drop the ‘h’ from Pittsburgh and in some of the early files the spelling of the city was – Pittsburg.
I attempted to continue my documentation of female occupations during the 1900’s but unfortunately it was unsuccessful. In most cases a woman’s occupation was left blank or was simply filled with ‘housewife.’ From 1900 to 1905, I never came across one woman that was documented as having a job outside of the home. However, the causes of death during this period were very interesting and varied from work related accidents to severe diseases that today are no longer a threat, for example - pneumonia. As I expected there was a dramatic increase in infant fatalities and railroad related deaths. Pittsburgh being an emerging industrial city the most common occupations for most men was working on the railroad or in the steel mills. In the month of Febraury alone in 1900 almost 15% of the deaths were in some way related to the railroad. A surprising change that I was not expecting was the high number of suicides by women when compared to
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the deaths in the 1960’s. A new aspect that came into play in the early 1900’s was that of inmates’ case files. It was very fascinating to see the types of crimes the individual committed and how long their sentences were. The majority of inmates’ deaths were
related to disease except for the occasional execution by hanging. The background that was given on each inmate was also very detailed – it ranged from normal information such as place of birth, nationality, and crime/sentence. However, there was some surprising information that was provided such as – schooling, religion and oddly enough the drinking habits of the inmate. The most common offenses were breaking an entering and robbery.
Throughout the internship we were required to document our findings not only in daily journals but also on a website ( Each intern was given their own page where we would provide a short bio about ourselves and notes on the files we were currently working on. If there were certain subjects that caught our eye such as diseases, work related accidents or suicides we could start a sub topic where each intern could share information on one page. The website was very helpful to keep each intern in the loop, often we work at different times of the week and this way we could all see what everyone else was discovering in their own research. For more examples of the work that I have completed you can visit this website and view my page.
From the first day I heard about this particular internship at the Darlington Library I knew there would be something and new and intriguing everyday. The internship was more challenging than I had first imagined but it was very fulfilling. By reorganizing these files we not only preserveda piece of history but will provide sources
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for family members to trace their own history. This experience has opened my eyes to the world of historians and appreciating what their jobs consist of. I am very grateful for the
opportunity that I was given by participating in this internship and it was definitely a new learning environment that I benefited from.