William James Barrow, 1904-1967, was central to the development of the field of library and archives conservation (see Appendix 1 for terminology). Librarians and archivists credit him with major scientific discoveries about the chemical nature of paper and the causes and cures of rapid paper deterioration. Barrow appears in the literature to be a Renaissance man, someone who was accomplished in both art and science, without formal education or serious training in either. How had he, an essentially self-taught tinker, come to be considered a pioneer in both chemical research and conservation?
Earlier histories of the conservation field have devoted attention to Barrow's research during the last decade of his life. Researchers credit him with documenting the ephemeral nature of modern book papers, describing scientifically the causes and dynamics of rapid paper deterioration, and developing modern manufacturing methods to produce longer lasting paper (Darling and Ogden 1981, 10-11). in the library and archives literature, Barrow appears to be the only significant paper conservation researcher of the 1960s (Ogden 1979, 7).
Many versions of Barrow's professional life tell a story of remarkable accomplishment. in 1932, Barrow opened his restoration shop in the Virginia State Library in Richmond, Virginia. It is generally believed that he also began to do research on modern paper deterioration in the early 1930s. in the late 1930s, he invented a machine to strengthen deteriorated paper by cellulose acetate lamination. It was during the initial marketing of his lamination product and equipment that he was credited with discovering the cause of rapid paper deterioration. Barrow claimed to have invented an additional process, alkalization, which significantly slowed paper deterioration. These discoveries and inventions were completed during the early 1940s. Barrow published a number of articles, pamphlets, and books explaining his research and restoration services (Barrow, 1955). in 1957 the Council on Library Resources (CLR), a private grant organization founded by the Ford Foundation, began to fund his research into paper deterioration. in 1959, a second CLR grant financed Barrow's research into the development of permanent and durable modern paper (Church, 1959). Prior to CLR funding, Barrow had done his research work in his restoration shop. He had used homemade research equipment under environmentally uncontrolled conditions. in 1961, CLR funded the establishment of the W. J. Barrow Research Laboratory, Inc., located in the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. The new laboratory had controlled environmental conditions, new test equipment, and additional staff. Barrow published his research findings in a variety of library and archives journals. Research reports from the laboratory were published following Barrow's death in 1967 and during the next 16 years of the laboratory's existence (see Appendix 2).
Almost all biographies depict Barrow as an outstanding document restorer, inventor, and a creative researcher in the highly complex field of paper chemistry. Frazer Poole, while head of the Conservation Office of the Library of Congress, wrote a biographical article on Barrow in the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. Poole credits Barrow with originating major research findings in paper chemistry. "Barrow's work demonstrated that the combination of inadequately purified wood fibers and alum[-]rosin sizing produced paper which was not only weak to begin with but which, because of the residual acid and acidic compounds in the sheet, almost literally destroyed itself" (Poole 1969, 258). Verner W. Clapp, Director of the CLR and world-renowned librarian who influenced in the development of library conservation in the 1950s and 1960s, describes Barrow's achievement and contributions in glowing terms.
It is difficult to overestimate the Barrow achievement. an essentially solitary worker lacking formal training for the task (though never without access to necessary technical advice), he dealt single-handedly with a problem of one of the greatest industries, itself the complex product of a violent industrial revolution in mechanical and chemical engineering that began even before the end of the Middle Ages, commanding tremendous resources, staffed with armies of trained specialists, and documented by an exhausting literature. Gifted with a sure instinct for the essential which not only drove him to question long-held beliefs but suggested the manner for doing so, and which led him to insist on empirical evidence for all predictions, he lost little time in penetrating the thicket of folklore and technical detail that had grown up about paper, picked up the trail that led to fifteenth-century quality through twentieth-century technology, and—devising his navigating instruments as he went—unfalteringly reached the goal that had eluded the centuries....(Clapp 1971, 362).
Clapp described how Barrow's abilities and skills combined: "the craftsman's feeling for materials with the historian's knowledge of their place in technological development; an urge for improvement; great ingenuity and inventiveness in effecting improvements; and an instinctive ability for complementing his own capability by the use of scientific advisers. He has, in one of the best-worked fields of technology, earned worldwide respect for his achievements" (Council on Library Resources 1961).
Recent histories acknowledge the prior existence of a vast amount of chemical research on paper permanence, but still grant Barrow preeminence as a researcher in the field of paper chemistry. "Only when William J. Barrow inaugurated his own research program in 1935 would significant advances for the betterment of paper restoration and paper manufacture begin to take place" (Abt 1987, 28).
Others recommend further research on Barrow. for example, William Crowe, in his dissertation on Verner W. Clapp, recommends that a "study of the life of William J. Barrow . . . should provide . . . insight into the role which he played during the long silence about preservation from the 1930s through . . . mid 1950s" (Crowe 1986, 130). Abt also comments that "The dimensions of . . . Barrow's . . . contributions to the physical study and care of books and manuscripts have yet to be fully and accurately assessed" (Abt 1987, 30).
At the time Barrow began to study document restoration in 1931, there existed in the field of paper chemistry a developed and well-documented body of research into the causes of rapid deterioration of modern paper (Kantrowitz, Spencer, and Simmons 1940). This research information and technology had the potential for application to solve one of conservation's central problems, brittle paper, but was, in general, unknown to librarians and archivists. Information about this work in the chemistry of brittle paper done at research facilities other than that done 30 years later by the Barrow Laboratory was documented in library and archives literature. for example, the Institute of Paper Chemistry made valuable contributions in terms of research, publications, and educational programs, yet other historians of conservation believe that few references to the work done there appear in library and archives literature (Ogden 1979, 9). Also, the body of practice in conservation was communicated and passed down by practitioners to apprentices through demonstration and example. Information about such hands-on practice was available in written form from the 1930s on, although it was known only to a few specialist librarians and archivists. Barrow's reputation as an inventor in document restoration and as a researcher in paper chemistry is due in part to the lack of knowledge of the written information in library and archives literature on the history of both conservation practice and chemical research.
The Paper Section of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), the current name of which is the National Institute of Standards and Technology, conducted research relevant to library and archives conservation for over fifty years. The number of reports issued each year between 1929 and 1976 indicates that periods of greatest research activity pertinent to library and archives materials were the 1930s and again in late 1960s through the 1970s. in the 1930s, NBS issued 28 reports as articles in technical journals or as government documents (Kantrowitz, Spencer, and Simmons 1940, 2-51).
Several of the studies on the history of conservation mention that Barrow used scientific advisors (Clapp 1971, 362). Barrow, like his librarian and archivist colleagues, was ignorant initially about paper and the chemical basis of its impermanence. The experts Clapp calls Barrow's "advisors" were, at the beginning of Barrow's career, more accurately characterized as his teachers. Ogden also mentions that Barrow used "early studies by other investigators..." in the development of his alkalization process (Ogden 1979, 8). This study will reveal the basis of Barrow's knowledge of paper chemistry and the accuracy of his reputation as an important or even original contributor to scientific knowledge.
One negative appraisal of Barrow's contributions does exist. It comes from an unpublished source. Thomas Eliot Conroy's views on Barrow are condemnatory as well of librarians and archivists who accepted his claims whole cloth.
The work of the NBS was exploited and publicized by William J. Barrow from the 1940s into the 1960s, when the intense interest [in paper permanence] of the '20s and '30s had passed and there was little competition in the field that became library preservation. Barrow, however, treated his sources crudely, over-simplifying, refusing to correct theory in the light of observation, and (a greater personal defect, but a smaller scientific one) giving inadequate credit to his predecessors. Much of Barrow's appeal to librarians was that he proposed simple solutions to extremely complex and unfashionable problems. When serious attention was again given to preservation, starting in the late 1960s, Barrow's writings were taken as given, and used directly as foundations for further work; his articulations were not challenged or confirmed (Conroy 1991, 1).
A study of the early period of Barrow's professional life is needed to understand what Barrow knew of the existing chemical research, and if he knew, how he learned of it and how he used it to inform his own work. Barrow's work will be put in historical perspective with the work in paper chemistry and document conservation. Such an historical perspective is needed in order to draw accurate conclusions about what he accomplished. This study of the research in paper chemistry and documented practice in conservation shows that Barrow was not an inventor or an original researcher. Barrow communicated already existing knowledge to the library and archives field and popularized his version of this knowledge so successfully that it stands as the model used today.
Chapter 2 introduces the Barrow family and the role his family's social milieu played in his life and career decisions. Chapter 3 describes his conservation training. Institutions and the varied ways they gave Barrow support and guidance is described in Chapter 4. The historical context in conservation is documented briefly in Chapter 5. The history of permanence research in paper chemistry is discussed in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 details Barrow's direct sources of paper chemistry information. Chapters 8, 9, and 10 discuss the creation and development of the Barrow's restoration process and his patent. The final chapter presents a new view of his early contributions and concludes that Barrow is important for his role in the transfer of information from a technical field to a craft.
Chemical solutions to conservation problems have led to the development of competing systems to alkalize and buffer acidic paper-based materials on a mass scale (Cunha 1987, 377-384). More recently, other mass processes have been developed using chemical means to strengthen acidic paper with and without alkalization to neutralize and buffer the acid in it (Cunha 1987, 62-63). Experiments into the permanence and acidity levels of alkalized papers have indicated that alkalization may not have the desired effects over the long term or that modern paper may stabilize in time and may not become more acid as it ages beyond that point (Porck, et al. 1988, 80). Other studies have shown that acidity may not be as important as storage conditions in determining the permanence of book paper in libraries (Nickerson 1992, 109-110). Thus, the issues concerning Barrow's contributions are still with us today. This study is needed because accurate understanding of the history of chemical applications forms the foundation for the appropriate use of the expensive and non-reversible mass treatments available to librarians and archivists for the conservation of their collections.
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