Research is like a tango...

...It's important to listen to your partner, and to have good floorcraft.

(To my tango peeps who I know are reading this page, I love of all of you, and I will work with this metaphor, but be warned this is a really nerdy research entry.  I promise a real tango one soon.) 

I know almost everything in life can be compared to a milonga (which after all is why there's a song "La vida es un tango") but it occurs to me that this is really true of doing archival research.  The first important thing to look out for is your partner - the librarian or archivist who's helping you.  Obviously it goes without saying that you should be polite and follow the etiquette of the archive (and accept a break if someone kindly offers you freshly made coffee and chocolates).  But you should also listen carefully to anything the archivist has to say and offer enough information about your project and what you're looking for to let them be helpful.  So basically, be a good listener and clear in your communications -- the heart of being a good tango partner, whether follower or leader.

I thought of this comparison yesterday after spending another very pleasant morning at the erstwhile Residencia de Señoritas, and an hour in the afternoon talking to the current (very knowledgeable) director of the International Institute who spent about 20% of our talk apologizing for not being helpful, and another 70% being incredibly helpful about both potential archives and also published sources that are wonderful background info.  (The other ten percent was me talking, and some socializing.)

Archive Adagio: the memos of yesteryear

Regimes rise and fall, but departmental admins are forever.

Special shout-out in this blog to my Columbia peeps.  Keep reading past the jump for a few Columbia-specific jokes.

I don't want my reaction to the stupid planes to overshadow what was really the coolest part of my day today, namely my visit to the Residencia de Señoritas, where I was very kindly received, in spite of the archive and library being officially closed for restoration.  (Sadly, the gardens of the Residencia are also closed, which my host today informed me was a shame because especially in the spring they are "una preciosidad" and I can well believe it.)  The Residencia de Señoritas is right down the street from the Museo Sorolla, and shares some of that buildings consciously gracious charm, though in a more modernist (if equally aristocratic) way.  The staircases reminded me tremendously of the sets for the Hercule Poirot series.

Staircase in the BBC Poirot series

Staircase in the Residencia de Señoritas (currently the Fundación Ortega y Gasset-Gregorio Marañón)

You see what I mean?  Allowing for different light and angle, it's that same smooth, creamy white spiral that's trying to be super-modern and also nodding gracefully toward the classic.

"Song of Spain"

"Come now, all you who are singers,

and sing me the song of Spain...

...a bombing plane's

the song of Spain."

-- Langston Hughes, 1937

 

What.The.Actual. F..."estamos en horario infantil" as they say on Al Rojo Vivo, so I won't complete that phrase, but seriously, the Spanish government needs to chill out, and stop buzzing the embassies of friendly countries (not to mention many pleasant and innocent archives and the researchers therein) in a dubious show of military force.

I know intellectually that Spaniards do desfiles militares rather the way Americans have flags and play the anthem everywhere.  It's basically meaningless, and no one takes it that seriously, or considers it anything other than one of those regrettable relics of the 1950s, that people salute out of habit without particular critical thought or conviction.  But at the point when you send not one or two but a whole flotilla of military planes (a fleet of planes?  a flock of planes?  What's the collective noun here?  Squadron?) plus helicopters, zooming up the length of the Castellana, and flying so low that the nice librarians at the Fundación Ortega y Gasset-Gregorio Marañón have to close the windows against the booming noise, I would say there's a problem.  

The Archive Two-Step (Part 2)

You send an email here, you send an email there,

you do the hokey-pokey and you email everywhere...

 

My advisor at the Complutense tipped me off that while the archive of the Residencia de Estudiantes was lost during the Civil War, its companion the Residencia de Señoritas succeeded in maintaining its records (perhaps because the señoritas looked less like combatants than their male counterparts -- a common mistake made by people who haven't worked with adolescent boys and girls respectively).  He also helpfully told me what fundación currently has the archive.  However, as I mentioned in an earlier entry, the Fundación Ortega y Gasset-Gregorio Marañón's archives and library are cerrado por obras until January 2019.

I sent them a begging email yesterday, and received a kind response within an hour, saying that they had no record of Dorothy Peterson in their collection (a fellow Fulbrighter who is more experienced in research mentioned at the Madrid Fulbright picnic this afternoon that she never gives specific search terms to archives but instead only asks generalities, so they have no chance to say they have no material -- a good tip for the future), but that they had a computer available in a small section of the library that was rehabilitada where I could consult the digital catalogue of the archives if I wished, and to please let them know. 

Strike up the band for the archive two-step...

One step forward, two steps back.

So, aside from doing some shopping and cleaning and going for a bike ride today, I actually started doing my research project.  (Pause for shouts of tally-ho, and snufflings of blood-hounds.)

Following a tip from my sponsor at the Complutense, I looked up the Fundación Ortega y Gasset (and discovered that it is now the Fundación Ortega y Gasset-Marañón), which currently occupies the building that was the Residencia de Señoritas, which accompanied the Residencia de Estudiantes, and was deeply involved in higher education for women in Spain in the early twentieth century.

Success!  The Fundación does hold the archives of the Residencia de Señoritas.  Even better, it includes extensive letters to and from alumnae, and the "expedientes" (or files) of its students.  Even more excitingly, these resources have not been extensively catalogued yet.  I know Dorothy Peterson was in Spain when the Residencia de Señoritas was active, and I know she mentions staying at the "Residencia de Estudiantes," which at the time would not have been co-ed.  So this looks like an excellent lead!

I was deeply excited for about fifteen minutes, while I tried to figure out the protocol for using the archive, and whether I would need my CSIC card, or another letter of introduction from the Complutense, or whether I should just show up.  The web page was not forthcoming.

So I did another Google search and -- despair!  The library and archive of the foundation are (according to another part of the fundación's web page) closed for renovations until January of 2019.

Aaargh.

They do have an email address that research inquiries can be directed to.  I am considering asking the nice people I know at the Complutense if they know anyone at the Fundación on whose mercy I can throw myself.  It's such a perfect re-play of what Arthur Schomburg writes about in "In Quest of Juan de Pareja," when he describes searching the Prado for a painting by Juan de Pareja and being told that it was on the third floor which was "cerrado por obras."  Lucky Schomburg managed to throw himself on the mercy of the director and beg that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity that he had crossed the Atlantic for and could he please, please, please see the painting.  Unfortunately, jet travel has destroyed the "once in a lifetime opportunity" plausible excuse for trans-Atlantic travelers in Europe (though nowadays with the massive pilot strikes that are on the news here who knows?) but still, I only have one Fulbright year, and limited funds and time, and it would be so cool to find more traces of Dorothy Peterson, or even better more of her letters (she was a wonderful letter writer).  Or a draft (or drafts) of the article she published about Spain.  But alas...no guarantees.

So that was today's elation and disappointment in research news.  Fingers crossed that other leads work out.  In the meantime, I've been thinking about how to structure the Peterson chapter, and what to look for about her while I'm here (aside from every single scrap of writing I can lay my hands on).

The archive two-step can be exhausting, but it's exhilarating when you bound forward, and this is just barely the beginning of the first set.  I'm going to get all the way around the dance floor yet.