{"id":1104,"date":"2026-05-27T12:14:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/?p=1104"},"modified":"2026-05-28T12:47:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:47:29","slug":"curating-a-legacy-and-a-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/curating-a-legacy-and-a-legend\/","title":{"rendered":"Curating a legacy, and a legend"},"content":{"rendered":"
Campus Heroes<\/div>\n\n\n
By Melissa Lynch \u201995, MSPC \u201915<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In the storage area of Clark University\u2019s Archives and Special Collections, shelf after shelf is lined with boxes that hold the life\u2019s work of a man who dreamed of the stars. Letters, diaries, patent filings, archival boxes bursting with newspaper clippings\u2014the Robert H. Goddard Collection is vast, irreplaceable, and unique to Clark. And for the past year and a half, two dedicated Clark employees have been working to bring that collection into the digital age, one scanned page at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cynthia<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cynthia Shenette, head of archives and special collections, and Catherine Stebbins, digital projects librarian, began their deep dive into the Goddard materials about 18 months ago. The centennial of Goddard\u2019s pioneering liquid-fueled rocket launch on March 16, 1926, was approaching, and they knew the moment called for something ambitious. What they found when they turned their full attention to the collection far exceeded their expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before they began their quest to digitize portions of the collection, the only resource available on Clark\u2019s Digital Commons repository was the finding aid to the Robert H. Goddard Papers, an index to everything in the collection, which is more than 100 pages long. None of Goddard\u2019s actual papers or materials were accessible online. They were starting from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work has been painstaking\u2014flatbed scanning one delicate page at a time. Students helped with the scanning, but \u201cwe wanted to do it right, to provide enough context,\u201d Stebbins says. \u201cVisitors are given the space to understand what they\u2019re looking at and where it fits in the collection. We\u2019re not just dropping a picture and giving a date.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The digitization has drawn researchers from around the world, from Singapore to England, and has generated a steady stream of information requests, particularly in the months leading up to the anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stebbins notes that Shenette\u2019s expansive knowledge of the collection\u2019s contents and her handling of research requests have been crucial to determining the most impactful digital assets\u2014such as Goddard\u2019s early press coverage. The collection includes boxes filled with editorial cartoons from the early 1920s, when the media latched onto a single passage in a 1919 research paper in which Goddard posited the idea of sending flash powder to the dark side of the moon. \u201cAll of a sudden, it\u2019s being printed as fact that he\u2019s going to the moon, that there are passengers, that people can volunteer, that we\u2019re going to Mars,\u201d Stebbins says. \u201cNone of it was true. And yet it was everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shenette and Stebbins are quick to point out that another collaborator has shaped this project: Esther Goddard, who spent decades after Robert\u2019s 1945 death meticulously organizing, transcribing, and curating her husband\u2019s papers, diaries, patents, and more. Her official collection of his papers, a three-volume set published in 1970, totals more than 1,700 pages. All of Robert\u2019s materials came to Clark later that decade, and her own papers were willed to the University after her 1982 death (read more about Esther beginning on page ##).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esther photographed and filmed his experiments, and Clark has those photos and film reels in the collection. \u201cShe was the curator, the image-builder, the manager of his life,\u201d Stebbins says. \u201cWe look at him as this larger-than-life figure, and that\u2019s because of Esther.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf she wasn\u2019t there, where would all of this have gone?\u201d Shenette wonders. \u201cSome might have been saved, but it certainly wouldn\u2019t be in the shape it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The librarians hope to ensure that Goddard\u2019s world-changing work will not be lost to history. \u201cHe\u2019s a gateway,\u201d Stebbins says, \u201cto Clark, to science, to space, to innovation in general. To curiosity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past year and a half, two dedicated Clark employees have been working to bring the Robert H. 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