Isthmian Serendipity

Georgetown is becoming very well known as a major repository for research materials dealing with the Panama Canal. Recently our reputation brought us the offer of a small collection of photos, pamphlets, printed ephemera and well-organized annotated newspaper clippings concerning events in the Canal Zone from about 1921 to 1945. What was nonessential to the Chicago Public Library turns out to be quite welcome at Georgetown. The set of 14 albums and scrapbooks put together by Archie Wright French, who worked in Panama for more than 30 years beginning in 1905, makes a relatively minor but interesting addition to our strength.

French's efforts are a virtual model of what an intelligent amateur historian with a sense of humor can do for scholars of the future. An excellent photographer, French preserved a fine set of photographs of an Indian celebration and games; he also pasted into his portfolios, besides clippings and an excellent array of printed materials for tourists, such items as a paper cup autographed by Admiral Richard Byrd and other members of his 1928 Antarctic expedition, lottery tickets, and his own uncashed pay voucher for the whopping sum of $0.01!