Titles

The Viola Muse Collection at the Jacksonville Historical Society 

When documents bear explicit titles, as in the case of "Black Angels Versus White Angels," we reproduce them, enclosed within quotation marks.

In situations where such titles are not present, we impose titles according to the following criteria, omitting quotation marks:

  1. When the document contains information primarily about a person, we name it with that individual's name, as in the case of Hattie Chisolm.
  2. When a document records the content of an interview with an individual, we indicate that in the title, as in Irene Coates Interview Notes.
  3. When neither of the above apply, we provide a label that describes the general contents of the item, as in Notes About Artwork.

When, following these rules, two items would have the same title, we append (# of #), as in Reverend Thomas H.B. Walker (1 of 2) and Reverend Thomas H.B. Walker (2 of 2).

Some items contain titles that we regard as general labels or that are too broad when taken out of context. In these instances, we formulate a narrower descriptive title, as in scenario 3 above. For instance, we title as Notes on Art at LaVilla Park School a document titled in the original "LaVilla Park School," but which deals only with art at that institution.

Following similar logic, we have added Questionnaire to the titles of the items in JHS Folder 6, rendering the title of a document labeled "Literature" as Questionnaire: "Literature."

Ancillary Textual Materials

We have named the items in WPA Slave Narratives, vol. 3 with descriptive titles, such as Charles Coates Narrative (2 of 2). As described above, we add (# of #) to differentiate those items from others with the same name in the collection.

When the selections we have taken from the manuscript of The Florida Negro have titles, we incorporate these into our own, such as in the case of "Git It 'n Run!" from The Florida Negro. When this is not the case, we provide descriptive titles, such as Biographical Sketch of W.E. Dancer in The Florida Negro.

Photographs

When providing titles for photographs, we replicate the titles used by the respective archives. When such titles are not available, we add descriptive titles based on the content of the images.

Titles