founder Donald Douglas’ logbook, or personal journal, which was first created when he was a young boy and is filled with airplane designs and magazine clippings, as her favorite archive entry. In St. Louis, Henry Brownlee supervises an archive that covers nearly 3,800 square feet (350 square meters) in a basement that’s filled with 1.3 million photos and negatives, more than 200 models and 200 paintings, and 950 archival storage boxes. His favorite items are heritage company founder James S. McDonnell’s personal briefcases. They contain items such as McDonnell’s books and slide rules. “We collect, preserve and make available for business use information, data and artifacts that belong to Boeing, and some are very expensive by way of monetary value and heritage,” said Brownlee, an eight-year Boeing historian. “You need to be the guardian of that.” The St. Louis archive also supports the nearby James S. McDonnell Prologue Room, an air and space exhibit in the Boeing Defense, Space & Security building that consists of artifacts, models, paintings and dioramas. Brownlee manages the Prologue Room. While the companywide archives exist to guide Boeing into the future, they come with another responsibility. According to Lombardi, they need to be protective of the past, too. They need to do more than store the invaluable artifacts and photos belonging to the company. They need to show who was responsible for previous innovation and discovery—and how they did it, he said, adding that former employees have requested this. “I know a lot of people who are gone now, who looked me in the eye and said, ‘Make sure that they remember who we were and what we did,’ ” Lombardi said. “And I take that personally.” n da niel.w.ral ey@boeing.com Photos: (Left, from top) In St. Louis, Henry Brownlee supervises the Boeing Archives and James S. McDonnell Prologue Room; historical dioramas depict significant events, such as the continuous improvement of the F-4 Phantom II. (Right) Boeing has a huge collection of aircraft models, including countless planes that were considered but never produced. Sbeeempt r 2015 39
Frontiers September 2015 Issue
To see the actual publication please follow the link above