"Photographs, Papers and Parchments Preserved for Lasting Permanency By Special Formula and Technique.” Under Texas Skies 4, no. 6 (October, 1953). 28.

Except that he was none of those things. He was, in fact, a fraud.

Harry G. Jander was born in 1882 in Rockville, Indiana and moved to Palestine, Texas in childhood. The son of a druggist, Mr. Jander had somewhat of a grasp of chemistry from his childhood that informed the development of his preservation solution. Mr. Jander’s process, as he described it, functions similar to the Barrow Method, but requires no heat. Instead of cellulose acetate, the Jander method sandwiches the document between two sheets of nylon gauze. A clear viscous liquid of his own creation is then painted over the entire piece. The liquid bonds the document to the nylon giving strength and flexibility. The treated item is also waterproof and contains a component that repels insects and rodents. The formula had also been tested alternately by the Texas Department of Transportation and the Bureau of Standards. The tests subjected papers treated by the Jander formula to accelerated aging tests akin to baking the item with light and heat. The test revealed that the formula prevented the papers from deteriorating indefinitely (Under Texas Skies, 1953, pp. 19-20). The method, like its creator, was a fraud.

Boundaries of Peters' Colony, undated. Box G053, Folder 9. Peters Colony Records (AR.37.PC). Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin.  A summary of the boundaries of each of 3 contracts to settle land granted to Peter’s Colony by the Mexican Government. The notation near the center written vertically reads, “Repaired Feb. 1952 Jander”

Field Notes for Clinton A. Ezell, July 21, 1877, School Land File 98456, Texas Land Grant Records, Archives and Records, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX. Field notes are created by surveyors using language to describe the boundaries of land.

[Tom Green County], Austin: Texas General Land Office, ca. 1888, Map #16901, Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

Texas & Pacific Ry Reserve west of the Pecos River, Austin: Texas General Land Office, 1880, Map #3047, Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

Before becoming interested in “contributing” to the conservation and preservation practices in Texas in retirement, Mr. Jander had amassed a valuable collection of textiles from all over the world, some as old as 800 years. One published story provides insight into his penchant for exaggeration:

The way we heard it, Harry G. Jander, a fabrics expert and preserver of maps and documents in the General Land Office, wears a diamond ring put on his hand by Queen Mary and, for lounging at home, a Ming bathrobe 1,000 years old. ‘Partially true,’ Jander said, with amusement in his voice. ‘The ring was given me by the Queen when I was working for the London decorator serving the royal family, but my bathrobe definitely isn’t a thousand years old. It isn’t a bathrobe, in fact. It’s a Chinese priest's robe, probably no more than 700 to 800 years old, and I used to wear it for lounging, though I haven’t recently” (Barnes, 1959).

Using some of the legitimate pieces of his life’s story, Mr. Jander created a fictional narrative of his life in which self-aggrandizement was the primary goal and where Texas’ cultural heritage became collateral damage. His crimes against the GLO’s Archives were enabled by lax hiring practices common in the mid-20th century where reputation and connections were as valuable as a good resume is today. Mr. Jander gained the trust of GLO administrators because they lacked institutional knowledge to assess Mr. Jander's supposed credentials.

Barnes, Lorraine. “Collector denies Ming robe 1000 years old; only 800.” Austin American-Statesman, March 3, 1959.

The informal investigation of Mr. Jander began when I started  digitizing the GLO’s conservation treatment reports. These reports included slides of the before and after images of items that had been conserved in the 2000s. Months earlier I had come across the Peters Colony contract document referenced earlier, as it was going out to NEDCC for conservation. It stuck in my mind because it was so unusual.

The use of pinking shears to create his calling card/confession made it possible to connect Jander to every document that bore this pattern. We also now had a name that would guide our investigation. We contacted approximately twenty institutions and received responses from thirteen archives and museums over the span of eighteen months. With their help, we were able to track Jander throughout his life beginning in Palestine, Texas.

Byrd Lockhart, Surveyor, Reverse of the Connected Map of DeWitt's Colony compiled from the surveys of Byrd Lockhart, Austin: Texas General Land Office, ca. 1831-1837, Map #1942, Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

In 1911, Jander moved to Galveston to work at the Galveston Brewing Company. He left Galveston in 1913 and bounced around different clerical jobs before settling down with Scruggs Department Store in St. Louis. He moved up the ladder to become a decorator there in 1921. 

Before finding work at Scruggs, Jander volunteered in 1918 to go overseas with the YMCA, which was subsumed into the US Army during World War I. During that war, the YMCA functioned as a proto-USO. YMCA volunteers were not classified as enlisted personnel and would not be considered veterans after the war. Regardless, Jander didn’t even finish his volunteer service as the following document shows. He was sent home early; his YMCA service punch card indicates that his service was “unsatisfactory.”

Compiled from city directories from Galveston, Indianapolis, and St. Louis.

National War Work Council, Y.M.C.A. of the United States. (2018). YMCA World War I Service Punch Cards. Retrieved from the Data Repository for the University of Minnesota, https://doi.org/10.13020/D6KT2Q.

Contrary to his claims, Mr. Jander was not a veteran of the Great War. The three months spent in England and France late in 1918 was the extent of his overseas experience. In 1949, Mr. Jander told the Austin American that he “got his master’s degree from the University of London in art, architecture and interior decorating (he is a native Texan, from Palestine), he went to work as a clerk in the famed London fabric house of Waring and Gillow” (Early, 1949). The three errors of fact contained in that quote are typical of the type of humbug peddled by Mr. Jander. Each assertion is detailed enough to sound factual, yet sufficiently vague to discourage further inquiry. In 1949, each of these lies would have been difficult to disprove. In 2020, not so much. A good friend working in London was able to go to the City of Westminster Archives where the business records of Waring and Gillow are kept. She examined the payroll ledgers for the years that Jander claimed to have worked there. His name does not appear in the ledgers.

The real narrative is that after working as a decorator for Scruggs, Mr. Jander opened his own business in the suburbs of St. Louis. When the business folded in 1940, he moved back to Palestine briefly before accepting a position as an adjunct professor of interior decorating in the night school at St. Edward’s University in Austin. He was dismissed after the 1941 fall semester.

Jander then got a job at Randolph Air Field in San Antonio. In 1942, he was transferred to the newly opened Bergstrom Air Field outside of Austin, working as a helper in an aircraft repair hangar. Part of his job was to use a product called “aircraft dope” to stiffen canvas that would be wrapped around the wings and body of aircraft. He generated a large civilian military file that we were able to obtain from the National Archives. In that file was a document entitled, “Loyalty and Character Report.” The report was initiated by and written by the War Department in 1943, and it was not flattering. Informants claimed that Mr. Jander left Missouri owing a year’s rent on the building where he ran his business. St. Edward’s claimed that he remained on campus for over a year despite being employed elsewhere and not paying rent. Another informant described Mr. Jander as “somewhat of a prevaricator.”

War Department. “Loyalty and Character Report.” December 23, 1943. Cover.

War Department. “Loyalty and Character Report.” December 23, 1943. Page 3.

“The formula cannot be analyzed,” Jander claimed. “Three laboratories have tried” (Early, 1949).

While I was piecing together the facts of Mr. Jander’s life, my colleagues were working on analyzing Mr. Jander’s formula. A sample was sent off to the lab at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. The results showed that the solution Mr. Jander used was mostly aircraft dope, with castor oil and pine resin mixed in. And what does aircraft dope primarily consist of?

Cellulose Nitrate!

The GLO began sending damaged maps and documents out for conservation beginning in 2003. Items that had been damaged by Mr. Jander were said to be “janderized.”

Conservation Treatment Report. Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), 2008.

In 2020, we are still finding janderized maps and documents. However, through our conservation program, janderized maps and documents can be saved. The Save Texas History Program accepts tax-deductible donations year-round in support of the conservation of the GLO’s archival collections. To learn more, visit https://savetexashistory.org.

For those interested, all of the documents collected over the course of our investigation can be accessed on our google drive.

Layfayette Caldwell, Surveyor, Plan of the C.C.S.D.& R.G.N.G.R.R, Unpublished, 1878, Map #64481, Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

[Tom Green County], Austin: Texas General Land Office, ca. 1888, Map #16901, Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

Texas & Pacific Ry Reserve west of the Pecos River, Austin: Texas General Land Office, 1880, Map #3047, Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

Bibliography

Barnes, Lorraine. “Collector denies Ming robe 1000 years old; only 800.” Austin American-Statesman, March 3, 1959.

Early, Dudley. "Fortune Spent-- Collecting Rags." Austin American, July 31, 1949.

Under Texas Skies. “Photographs, Papers and Parchments Preserved for Lasting Permanency By Special Formula and Technique.” Under Texas Skies 4, no. 6 (October, 1953). 19-20.

Daniel Alonzo is a digital archivist with the Texas General Land Office. He has been waiting his entire career to find something truly outrageous in the archives. He is a founding member of the Austin Archives Bazaar, which wouldn’t exist without the great LA Archives Bazaar.