In my Social
History class last week, we discussed public reaction to works of art during
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of my classmates brought
up the architectural styles of buildings that encompassed high society spaces
like art museums, university lecture halls, and archives resembled fortresses.
My classmate posited that during an era of increased class conflict and
radicalism, these cultured spaces provided refuge from the despondency of
industrializing America for the aristocratic class. By design, these spaces
aimed to keep working-class peoples out by only opening during peak working
hours and providing access only to members of the institution.[1]
Randall Jimerson
makes a similar point in his essay, “Embracing the Power of the Archives.” In
this essay, Jimerson represents the archive as a site of power in its decisions
to preserve certain documents over others and potentially only allow access to
certain types of people. The notion of scholarly objectivity has long been rejected,
dispelling myths of the archivist as a neutral observer.[2]
In fact, scholars like Michel-Rolph Trouillot have pinpointed archival
preservation as a key moment in historical silencing, a process that entails
the privileging of certain peoples and perspectives in the construction of
historical narratives. According to Trouillot, because archivists select
certain documents for preservation and neglect others, their selective processing techniques shape history to reflect certain perspectives and negate others. As one might imagine,
the perspectives preserved by the archives have often been those of the
powerful.[3]
While archivists
of the past, whether consciously or not, favored the documents of the elite for
preservation, the blame for such historical silencing cannot solely be blamed
on them. Oppression is structural and sighting individuals for the wrongs of
the past misses the point. What is archived is not solely the reflection of
what the archivist deems historically important, but also a product of whom had
access to literacy skills or political power at a particular time. For
instance, to my knowledge, there is no archival document detailing the
experiences of African-American slaves in a manner not obscured by racial power
dynamics. Even the 1930s WPA interviews with former slaves remain scholarly
problematic because of the lack of trust and uneven relationship existing between
the black sharecroppers interviewees and the white government worker
interviewer. Sadly, there are certain archival collections detailing
marginalized experiences that will simply never exist.
However, there
is a glimmer of hope! Since the 1970s, archivists have been preserving more and
more collections detailing subaltern experiences. Furthermore, the increasing
literacy and political participation of the twentieth century by oppressed groups
provides archivists with an actual shot at preserving these often ignored
histories. Unfortunately, There will probably always be silences and
manifestations of power within our historical narratives. Yet, it is important
to realize that the archive possesses the power to potentially write these
wrongs if the researcher so chooses.
[1] Michael Kammen, Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 152-3.
[2] Randall C. Jimerson, “Embracing the
Power of Archives.” American Archivist 69
(2006): 21.
[3] Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production
of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 28-30.
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