Archives and Manuscripts Post #5:

As we have discussed in class, archivists strive to make material accessible to researchers as soon as possible. Whether it be through minimal processing or even accessioning as processing, archivists aim to move quickly and construct an archive that is representative of the functions of an organization or life of a person. However, as articles like Elena S. Danielson’s “The Ethics of Access” and Sara S. Hodson’s “In Secret Kept, In Silence Sealed: Privacy in the Papers of Authors and Celebrities” show that this is not always possible. Because of the personal and sometimes unflattering material kept in organizational or personal records, many archives are accessioned on the stipulation that certain materials remain restricted to researchers until a certain amount of time has passed. In certain cases, donators have gone as far as destroying certain personal material in order to keep it out of the archive!

When archival restrictions comes to mind, an image of a corrupt bureaucrat painting over sensitive information on sheets of paper with a large black marker probably pops into one’s head, but there are many reasons why certain material might be restricted. In Hodson’s article, she discusses feeling conflicted about releasing certain materials in Baron Kinross’ papers to the public. The British travel writer’s papers often described his sexual experiences with other men and outed many closeted gay men in the process. Fortunately, by the time an archivist had completely processed the collection, enough time had passed that the privacy of these men no longer remained an issue. Ye,t this instance shows that arrangement and access often means making difficult ethical decisions for archivists.

As both a researcher and someone who wishes to respect others’ privacy, I am somewhat conflicted about this. Every researcher dreams of finding that one source that completely changes common thinking on a particular topic, but it might also be worth considering the lives and reputations of those preserved on paper in that source. In my research on groups in the United States that supported the Sandinista government in Nicaragua during the 1980s, some of the best sources I’ve found are applications to join activist groups that travelled to Nicaragua to help rebuild infrastructure destroyed by counterrevolutionary forces during the country’s civil war. While participants filled out these applications more than twenty years ago, they contain telephone numbers and addresses of activists. Yet, they also provide a researcher like me with a glimpse into what motivated many Americans to join these construction groups. The Tamiment Library’s Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York provides access to such materials, yet the Nicaragua Network Record, housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, has restricted similar materials until 2050. Those applications are probably my favorite source I’ve ever found, but what would the people whose lives are compiled in those documents say to such a statement?

Archives and Manuscripts Post #4 - Archives as a Tool of Community Betterment

At a few points in the semester, we’ve touched upon the issue of repatriation of archival materials by foreign nations and Native American tribal nations within the United States. Unfortunately, the history of anthropology has a dark past in which ethnographic studies of non-western communities went hand in hand with the theft of community objects and even, human remains. In the case of written, archival materials, the information collected by anthropologists that came to comprise ethnographic studies often solely served to  benefit academia and gave little back to the community of which the scholarly work consisted. A few years ago, I interned at San Francisco State University’s NAGPRA program, which aimed to return the majority of tribally-affiliated objects to California’s Indigenous communities, so these issues remain familiar to me.

Yet, there still remain ethical methods of using archival material that enables community access to written or recorded items. In fact, the archive could serve as a tool of the community, facilitating the storage of materials that might enable the preservation of endangered languages and sacred practices. Yet, this all depends on how the archival institution engages with the community of whose materials they might possess.

One such example of an archive aiming to enable community access and betterment is seen in the International Library of African Music at Rhodes University in South Africa. This archive is primarily comprised of African music recordings collected by ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey throughout Sub-Saharan Africa from the 1930s to the 1960s. During this period, colonial governments mandated the teaching of western musical styles and neglected local traditions. This ultimately resulted the loss of these musical traditions in many African communities.

Yet, the International Library of African Music is fighting back against this erasure of community traditions by archiving the majority of its musical collections online and even returning Tracey’s recordings to those who originally recorded the material. The organizers of this project hope that the distribution of these recordings to those who originally made the music might enable a reinvigoration of these musical traditions amongst younger generations within African communities. Examples like this one indicate the uses of the archive beyond the academy and demonstrate its potential as a means to restore community traditions historically neglected by state powers.

Archives and Manuscripts Post Three

This week, I began my internship in the archives of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. During the semester, I will assist in the processing of a collection that includes war correspondences between a Philadelphia father and son during World War II, as well as the previously mentioned son’s letters with his own child, serving in the Vietnam War. While I only had the chance to briefly survey the unprocessed collection, I felt like I got a sense of something beyond the military conflicts of which these letters consist and had the chance to glimpse into a family’s relationship in middle-class, Northeast Philadelphia.

I think this really speaks to the importance of provenance in the world of archiving and addresses some of the issues raised in Mary Jo Pugh’s 1982 article, “The Illusion of Omniscience: Subject Access and the Reference Archivist.” In the article, Pugh examines the differences between the ways in which libraries and archives organize their materials. In library classification, books are ultimately organized by subject matter and shelved next to other publications that deal with the examined topic. Additionally, within that section, librarians organize materials alphabetically according to the author’s last name. Thus, library patrons can access material through a variety of different routes, by subject matter, the author’s name, or even the title of the book.

To one unfamiliar with the principles of provenance and original order, such a system in its allowing for a diversification in research tactics probably seem like the most efficient way to organize material. Yet, it is important to realize what would be lost if archivists applied this system of organization to their institution’s materials. In my view, provenance not only preserves valuable research information, but people and organizations themselves. For instance, if an archivist simply organized this collection of unprocessed war correspondence into a larger collection of materials on the Vietnam War, the context and intricacies found in these letters’ relationship to other documents in the collection that help to paint a picture of a particular family would be lost. It is in these document relationships that a past organization or deceased person is preserved. Thus, while arranging materials according to subject matter, like a library, might increase the accessibility of archives to a potential researcher, this organizational style ultimately eliminates the principle of provenance that helps to preserve the past in its original form.

Archives and Manuscripts Post Two

This morning, I read Chapter Four of Understanding Archives and Manuscripts and Theodore Schellenberg’s “Principles of Arrangement.” After completing the reading, I stopped by Temple’s Special Collections Research Center in hopes of finding some pictures for an exhibit at the Temple Medical School library that I’ve been helping create. While I didn’t find too much suitable material for the exhibit, the readings helped me to see the archival material that I examined in a new light, giving me a greater perspective on how such material is arranged.

In their respective works, Schellenberg, O’Toole, and Cox all discuss arranging material within recent accessions in relation to their greater whole, showing the context of a past project or event. This remains important in its providing of a historical trajectory and its accessibility to researchers. Such organization ensures that a scholar doesn’t have to rummage through numerous boxes of a collection for a specific aspect of an organization, but can rather find answers in one specific folder.

Today, I looked through the Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania records and observed a similar type of organization. Particularly, I looked through the box consisting of documentation of the group’s various outreach projects. While other boxes remained devoted to other organizational aspects, Boxes 4 and 5 focused on projects, revealing the archivist’s arrangement tactics of organizing the material in a manner conducive to scholarly research. Furthermore, inside the actual box, various folders held the records of various Planned Parenthood projects that had occurred over the course of multiple decades. These folders showcased the archival method of arranging materials in relation to one another as a part of a greater scholarly whole. For example, the folder entitled “Family Life Program,” provided information on the organization’s North Philly 1980s outreach program, but also numerous 1980s articles on the neighborhood’s post-industrial state, providing the scholar further context into the neighborhood where the project took place.

It is unclear as to whether Planned Parenthood organized these documents like this themselves, or whether the archivist had exercised “intellectual arrangement” and organized the material in a manner best suited to scholarship. Yet, either way, the material presented itself in a manner reflective of the principles of archival arrangement.

Archives and Manuscripts Post One - 8/28/15

“They say that history repeats itself, but history is only his story. You haven’t heard my story yet. My story is different from his story. My story is not a part of history. Because, history repeats itself. My story is endless. It never repeats itself.” – Sun Ra, 1981

One of my favorite quotes on history is non-academic in its origin, and is rather attributed to the avant-garde jazz musician Sun Ra. While Ra claimed to be from Saturn, he lived his later years in the North Philly neighborhood of Germantown. If you drive past his old house, you will see ancient Egyptian symbols and cosmic images of space painted along the house’s exterior. Although Sun Ra has long since passed, I believe members of his old band still live in the house. I listened to a lot of Ra’s music over the summer and even drove by his old compound once or twice, so it makes sense that this quote popped into my head during the first day of our Archives and Manuscripts class.

 I think Sun Ra’s message is in many ways applicable to the work of the archivist. As discussed in our first meeting, the archivist must be able to recognize the significance of a document beyond its original purpose. So, while something like a flyer from the 1930s advertising a tour of New York City’s Chinatown neighborhood might have originally existed to let tourists know of a potential city outing, an archivist would recognize the document’s greater significance. Reading between the lines of the flyer’s descriptions of such a tour, an archivist might locate the item’s usefulness in terms of understanding 1930s perceptions of race and urban neighborhoods. In this sense, an archivist specifically preserves items that enable changing interpretations of the past to occur.

            Yet, there remain two sides to this issue. Archivists cannot preserve everything and must dispose of certain items. As we discussed in class, there is a lot that is thrown away. When I first heard this reality described, I cringed a little bit. It seems to me that an item’s historical worth is not immediately apparent. For what is useless to one person’s project might hold the answers to another’s inquiry. In their determining of which documents might possess historical value and remain worth preserving, it seems that archivists really play a key role in shaping the constructions of historical narratives. However, this act is not a malicious one, but designed to ensure multiple interpretations over an extended period of time. Some items simply have more historical value than others.

            Due to their constant exposure to historical documents and vast historical knowledge, archivists ensure that historical interpretations do not repeat themselves by aiming to preserve items that answer a variety of historical questions. I believe Sun Ra’s estimation of history to be correct. His story and all other stories remain endless in the ways that others perceive them, and such perceptions undoubtedly change over time. It is thanks to the work of the archivist that these changing historical perceptions continue.

Here is a video of Sun Ra's quote (the quote begins at 0:36):