archives

• 
• 8/7/2022
  

  Climate Change Just Erased the Past in Kentucky. Where Will it Happen Next?

  by Tina A. Irvine

  The archives of the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County were inundated by flood waters on July 28—a devastating loss of one community's history and culture, and a warning to historians that our knowledge of the past is at risk from climate change. 

• 
• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  7/14/2022
  

  Archival Structures and the Preservers and Retrievers of Stories

  by Fernando Amador II

  "Historians rarely understand the terminology, organizational strategies, or labor required for establishing and maintaining an archive, and I was no exception."

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/7/2022
  

  Matthew Barton is the Man Behind the Library of Congress's Recorded Sound Division

  "Ah, well, that’s it. This is the national parks of culture, of history, of memory."

• 
• SOURCE: Washingtonian
  4/25/2022
  

  Library of Congress will Acquire Neil Simon's Papers

  Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden expressed gratitude to Simon's widow Elaine Joyce Simon for the donation, which enhances the library's holdings in performance arts and ensures future researchers will be able to access his work. 

• 
• SOURCE: Briscoe Center for American History
  4/7/2022
  

  UT's Briscoe Center Acquires Richard and Doris Kearns Goodwin Papers,Popular History

  "I’m impressed by the depth and breadth of the Briscoe Center’s holdings, and also by its innovative mission as a center that actively conducts its own research into its collections, as well as facilitating the research of others."

• 
• SOURCE: Austin American-Statesman
  3/31/2022
  

  Tom Staley, 86, Built UT's Ransom Center into Key Research Destination

  "Staley turned the archives into a global powerhouse that rivals the collecting achievements of Harvard University, Yale University and the British Museum."

• 
• SOURCE: San Francisco Classical Voice
  3/20/2022
  

  Preserving the Past in the Digital Age Still a Headache

  "Our information and cultural history may not be as secure as we believe it to be."

• 
• SOURCE: National Security Archive
  3/11/2022
  

  30-Year Flatline in NARA Budget Threatens Research, Transparency

  Chronic underfunding, combined with successive administrations' disdain for transparency, means that Freedom of Information Act requests are likely to languish for years before being fulfilled. It's long overdue to fund the National Archives for the public good. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/14/2022
  

  Russia's Invasion is Targeting Ukraine's History Too

  by Alexandra Sukalo

  The destruction of historical archives in Ukraine is part and parcel of a long tradition of attempted cultural eradication in service of empire. 

• 
• SOURCE: Contingent
  2/4/2022
  

  Man of Smoke

  by Jason Ridler

  The task of literary biography can be made much more difficult when authors fictionalize the sparse details of their own lives. 

• 
• 1/9/2022
  

  A Walk Around the "Wood that Built London"

  by C.J. Schüler

  The remnants of the North Wood outside London posed a mystery of cartographical history to the author: how to reconstruct the forest that was timbered to build the metropolis.

• 
• 12/19/2021
  

  The Theodore Roosevelt Oral History Collection Proves There's More to Learn about TR

  by Michael Patrick Cullinane

  Seven audio recordings from the 1950s, found at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, opened a window into the memories of TR's relatives and contemporaries of his political and social world, showing there's always more to discover about even the most famed figures of history. 

• 
• SOURCE: Brazilian Historians in the United States (BRAHUS)
  11/29/2021
  

  US-Based Brazilian Historians Write Open Letter Protesting Bolsonaro's National Archivist Appointment

  Historians charge that the appointment is part of Bolsonaro's campaign to whitewash the image of Brazil's period of military dictatorship and justify his own authoritarian ambitions.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/25/2021
  

  Climate Change Threatens Smithsonian

  “We’re kind of in trial and error,” said Ryan Doyle, a facilities manager at the Smithsonian. “It’s about managing water.”

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  11/01/2021
  

  Records of 320,000 Punjab Soldiers from Great War Uncovered`

  The records have the potential to fill gaps in understanding and even dispel popular myths and misunderstandings about the participation of South Asian troops in the British military in World War 1. 

• 
• SOURCE: KUT
  10/28/2021
  

  Structural Racism Hinders Efforts to Preserve History of Texas "Freedom Colonies"

  Dr. Andrea Roberts of the Texas Freedom Colonies Project says that the history of Black settlements during Reconstruction and Jim Crow is hindered by rules about what sites qualify as "historic."  

• 
• 10/10/2021
  

  Recovering Women's Reproductive Lives, One Mutilated Record at a Time

  by Catherine Prendergast

  "Far too often, archives resemble graveyards with marked tombs for men in which a few bones of women are scattered. It’s time to dig up all of the bones and ask them what story they tell."

• 
• SOURCE: Atlas Obscura
  9/22/2021
  

  The Curious Task of Preserving Darwin's Beans and Butterflies

  Although his voyage to the Galapagos is famous, much of Darwin's work on natural selection was based on correspondence with horticulturalists and naturalists who sent him samples from around the world. Cambridge University's libraries are at work to preserve that correspondence.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/9/2021
  

  Reconstructing an Urban Archive Lost on 9/11

  The archives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which held important information about the history of the region's politics and infrastructure, was housed in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Agency retirees have sent documents, pictures and artifacts to start rebuilidng the record.

• 
• SOURCE: UChicago News
  5/25/2021
  

  The Hidden History Of “Guerrilla Television”: UChicago Scholars Preserve Decades-Old Videos

  Technological innovation in the 1960s allowed more people to shoot video and push for community-based television. University of Chicago scholars are working to digitize and preserve "guerrilla television."