archives

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/11/2022
  

  Gwendolyn Midlo Hall Kept the Identities of Enslaved from Archival Oblivion

  After retiring from a career as a Latin Americanist, Hall documented the identities of thousands of people brought to Louisiana in slavery in the 18th century, an achievement others had thought neither possible nor necessary. 

• 
• SOURCE: National Security Archive
  9/12/2022
  

  49 Years Later, Nixon's Knowledge of Pinochet Coup Remains Secret

  It is beyond time for the Biden Administration to declassify presidential records related to American operations in Chile around the overthrow of democratically elected President Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973.  

• 
• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  9/1/2022
  

  Where are the Women in History?

  by Amanda B. Moniz

  Women's histories have frequently been written in the past, but in ways that are inaccessible to researchers in the present. One example is the way that women reformers were presented as exemplars of Protestant evangelical rectitude. 

• 
• 9/4/2022
  

  What I Learned About Governments from Researching Classified Documents

  by Lawrence Wittner

  Historians who have conducted research in classified materials understand how seriously governments take secrecy and how secrecy can conceal malfeasance or anti-democratic action. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  8/9/2022
  

  The Presidential Records Act Explains How the FBI Knew What to Search For at Mar-a-Lago

  "The archivists probably have a really keen idea of what is and what isn’t missing, based upon things that they’ve gotten out of other offices, like the vice president’s office and things that got deposited from the secretary of state, for example."

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/10/2022
  

  Eve Babitz's Archive Reveals the Person Behind the Persona

  by Kevin Dettmar

  "What could the personal documents of a writer who was so public about her private world teach us about her work? How much of that persona was a performance and how much a reflection of her real anxieties and ambitions?"

• 
• 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.”