Introduction: The Malformed Nature of American Archival History. Archivists, in their selection,
description, and interpretation of records, must employ all the best qualities of the historian as well as draw on the
basic principles and methodologies of archival science or studies (whether or not we hold to the view that archivists are
historians or need to have historical training, a debate that has proceeded for decades). Just as historians must select
evidence, interpret sources, and evaluate documents’ reliability and relevance, so archivists carry on similar
responsibilities in their work, although not in order to write history but in order to support others writing historical
interpretations – with one noteworthy exception. Archivists manage their own records – that is, the documents related
to their own work and their institutions, partly to ensure that their researchers can understand how and why records
have come to reside in archival and historical manuscripts repositories. Archivists need to have these records available
to them to re-evaluate past decisions, protect the provenance and integrity of the records groups in their care, and to
comprehend the changing historical circumstances of their own programs. While other researchers might use these
same documents to write histories of archives and manuscripts collections, one would expect that archivists as well
would draw on these sources to contribute to the field’s understanding of its own history.
It is, then, with irony that we view the poor condition of the study of American archival history. Only
over the past few decades have archivists begun to consider the history of their own vocation, and these records
professionals are far from having a full comprehension of why and how their field has developed in the manner it has. I
do not mean to imply that little has been written and published on this subject. The literature is voluminous and dates
back to the primeval period of American archives, the late nineteenth century. A careful scrutiny, however, reveals an
uneven coverage in both quality and subject, a truly lamentable situation, and such a view also reveals uneven interest
by both archivists and other researchers and scholars on a matter that ought to be foremost in their minds, how society
forms its own documentary heritage.
While exemplary studies on certain aspects of recordkeeping are now appearing, such as on the impact
of cultural change on recordkeepers or the social formation of records production, most of these studies are being
done by individuals outside of the archival community. 1While there is nothing wrong with this development (in fact,
it is a very positive trend, providing many excellent studies on the nature of records that can assist records
professionals in their work), it is unlikely that scholars such as historians or cultural studies experts either will be
interested in the development of the archival profession or many aspects of its knowledge and work. It is vital that
records professionals know as much as possible about the development of the profession and recordkeeping to aid
their continued self-study, reevaluation, and progress, especially in times of unusual stress and change. Archivists and
other records professionals need to direct the historian's perspective not only to the records under their care but to
their profession and institutions as well, since these individuals and organizations are not merely benign receptacles or
warehouses (as has been portrayed in a recent debate about library and archival preservation) but active shapers of
the documentary heritage. 2While they can draw on the scholarship of other disciplines, archivists and other records
professionals must bring their own sensitivity to and knowledge of records and their discipline if they want to build a
sufficient understanding of the history of their field, its institutions, and the records it administers.
This chapter examines the research trends on the history of American archives, providing a context for
the importance of state archival history – as well as its neglect. One preliminary note needs to be stated. My definition
of the archival profession, as will be seen below, is broad. I consider its origins--even if this necessitates an overly long
gestation period--to be the pioneer manuscript collectors and first historical societies of more than two centuries past.
Those professional historians and historically-trained archivists who preemptively write of the American archival
movement as solely the manifestation of a professionalization of history or its own discipline, focusing on events mostly
concentrated in the twentieth century, ignore a main line of its ancestry, one still in evidence and vitally important today.
Archival records are maintained today in ways dependent on a wide array of archival and historical records programs,
from cultural organizations collecting these records to institutional programs responsible for the records generated by
their parent organizations. From the late eighteenth century to the present, we can detect similar patterns of interests
and even approaches. Archivists and manuscript curators still discuss collecting, although more recently the appraisal
function has become enhanced by more sophisticated methodological approaches and theories of records creation and
documentary accretions. However, who is to say that a half century from now the present approaches and attitudes
might not seem as primitive as the collecting sweeps of the first individual and institutional collectors in the 1780s
through the nineteenth century?
Many of these archival repositories are the result of local conditions, and many archivists and other
records custodians view their responsibilities as determined by local and regional factors. 3Local, state, and regional
historical societies long predated the national programs, the latter mostly being the result of professionalized history,
federal programs and interests, and a nation self-conscious about its place in world events. The roots of the modern
American archival movement are deep into the locality and the state. Understanding state archival history is essential
for archivists wishing to comprehend their present circumstances. Nearly twenty years ago archivists, flush with the
excitement of statewide and national planning, worried about a cycle of poverty – meaning concerns about authority,
staffing, facilities and financial resources. But there is another kind of poverty cycle, this one concerning a vacuum of
intellectual tools enabling the archival profession to think critically and creatively about its continuing challenges.
4Archival history is a major dimension of the knowledge archivists require in order to not be mired in an intellectual
cycle of poverty. A lack of knowledge about the evolution of records, archival programs and principles, and successes
and failures of theories and techniques will only provide a stilted notion of present challenges. It is the same problem
that any individual studying a contemporary issue will face; a lack of historical context weakens the ability to determine
causes of and solutions for problems. It is, indeed, one of the reasons why society seems willing to support archives in
the first place.
Pioneering Archival Studies. The early essays in American archival history, although not always
consciously about the history of an emerging discipline, appeared between the last years of the nineteenth century and
the 1920s, along with many other manifestations of new disciplines and sciences (in other words, this early self-
reflection was part of a larger shifting of how society was managing information and knowledge). By then private
collectors and historical societies had been active in the United States for a century, and the early writings about their
work were certainly part of the larger grappling with the responsibilities of a growing group of archivists, manuscript
curators, and special collections librarians. Historian Thomas Bender connects much of these changes to the American
academic disciplines then emerging, but he laments that while these disciplines “have been astonishingly successful in
producing new knowledge, . . . their almost complete hegemony in our intellectual life has left Americans with an
impoverished public culture and little means for critical discussion of general ideas, as opposed to scientific or scholarly
expertise.” 5At the time, however, these new professions (with archivists and librarians among them) promised a
new and more rigorous means by which to meet disciplinary objectives. Bender’s assessment, based on the hindsight
of a century, does suggest that many of the later challenges to archival identity and purpose rested in the realm of
disciplinary and academic uncertainties.
The formation of an historical profession, emphasizing the critical use of sources via intensive seminar
training, in these same years focused a new attention on the early institutional and individual manuscript collectors. The
historians' interest primarily emanated from the need to know of the locations of records, but, being historians, it is not
surprising to see this interest expanded to the history of repositories and biographies of collectors and documentary
editors. Justin Winsor's 1887 essay on the "conspicuous collections extant," based upon his monumental eight-volume
Narrative and Critical History of America , devotes equal space to the careers of Jared Sparks, Peter Force, and
George Bancroft. 6Herbert Baxter Adams, the leading advocate of “scientific” history while at the Johns Hopkins
University from 1876 to 1901, also thought highly enough of Sparks to compose a two-volume biography, a work still
valuable today for its liberal publication of his letters and journals. 7These efforts by Winsor and Adams were
among the best of a literature that was large even in these early years. Historians were thinking of how records came to
repositories, although this truly was a progressive impulse where success was measured by the growing quantities of
records clustered in archival buildings. Images of scientific laboratories abounded in the heads of Progressive
historians, and their laboratories were, of course, the places where the records were stored – the government archives,
historical societies, and libraries. 8
The stress on the use of historical sources, the foundation of a scientific approach, has really been the
linchpin in the subsequent debates about the nature and validity of historical research. Shifting emphases on the need
for archives have been equated with the limits, possibilities, and needs of professional history. In this earlier era,
however, the ability and opportunity to use more archival sources seemed connected with the historical discipline
establishing itself, thus suggesting why some historians were then writing about archives. The decline (until recently) in
such analysis perhaps also reflects a move away the centrality of archives for historical research (at least for many
historians studying popular culture and expanding the array of source materials). 9
The historical profession was a strong impetus for studying the formation of early manuscript collections
and record keeping practices, even if its motives could be judged to be self-serving in identifying where the records
were located. The American Historical Association's sponsorship of a Historical Manuscripts Commission and Public
Archives Commission, in 1895 and 1899, respectively, also encouraged the gathering of data on these subjects. An
essay on the "dispersion" of George Washington's papers, a scathing attack on the lack of care of the state records of
New York , and a review of the initial two decades of the Public Archives Commission were written to encourage
historians to fight for the better preservation of American historical records. Each essay also provided information on
the history of American archives. 10This was especially evident by the 1920s. The Public Archives Commission
was a catalyst in the formation of state archives among Southern states, and two decades later, in the North Carolina
Historical Review issued between 1926 and 1929, summary essays on these programs were published.
11Although they were generally only catalogues of earlier legislation and included saccharine predictions of the
future (equating the construction of archival facilities as keys to the progress in preserving archives), these essays
constituted the first serious regional survey of the history of the archival profession and were the primary sources for
two later excellent composite studies of archival development in the South. 12Such writings are not unusual for
depicting the early stages of any field, but they remained useful and the final word for so long may be more indicative of
topics not being accorded serious attention.
Success was thought to be simple by the early historians on archival formation. Getting the records into
centralized repositories was the nearly unanimous objective of all historians and archivists, and the key to success
rested in establishing archival programs. Questions of what constituted the professionals who would staff these
repositories or what records needed to be acquired were issues that surfaced long after establishing programs and
building facilities. While historians commented on both matters, their interests mainly have been more concentrated on
the locations of records for their own research, both then and now. Today, many records professionals must look
back a century or so and wish for these simpler measures for success. Archival knowledge, electronic recordkeeping
technologies, crises in privacy and access, and archival appraisal all loom as complex problems defying easy
resolution. Now, to look only to archival policy and legislation, resources, and facilities are to guarantee wrong
priorities and missed opportunities. Now, even what constitutes a record or document is the topic of protracted debate
and dedicated research (and, it should be noted, much more future work). 13
The Formation of the Archival Profession and a Renewed Interest in Archival History. Without
the leadership of a national archival body and professional society or the convenient forum of a specialized journal,
however, and research and writing on American archival history, or on any other archival subject, would have
remained severely limited (or, at the least, it appeared to be by its very scattered dissemination). This problem was
rectified in the mid-1930s with the opening of the National Archives (1934), the establishment of the Society of
American Archivists (1936), and the start of the quarterly American Archivist (1938). The National Archives
provided a national perspective to hitherto scattered records programs and hired a large group of individuals who were
searching for practical approaches from other sources, including the past. The Society concentrated on professional
issues and concerns, providing both a forum and reason to write out ideas about practice and to publish insights gained
from research and reflection. Then there was one place to go to publish on archival topics (although historical and
technical literature to this day tends to be dispersed in historical, library, and information science journals). The
existence of a journal enabled a consistent dissemination of information on such matters, and, the American Archivist,
along with a few other archival journals, remains the starting place for most inquiries into archival theory and practice.
From the late 1930s through the 1950s the American Archivist featured numerous essays on the histories of state and
federal programs. The onslaught of the Second World War, and the unprecedented proliferation of government
records, forced archivists to mull over issues ranging from the disposition of records to the dissemination of vital
information about archives. A common methodology for resolving records problems was historical research, although
often of a perfunctory kind in that it was often servicing as an introduction to an issue or problem, on records legislation
and earlier procedures. 14
Such historical research was part of the search for ideas, approaches, and solutions to the administration
of archives making up a good part of the first generation of modern records professionals (and part of a process that is
certainly not unique for any profession in its early stages of formation). Such research also seemed to be natural for
archivists who usually came into the new field with historical or other humanities training. Writing on archival topics and
issues, including the historical accounts, was all part of building an imagined discipline – part of the self-conscious
discipline building needing to be done as the size of the archival community grew. If an understanding of the nation state
includes “sometimes functionaries and informers, but always files, dossiers, archives, laws, financial records, censuses,
maps, treaties, correspondence, memoranda, and so” as a kind of “wiring,” 15 then the many articles, manuals,
reports, newsletters, and occasional monograph constituting American archival literature likewise play such a role.
Indeed, many of the current debates seem hard-pressed to shake off the concepts and opinions of a few pioneer
writers who happened to be in the time when they could attempt to codify archival practice. Many cannot understand
that their works are also part of the historical record, the old “wiring,” of the profession and may need to be examined
in a different manner. 16
The archival literature of the 1940s and early 1950s brought forth few new or definitive historical studies,
not surprising given the burdens of establishing new programs and the lack of archival education programs (there were
only scattered courses and institutes) then supporting the field. 17Leslie Dunlap's 1944 analysis of the early
development of American historical societies, concentrating on their role as institutions "organized primarily to collect,
preserve, and make available the materials for the history of the United States or a section of it," was by far the best
and most informative of this period. 18By the end of the 1940s, however, the literature was improving rapidly.
Roscoe P. Hill's 1951 history of searches for American records in foreign archives, as well as William B. Hesseltine's
biography of collector and historical society administrator Lyman Copeland Draper a few years later, provided, along
with Dunlap's study, a good introduction to the 19th century origins of the modern archives movement. 19The
twentieth anniversary of the National Archives, its controversial placement under the General Services Administration,
the unfortunate schism between archivists and records managers, the memoirs of a few elder archival statesmen, and
the diversification of the profession stimulated the preparation of a small group of other useful archival histories. 20
By the end of the 1950s, an individual entering the archival profession could find, at least, some
background reading on how the profession had emerged and developed – even if such a reading would produce more
questions than answers. One, in these years, had to approach as a matter of faith that archivy constituted a profession.
The annual meetings of the national associations, such as the Society of American Archivists, were where archivists
would go to reassure themselves that this was the case; fortunately, many of the papers given, often reading like
homilies rather than scholarly treatises, were published in the American Archivist so that others could reach for the
common meaning these meetings provided. Some would argue that this remains the case, but this is true only if reading
is restricted to the archival journals and texts. In the late 1980s, when I asked what archival educators used for
teaching about the history of their own discipline, I discovered that many of these educators avoided the topic because
they believed so little was available for their own or their students’ use. 21This situation has changed to a
considerable degree, and for the better.
The increasing attention to the history of American archives in these years was, perhaps, a minor part of
the search for the common and unifying elements of a profession that had become far more complex than its originators
had ever imagined. All through the 1950s and early 1960s the presidents of the Society of American Archivists harped
upon this theme until, in 1965, W. Kaye Lamb officially "resigned" the profession to the fact that it was "so broad and
varied that no one person can any longer claim to have a detailed knowledge of all its aspects." 22Nevertheless,
some of the profession's chroniclers strived to connect the disparate elements of the archival movement in this country,
again imagining a profession. Companion essays by Layman H. Butterfield and Francis L. Berkeley in the 1954
Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society traced the American concern for records preservation from the
outburst of nationalism in the early 19th century to the work of professional archivists, editors, and historians a century
later. Berkeley 's essay was an admirable summary of the efforts to establish intellectual control over historical
manuscripts with national surveys and the publication of repository guides and archives administration manuals. 23A
few years later, the first single-volume history of the archival profession in all of its variety appeared in the guise of a
festschrift for Herbert A. Kellar. With essays on public archives, pioneer organizations and collectors, historical
editing, microphotography, and the first analysis of the Historical Records Survey, this tome was primarily a reflection
of Kellar's career that, due to the multiplicity of his interests, also accurately portrayed the diverse parameters of the
profession. 24The value of the historical vantage should have rung out for anyone reading the Kellar memorial, but it
perhaps had a more poignant meaning for archivists of the time.
The Kellar volume also was representative of another transitional stage in the profession, the passing of a
generation of leadership. In some cases, as with Herbert A. Kellar, there was pause and honor. More broadly,
however, there was a serious reevaluation of accepted methods and the presentation of and experimentation with new
techniques. The result was a triumvirate of massive, official studies of the predominant archival establishments in this
country--historical societies, state archives, and the National Archives-- calling for specific actions of all kinds,
including more serious study of their history. This was an era of change, and it is perhaps at least part of the
explanation for a burst of reflective volumes that archivists might have feared for not only a loss of their professional
moorings but their collective memory. The debates in the same period about the splintering of the records profession
among archivists and records managers also must have fueled the need for more careful scrutiny about the nature and
development of the key archival programs forming the archival profession. Today, we understand that historical
analysis often creates or detects blanks in the past, consciously and unconsciously, representing an interplay between
power sources, groups, and other societal elements. Michel-Rolph Trouillot refers to these as “silences”: “Silences
enter the process of historical production at four crucial moments: the moment of fact creation (the making of sources
); the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives ); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives ); and
the moment of retrospective significance (the making of history in the final instance).” 25The critical writings
clustered in the space of a few years in the 1960s might represent the effort to create a collective memory by the
archival profession’s leadership also generating more silences . Despite a growing literature, we still have a number of
gaps, omissions, and blanks in understanding records, archives, and the archival profession. Some of this is due to
neglect, but some is also the result of a kind of prevailing official history written by the leading programs themselves.
26Today, we show the results of some of this checkered writing about archival history, as, for example, some
records managers fail to make connections with the origins of their work in the archives discipline and some archivists
squirm to distance themselves from the nature of work performed by records managers, all such activity revealing a
lack of awareness about the origins of records work (as well as sometimes a certain amount of angst about the future
of these fields, public recognition, and available influence to accomplish respective missions).
Three books--Walter Muir Whitehill's Independent Historical Societies , Ernst Posner's American
State Archives, and H. G. Jones's The Records of a Nation --are, with little debate, among the most significant
publications ever produced in the archival profession. 27Now nearing forty years old, these works still remain the
best references on the formative years of the American archival community, as well as being testaments to their own
era as a critical epoch in the development of the archival profession. Few who brand themselves archivists have not
perused these writings (at least without fear of losing insights into why and how American archives appear as they do in
the present). Whitehill, Posner, and Jones each were sponsored by professional organizations 28 to examine
specific problems and summarize the current conditions of the respective institutions. Whitehill explored the "financial
crisis" and mandates of American historical societies, Posner the reasons for the dramatically uneven quality of state
archival agencies, and Jones the then controversial placement of the National Archives under the General Services
Administration.
The success of these books was mixed not because the authors missed their assigned mark but,
especially in the case of Posner's work, because the profession ignored their findings. 29In one sense, they may
have failed because archivists read them as justifications for their discipline rather than action agendas and others with
vested interests in the archival field (such as historians) may not have read them at all. Another work of this period,
Walter Rundell’s In Pursuit of American History: Research and Training in the United States, is even more
revealing of this connection between the archival profession and historical disciplines. Rundell urged much more
rigorous training in the understanding and use of archival sources, and the ignoring of this work’s recommendations
resulted from a historical discipline just then beginning to move away from a dependency on traditional archival
records. 30The silences here result from the historical profession’s sense of power over archivists (archivists were
generally viewed as no more than movers of archival freight by many historians). Within a generation many historians
would even question the need for what the archivists were transporting. 31
Examining the work of Whitehill, Posner, and Jones from a different perspective, as studies of American
archival history, makes all three unqualified successes. Before and since Whitehill, with the one single exception of
Dunlap's earlier book, the studies of American historical societies have tended to be largely commemorative ventures,
celebrating donors and patrons, and isolated to purely institutional concerns often in needless minutiae. 32Much of
Whitehill's book consists of brief institutional sketches, but the author, with a lively style and great affection, also
carefully relates institutional and regional variations and subtleties to the reader. It remains the one single volume that
must be read on this subject. Posner did the same for state archives. Until Posner the profession had been fed a steady
diet of brief, administrative histories that had changed little in three decades or more. 33American State Archives,
however, provided a lengthy chapter on their "genesis and evolution," a state-by-state evaluation, and a careful
summary of findings. Not only did this book become a standard source on this subject, it pleaded throughout for
further study; indeed, whether one is writing a history of state archival development or doing strategic statewide
planning, a perusal of Posner’s work remains a starting point. Jones's book on the National Archives was very similar
to Posner's work, providing not only an excellent history of the federal program but also an evaluation of its status
within the federal bureaucracy. The individual interested in either subject can read with equal profit and, in many ways,
the conflicting missions of this institution addressed by Jones remain important today as the agency is criticized for its
problems in managing electronic records. 34
Whitehill, Posner, and Jones made the 1960s a time that the possibilities of American archival history
were first realized, as they interwove archival history and current professional topics to an extent not seen previously
(and still remaining innovative even by later standards of scholarship and professional research). Jones himself wrote in
the middle of that decade a model history of the origins of a state archival program, praised by Posner as the first
scholarly evaluation of an individual state's records. Its greatest flaw was only what it did not do: it failed to consider
the development of the program from its creation. 35American archival history was now a subject important enough
to attract the attention even of writers of archival manuals and broader historiographical works. T. R. Schellenberg's
1965 manual, despite its then controversial recommendations regarding archival training, is still remarkable for its
considerable attention to the history of methodology, a subject its author devoted little more than a few pages to in his
pioneering manual of a decade before. 36More importantly, the professional historians David D. Van Tassel,
George H. Callcott, O. Lawrence Burnette, and Walter Rundell liberally included archives in histories of American
historical writing and research, 37 a relationship that our historical colleagues had rarely appreciated prior to this
time but have not followed-up on since then despite the rise of interest in public history (although this is seemingly
changing because of new interests in “texts,” memory, and related matters). 38More recent debates about post-
modernism’s impact on historiography, along with new areas on inquiry such as public memory and the history of
literacy, have generated a greater interest in archives, their formation, and their characteristics. Some of this must be
confusing for the archivist, who sees radical new scholarship and methodologies bringing archival sources both into
more intense light and in dismissive evaluations. That an intriguing new study of the footnote appears just as another
historian laments the footnote’s disappearance should suggest to the archivist a greater responsibility not just for
making records available but for understanding why and how records are created and how archival repositories and
their practices have evolved. 39
Historical Writing of the Recent Generations. After the works of Whitehill, Posner, and Jones, the
literature on the history of the archival profession expanded in both quantity and variety, keeping pace for a time with
the growing and widening archival world. On one hand historians of archives returned to traditional topics and studied
them anew and in greater depth. The 1970s were a time of thorough analysis of Southern state archives 40 and the
National Archives, 41 persistent subjects of such writing for two generations. Historical editing, written about by its
pioneer modern practitioners since the early 1950s, 42 also was treated afresh, primarily because of this field's
dramatic growth, spurred by the revitalization of the National Historical Publications Commission (now the National
Historical Publications and Records Commission) since the mid-1960s. Lester Cappon's three essays, published from
1966 to 1978, provide the most complete and authoritative description of this subject. 43The re-discovery of the
Historical Records Survey in the mid-1970s was but another example. Archivists interested in the reference value of
the massive, unpublished, and underutilized records inventories of this 1930s project soon studied its history as well
(searching for the lessons of what happened to promising projects). 44And, finally, a few explored the profession's
formative period under the wings of the academic historians, 45turning to this topic as the archival profession began
to feel tense about its long-term, seemingly stable relationship with its older partners. By the end of the 1970s
archivists, historians, and graduate history students all seemed to be flocking to a newly discovered virgin territory of
research, although the subsequent decades have shown that the momentum was somewhat illusionary (although this
might be changing again as doctoral programs in library and information science schools develop the means for more
detailed studies, historical and otherwise, on archival topics).
Even with the massive upsurge of writing about public memory of the past decade or so, archives and
historical manuscripts have received only cursory attention from outside its own disciplines. Archivists have to burrow
deeply into books about other subjects in order to ferret out nuggets of information about records and archives. A
book with the intriguing title American Archives is really more about what its subtitle indicates, Gender, Race, and
Class in Visual Culture . The study considers how “photographic archives” transformed the ways Americans looked
at themselves and others in the 1839-1910 period, but the photographic archives are not institutional archives but the
processes enabling new forms of photographs, such as calling cards, carte-de-visites, cabinet cards, family photograph
albums, and police photographic records. As the author states, this is not a history of photography but “an examination
of visual paradigms that fundamentally influenced the conception and representation of American identities.” 46In
other words, it is difficult for archivists to recognize when archives are being discussed or even to relate to these
notions of archives. This is not to argue that archivists won’t gain important insights from reading such scholarly studies,
they will, but the volumes often lack understanding in their own right about the nature of archives or miss important
potential areas for inquiry in more traditional concerns such as the formation of archival collections, societal support for
archives, and the challenges of adequate archival description. In some ways, the problems are similar to those posed
by the appropriation by information technologists of the word “archives” in a manner taxing meaningful dialogue
between the technologists and archivists about a crucial matter, the preservation of digital records. While archivists
expected problems with the latter, they are generally surprised now to have problems in communicating with colleagues
from the humanities who used to be the main users of the documents residing in archives.
Progress on researching the history of American archives seems substantial, especially since the mid-
1960s. Much, however, remains to be done, especially as the study on memory and culture expands to include studies
about monuments, museums, and libraries – archives would seem to be coming soon. The vast proportion of excellent
histories concerns only historical societies, federal records, and Southern state archives, leaving gaps in our knowledge
impossible to disregard. Despite a number of studies on colonial record keeping, no one has endeavored to trace the
European precedents and influences; this is especially unfortunate since there is a sufficient literature on European
practices to draw upon. 47Autograph collecting, a popular avocation since the early nineteenth century and
extremely important for the preservation of historical records before the advent of professional archives, has been
treated in only a few studies of early collectors and dealers. 48Perhaps a greater understanding of the avocation
could have helped archivists to avoid the unfortunate debates about replevin in recent years. Even the vast literature on
American state archives has shortchanged local government records, especially those of the municipalities. 49And
finally, college and university archives, one of the fastest growing components of the profession during the past four
decades, have been the subject of less than a handful of historical studies. 50Add to this list other neglected subjects
of archival theory and practice--arrangement and description, training, conservation, reprographics, archival
architecture, and records management (other than federal), to name only a few 51--and the weakness of the
literature on American archival history becomes all too readily apparent. Perhaps its holes are too large and numerous
even to allow at present the preparation of a full history of the profession. More recently, some archivists have delved
into the archives and personal papers documenting their profession in order to consider some very basic archival
functions. One study of the first archival processing manual provides remarkable insights into how such basic texts
develop, 52 while current projects in archival descriptive standards develop useful but not comprehensive
frameworks for understanding the historical foundations for such work. 53Many other such historical studies are
needed, but one wonders what motivates archivists or anyone else for that matter to take up such scholarly pursuits.
A comparison of this research with that on the history of the American historical profession is a telling
indictment of archivists’ neglect, and it is confusing as well (since archivists seem at least as self-reflective as historians
about their own field and fate, one would expect a similar track record in writing about archival history as has occurred
with historiography and the historical discipline). Not only have there been numerous general reviews of the historical
profession's development, extending far back to the 1890s, 54 but also nearly every decade a major reevaluation of
the current state of their craft appears. 55This phenomenon may be a product of their training, emphasizing the
understanding of past work and searching for new interpretations of previously interpreted events. This can, and often
does, produce unoriginal studies with limited appeal for a small coterie of colleagues. 56Nevertheless, such
consistent self-appraisal is healthy. Its practitioners are fully aware of their profession's history and such knowledge is
often effectively utilized in current controversies and debates and experimentation with new techniques and
methodologies. Considering that the many archivists are still (at least partly) trained as historians, however, it is
surprising that they have not followed this precedent. Even if one lined up the increasing number of basic archival
manuals alongside their historical counterparts, archivists would come up short in both number and quality. It is
possible that the lack of visibility of archival manuals and monographs partly explains why historians rarely draw on
archival theory and writings in discussions of archival sources and recordkeeping in general. Even in the more recent
research on historical literacy and public memory highlighting records, one would need to search long and hard in order
to find citations to seminal archival studies, or, even, to gain any appreciation for what archives represent.
What, then, is the problem with archivists and the still scanty histories of this profession? Is such a
historical perspective of so little value? The answer is, obviously, no to the latter question. Not only are many archivists
trained as historians and all vitally concerned with the past in the preservation of records, but nearly every archival
study of any merit commences with some form of historical introduction. Many of the studies mentioned above were
written and published primarily to come to terms with some professional issue, and, as I have argued elsewhere, there
is great practical value in archival history. 57The problem of the unevenness of this historical literature, therefore, lies
elsewhere.
The problem exhibited by a review of the historical literature on archives is a reflection of some
fundamental weaknesses of the profession, not including a disregard for its own history--although that is the ultimate
result. Very few archivists publish anything, partly a reflection of and contributing factor to a poor professional self-
image, legacies of training, and misplaced priorities – as well as the more obvious reasons of conflicting priorities and
other demands on time. 58The struggle by archivists for acceptance by their peers, the professional historians in
academe, also has contributed to an emphasis on the uniqueness of archival work, an avoidance of other historical
scholarship (even on their own profession), and isolation to preparing finding aids and assisting researchers; even much
of what has been written is cast in the form of the administrative history normally expected as part of archival guides.
59Archivists need to understand that contributing to scholarship helping to provide greater knowledge about
records, recordkeeping systems, and archival approaches may be at least as important as preparing catalogues to
records.
Archivists should be able to find evidence of a scholarly interest in archives everywhere. In the most
significant study of printing to appear in thirty years, Adrian Johns writes, “In this age of worldwide networks, e-mail,
fax, photocopiers, word processors, desktop publishing, and satellite communications. . . , it is especially important
that we attain a judicious understanding of the role we accord such devices in our society. Such an understanding will
need to include not just the results of these technologies, but the social and cultural foundations of their authority.”
60Archivists should have a substantial role to play in developing such understanding about recordkeeping
technologies, and the historical approach is an important means by which to accomplish this. Even the newer "public
history" movement, a development at one point promising unlimited potential for the archival profession, was greeted
with suspicion and blatant animosity by some archivists. 61Public history training in graduate schools and other new
archival education programs seemed to provide what has been a missing stimulant to the intensive historical analysis of
the archival profession: systematic classroom examination of the profession's development and characteristics, records
and recordkeeping systems. Unfortunately, there has been little evidence of this after a quarter of a century f public
history programs (and even a falling away of these programs or their emphasis on archives, especially in comparison to
what has happened in library and information science programs). 62
Current Needs for State and Other Archival History Research. What, then, needs to be
accomplished in the field of American archival history? First, there is a need for extensive state histories, like that by H.
G. Jones, explaining the efforts and relationships of historical societies, private collectors and antiquarians, professional
historians, public programs, and college and university archives. The local scene provides the best mechanism for
carefully and exhaustively examining archival origins, progress, and successes and failures, partly because of the stress
by archives and historical manuscripts programs on the locality. 63Institutional analyses, the most common
approach by archivists interested in their own history, will only be of value if their institution's development is
consistently tied to a broader perspective of professional, cultural, and local developments. The January 2000 news
stories in the Toledo Blade decrying the destruction of forty-six volumes of mostly nineteenth century prison records
by the Ohio Historical Society (serving as the archives for the Ohio state government) cannot be understood by merely
examining the current events but must be seen in the light of a state government that abdicated (at least partially) its
responsibility for managing its own archival records. 64
Second, using local histories, studies of the regional variations of archival repositories should be
attempted. Why have the Southern states been so much more successful than most other regions? Why did a region so
rich in history and manifesting so many expressions of an interest in this history, like New England , develop state
government archives generally possessing fewer resources and less authority for managing records. Why have local
government programs been so neglected across the various regions? The regional variations need to be tested against
the general populace’s interest in history, an interest that is considerable. A recent study, based on an extensive survey
of a cross-section of the populace, concludes, “Almost every American deeply engaged the past, and the past that
engages them most deeply is that of their family.” The creation of diaries, photographic albums, and other such
documents and the interaction of Americans at historic sites and history museums are provided as part of the evidence.
65The building and supporting of archival repositories need to be examined within such a context. Is such interest a
new phenomenon, or has it been expressed in earlier eras and in different or similar ways?
Third, it would be of tremendous value to have one single-volume synthesis of the history of American
archives, whether composed by an individual or a team of researchers, something I have mentioned over twenty years
and which remains lacking. Again, there is a need for a variety of state archival histories in order for this to happen,
perhaps explaining the continuing absence of such a history. Such a volume could endeavor to trace this history from
the pioneer antiquarians, collectors, and editors through the professionalization of history and the birth of the modern
archives movement to the present problems of the field. A work of this magnitude would be a substantial contribution
to the knowledge of historical studies in the United States and an excellent reference for the continuing efforts to
resolve contemporary problems and issues. The late Victor Gondos's book on Jameson's long lobbying effort for the
establishment of a national archives, for example, has become highly relevant in light of recent federal policies seriously
hampering the archival profession. 66Such a work could draw attention to the archives field from other scholars,
especially those interested in public memory, as well as serve to rescue the notion of archives from the postmodernists
who, while contributing useful studies, have also blurred the concept so as to make it mean nearly anything. 67
The following extended essay is an effort to provide another state archival history, the first since H.G.
Jones and his work on North Carolina forty years ago. The volume is a chronological essay, with some diversions to
consider the development of prominent archival repositories in Maryland . This study focuses on institutional evolution
rather than political, socio-economic, or even professional analyses such as the formation of a professional community
of archivists or the adoption and adaptation of archival science principles and methods. It is the framework of archival
development in one state, suggesting the need for studies by others to answer questions raised by this study.
Personally, I believe the institutional focus is appropriate since it is generally the creation and evolution of archival
programs that suggest both the nature and health of the archival impulse in society. Understanding individual collecting
or hoarding of documents, the debates over selecting materials for inclusion in archival repositories, or the
controversies generated about truth and the meaning of texts are all extraordinarily important in understanding society
and its interests in archives, but it is the establishment of archives and records programs that may represent the most
critical aspect of such interests. Certainly archival programs have been greatly affected by debates about historical
interpretative exhibitions, such as the Smithsonian’s Enola Gay exhibition in the mid-1990s, 68 but archival
programs have always been affected by such controversies and these impacts are only some of many influencing what
archives do and how they carry out their mandates.
The study is unabashedly progressive in tone, something my critics should note that I confess to at the
outset. I also confess that this is an old-fashioned kind of study. I write from the conviction that the care and
preservation of Maryland 's archives and historical records improved in the three and a half centuries described here.
However, it is not a naive study (at least, I do not think it is). I am convinced that there are many problems unresolved
in Maryland 's archival history. The Maryland State Archives, for example, has evolved to have little influence on
national archival affairs; despite a major new building, its staff are not very visible in professional circles and the state
archives continues to have a reputation for serving genealogists and Early American scholars (important groups but not
all there is to the reasons why archives are important). The Baltimore City Archives, one of the first municipal archives,
also evolved from strength to weakness to strength and back to nearly a dormant condition. There is also a weak
statewide archival community, despite the presence of many fine archival programs and one of the major education
programs at the University of Maryland at College Park (which seems to look more into the nation's capital than into
Maryland ). There are, of course, fine archivists working in Maryland , and their presence is the legacy of the
development of archives described here.
This study is also partly autobiographical. Maryland is my home state. It is also where I spent the first
decade of my career, first at the Maryland Historical Society and then at the Baltimore City Archives. Perhaps, then, I
share blame for why the municipal archives did not work or for later weaknesses in the state’s archival community. I
have also included a brief comparative essay at the conclusion of this study considering other states -- Alabama, New
York, and Pennsylvania -- different in region and archival development and also the site of other aspects of my
archival career. My personal involvement in many of the events and institutions described in this volume provide
insights, I believe, that I would not otherwise have, but I leave it to readers to evaluate this for themselves.
1 Two recent examples, completed by historians, are Donna Merwick, Death of a Notary: Conquest and Change in Colonial New York (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1999) and Tamara Plakins Thornton, Handwriting in America : A Cultural History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).
2 The debate in question is that generated by Nicholson Baker’s Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper ( New York : Random House, 2001) where the author depicts the library and archives function as warehouses. For my responses about his view, see my “The Great Newspaper Caper: Backlash in the Digital Age,” First Monday 5- (December 4, 2000), available at http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_12/cox/ , and a review of Baker’s Double Fold , “No Folding Up: Responding to Nicholson Baker’s Double Fold ,” Archival Outlook (May/June 2001) and available on the Society of American Archivists’ web site, http://www.archivists.org . A longer review is in press, “Nicholson Baker’s Double Fold and Its Implications for the International Archival Community,” Archival Science .
3 See my Documenting Localities: A Practical Model for American Archivists and Manuscripts Curators (Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press and Society of American Archivists, 1996) for further exploration of this topic.
4 These kinds of attitudes, especially emanating from aggressive planning, are discussed in my first book, American Archival Analysis: The Recent Development of the Archival Profession in the United States (Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1990).
5 Thomas Bender, Intellect and Public Life: Essays on the Social History of Academic Intellectuals in the United States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), p. 46.
6 "The Manuscript Sources of American History: The Conspicuous Collections Extant," Magazine of American History 18 (July 1887); reprinted in the Papers of the American Historical Association (New York: American Historical Association, 1889) 3:9-27.
7 The Life and Writings of Jared Sparks: Comprising Selections from His Journals and Correspondence, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1983). It is surprising, and regrettable, that Sparks still has not been the subject of a modern biography.
8 For a good recent introduction to such matters, refer to Ernst A. Breisach, American Progressive History: An Experiment in Modernization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
9 Compare, for example, Richard J. Evans, In Defense of History (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1999); Elizabeth Fox and Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, eds. Reconstructing History: The Emergence of a New Historical Society (New York: Routledge, 1999); Theodore S. Hamerow, R eflections on History and Historians (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987); David Harlan, The Degradation of American History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); and Lawrence W. Levine, The Opening of the American Mind: Canons, Culture and History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996).
10 J. M. Toner, "Some Account of George Washington's Library and Manuscript Records and Their Dispersion from Mount Vernon, With an Excerpt of Three Months From His Diary in 1774 While Attending the First Continental Congress, With Notes," American Historical Association Annual Report 1892 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1893), 73-169; Victor Hugo Paltsits, "Tragedies in New York's Public Records," American Historical Association Annual Report 1909 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1911), 369-78 (this article also was published in the Magazine of History 12 [July 1910]: (36-42); and Paltstits, "An Historical Resume of the Public Archives Commission from 1899 to 1921," American Historical Association Annual Report 1922 , 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926), 1:152-60.
11 Mitchell B. Garrett, "The Preservation of Alabama History," North Carolina Historical Review 5 (January 1928): 3-19; Philip M. Hamer "The Preservation of Tennessee History," Ibid. 6(April 1929); 127-39; J. G. deRoulhac Hamilton, "The Preservation of North Carolina History," Ibid. 4(January 1927); 3-21; Theodore H. Jack, "The Preservation of Georgia History," Ibid., 4(July 1927): 239-51; Grace King, "The Preservation of Louisiana History," Ibid. 5(October 1928): 363-71; Charles W. Ramsdell, "The Preservation of Texas History," Ibid. 6(January 1929): 1-16; James A. Robertson, "The Preservation of Florida History," Ibid. 4(October 1927); 351-65; A. S. Salley, Jr., "Preservation of South Carolina History," Ibid. 4(April 1927); 145-57; David Y. Thomas, "The Preservation of Arkansas History," Ibid. 5(July 1928): 263-74; Lyon G. Tyler, "Preservation of Virginia History," Ibid. 3 (October 1926): 529-38; and William H. Weathersby, "The Preservation of Mississippi History," Ibid. 5(April 1928): 141-50.
12 Philip M. Hamer, "The Records of Southern History," Journal of Southern History 5(February 1939): 3-17 and J. G. deRoulhac Hamilton , "Three Centuries of Southern Records, 1607-1907," Ibid. 10(February 1944): 3-36.
13 A sense of these debates and discussions can be seen in my Managing Records as Evidence and Information ( Westport , Conn. : Quorum Books, 2001). The first two chapters of this volume discuss the critical responsibility of defining records.
14 Christopher B. Coleman, " Indiana Archives," American Archivist 1(October 1938): 201-14; R. H. Woody, "The Public Records of South Carolina ," Ibid. 2(October 1939): 263; Edwin Adams Davis, "Archival Development in the Lower Mississippi Valley," Ibid. 3(January 1940): 39-46; Harriet Smither, "The Archives of Texas," Ibid. 3(July 1940): 187-200; Siert F. Riepma, "A Soldier-Archivist and His Records: Major General Fred C. Ainsworth," Ibid. 4(July 1941): 178-87; Edward F. Rowse, "The Archives of New York," Ibid. 4(October 1941): 267-7; Waldo Gifford Leland, "Historians and Archivists in the First World War," Ibid. 5(January 1942): 1-17; William D. Overman, "Ohio Archives," Ibid. 5(January 1942): 36-39; Henry P. Beers, "Historical Development of the Records Disposal Policy of the Federal Government Prior to 1934," Ibid. 7(July 19): 181-201; Carl L. Lokke, "The Captured Confederate Records Under Francis Lieber," Ibid. 9(October 1946): 277-31; Henry Howard Eddy, "The Archival Program of Pennsylvania," Ibid. 12(July 1949): 255-66; William D. McCain, "History and Program of the Mississippi State Department of Archives and History," Ibid. 13(January 1950): 27-34; J. H. Easterby, "The Archives of South Carolina," Ibid. 16(January 1953): 39-44.
The American Archivist has never had a monopoly on the archival literature. In these early years a number of other noteworthy studies appeared in other journals including, for example, Dallas Irvine, "The Genesis of the Official Records ," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 24(1937): 221-29; "The Fate of Confederate Archives," American Historical Review 44(July 1939): 823-41; and "The Archives Office of the War Department, Repository of Captured Confederate Archives, 1865-1881," Military Affairs 10(Spring 46): 93-111. I would strongly contend, however, that the vast quantity of such studies has appeared in this single journal and that such articles are far more widely read in it because of easier and wider access to the archival profession.
15 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 1991), p. 160. See also Thomas Richards, The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of Empire (London: Verso, 1993).
16 This can be dramatically seen in the debates about electronic records management. See my "Searching for Authority: Archivists and Electronic Records in the New World At the Fin-de-Sie ¢ cle," First Monday (January 2000), available at http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_1/cox/index.html, for a discussion of this.
17 It has only been in the past decade or so that graduate archival education has begun to mature to the point where the curriculum was comprehensive enough to support a substantial historical orientation. Even now, with the competing needs for more information technology and other knowledge areas necessary for equipping experts for managing modern records systems, historical perspectives can be neglected or minimized. The fact that the more comprehensive education programs are being established in library and information science schools may also work against the support of a historical perspective in archival education, although my more than a decade of experience in such a school suggests that this should not be a serious issue. For the most comprehensive account of the recent development of American archival education, refer to Richard J. Cox, Elizabeth Yakel, David Wallace, Jeannette Bastian, and Jennifer Marshall, "Archival Education in North American Library and Information Science Schools: A Status Report," Library Quarterly , forthcoming.
18 American Historical Societies, 1790-1860 (Madison, Wisconsin: privately printed, 1944).
19 Hill, American Missions in European Archives (Mexico: Instituto Pan Americano De Geografia e Historia, 1951) and Hesseltine, Pioneer's Mission : The Story of Lyman Copeland Draper (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1954). Little additional work has been completed on these subjects except, for example, Nicholas Falco, "The Empire State's Search in European Archives," American Archivist 32(April 1969): 109-23 and John Francis Bannon, "Herbert Eugene Bolton: His Guide in the Making," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 73 (July 1969): 35-55.
20 Robert H. Bahmer, "The National Archives After 20 Years," American Archivist 18(July 1955): 195-205; Herbert E. Angel, "Federal Records Management Since the Hoover Commission Report," Ibid. 16(January 1953): 13-26; Victor Gondos, Jr., "The Era of the Woodruff File," Ibid. 19(October 1956): 303-20; Bess Glenn, "The Taft Commission and the Government's Record Practices," Ibid. 21(July 1958): 277-303; Robert W. Krauskopf, "The Hoover Commissions and Federal Recordkeeping," Ibid. 21(October 1958): 371-99; Harold T. Pinkett, "Investigations of Federal Record-keeping, 1887-1906," Ibid. 21(April 1958): 163-92 and "The Forest Service, Trail Blazer in Recordkeeping Methods," Ibid. 22(October 1959); 419-26; Fred Shelley, "The Interest of J. Franklin Jameson in the National Archives: 1908-1934," Ibid. 12(April 1949): 99-130 and "Manuscripts in the Library of Congress: 1800-1900," Ibid. 11(January 1948): 3-19; Elizabeth Donnan and Leo F. Stock, eds., An Historian's World: Selections from the Correspondence of John Franklin Jameson , Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 42 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1956); R. D. W. Connor, "FDR Visits the National Archives," American Archivist 12(October 19); 323-32; Waldo G. Leland, "The First Conference of Archivists, December 1909: The Beginnings of a Profession," Ibid. 13(April 1950): 109-20, "Some Early Recollections of an Itinerant Historian," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 61(October 1951): 267-96; "The Story of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library," Archivi 1(1951): 47-52, "R. D. W. Connor, First Archivist of the United States," American Archivist 16(January 1953): 45-54; "The Creation of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library: A Personal Narrative," Ibid. 18(January 1955): 11-29; "John Franklin Jameson," Ibid. 19(July 1956); 195-201; and "The Prehistory and Origins of the National Historical Publications Commission," Ibid. 27(April 1964): 187-94; Henry J. Browne, "The American Catholic Archival Tradition," Ibid. 14(April 1951): 127-39; William Warren Sweet, "Church Archives in the United States," Ibid. 14(October 1951): 323-31; Lester J. Cappon, "Archival Good Works for Theologians," Ibid. 22(July 1959): 297-307; and Oliver W. Holmes, "Some Reflections on Business Archives in the United States," Ibid. 17(October 1954): 291-304.
21 See my "The History of Primary Sources in Graduate Education: An Archival Perspective," Special Collections 4, no. 2 (1990): 39-78.
22 Philip C. Brooks, "Archivists and Their Colleagues: Common Denominators," American Archivist 14(January 1951): 33-45; Wayne C. Grover, "Archives: Society and Profession," Ibid. 18(January 1955): 3-10; Morris Radoff, "What Should Bind Us Together," Ibid. 19(January 1956): 3-9, Mary Givens Bryan, "Changing Times," Ibid. 24 (January 1961): 3-10; and W. Kaye Lamb, "The Changing Role of the Archivist," Ibid. 29(January 1966): 7.
23 Francis L. Berkeley, Jr., "History and Problems of the Control of Manuscripts in the United States ," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 98(June 15, 1954): 171-78 and Lyman H. Butterfield, "Archival and Editorial Enterprise in 1850 and in 1950: Some Comparisons and Contrasts," Ibid., 159-70.
24 William B. Hesseltine and Donald R. McNeil, eds., In Support of Clio: Essays in Memory of Herbert A. Keller (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1958). Contributors included George L. Anderson, G. Philip Bauer, Lester J. Cappon, Lucile M. Kane, David L. Smiley, David D. Van Tassel, James A. Tinsley, and Richard D. Younger.
25 Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), p. 26.
26 A very recent example of this are the articles about the National Historical Publications and Records Commission written mostly by current and former staff of this program and published in the American Archivist 63 (Spring/Summer 2000): 16-96. Contrast these articles, almost representing public relations releases, with the scholarship reflected by Barbara L. Craig and James M. O’Toole, “Looking at Archives in Art,” pp. 97-125 and Elisabeth Kaplan, “We Are We Collect, We Collect What We Are: Archives and the Construction of Identity,” pp. 126-151.
27 Whitehill, Independent Historical Societies: An Enquiry Into Their Research and Publication Functions and Their Financial Future (Boston: Boston Athenaeum, 1962); Posner, American State Archives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964); and Jones, The Records of a Nation: Their Management, Preservation, and Use (New York: Atheneum, 1969).
28 Whitehill was sponsored by the Council on Library Resources, Posner by the CLR and the Society of American Archivists, and Jones by the American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, and the SAA.
29 See, especially, H. G. Jones's comments on the neglect of Posner's book in his "The Pink Elephant Revisited," American Archivist 43(Fall 1980): 473-81.
30 Walter Rundell, In Pursuit of American History: Research and Training in the United States (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970).
31 For a balanced account on the present challenges in the use of archival sources in light of postmodernist approaches, see Richard J. Evans, In Defense of History (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1999).
32 Representative histories include the following: Mrs. John Trotwood Moore, "The Tennessee Historical Society, 1849-1918," Tennessee Historical Quarterly 3(September 1944): 195-225; Floyd C. Shoemaker, The State Historical Society of Missouri: A Semicentennial History (Columbia: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1948); Mary W. Bethel and Harold D. Cater, "The Minnesota Historical Society: Highlights of a Century," Minnesota History 30(December 199): 293-330; Robert W. G. Vail, Knickerbocker Birthday: A Sesqui-Centennial History of the New-York Historical Society, 1804-1954 (New York: New-York Historical Society, 1954); Stephen T. Riley, The Massachusetts Historical Society, 1791-1959 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1959); Richard Simmons, "The Historical Society of Delaware 1864-1964," Delaware History 11(April 1964):3-34; George R. Brooks, "The First Century of the Missouri Historical Society," Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society 22(April 1966): 273-301; and Christopher P. Bickford, The Connecticut Historical society 1925-1975: A Brief Illustrated History (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1975).
33 See, for example, William J. Peterson, " Iowa -The Challenge of the Archives," American Archivist 26(July 1963); 327-31; Frank G. Evans, "The Many Faces of the Pennsylvania Archives," Ibid. 27(April 1964): 269-83; and Linwood F. Ross, "The Adoption of an Archival Program for Maine ," Ibid. 29(July 1966): 395-402. Compare these to the earlier state essays mentioned in previous notes.
34 For example, The March 6, 2000 issue of NCC Washington Update , Vol. 6, #7, carried two conflicting reports by Page Putnam Miller, Director of the National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History. The first item reported that on March 6 th the “Supreme Court issued a one sentence statement denying the November 4 petition of Public Citizen -- joined by the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the National Security Archive, the American Library Association, the Center for National Security Studies, and several researchers -- requesting the review of the Appeals Court ruling that upheld the National Archives' regulations that allow agencies to routinely destroy word processing and electronic mail records of historic value if an electronic, paper or microform copy has been made for recordkeeping purposes.” In another item, Miller mentions that a “ Federal Computer Week article of the same date points out, about 13,698 e-mail messages are produced each day at the White House and the National Archives is struggling over what to do at the end of the Clinton Presidency with the 30 to 40 million e-mail messages created by the Clinton Administration. Michael Miller, the director of Modern Records Programs at the National Archives, states in the article that this large amount of e-mail is more than the Archives can properly preserve with current technology. He further states that the Archives needs to develop new methods of searching and retrieving items so that privacy is protected.” That the National Archives would issue a press release believing itself to be vindicated by the Supreme Court decision reveals an agency still struggling to determine its purpose and still conflicted about its own history.
35 For History's Sake: The Preservation and Publication of North Carolina History 1663-1903 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966). For Posner's review see the American Archivist 30(January 1967): 167. A number of other histories of this program have updated Jones's history; see Henry S. Stroupe, "The North Carolina Department of Archives and History--The First Half Century," North Carolina Historical Review 31(April 1954): 184-200; Fannie Memory Blackwelder, "The North Carolina Records Management Program," Ibid. 36(July 1959): 340-57; and, especially, Jeffrey J. Crow, ed., Public History in North Carolina 1903-1978: The Proceedings of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary Celebration March 7, 1978 (Raleigh, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History, 1979).
36 The Management of Archives (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965). Compare this to his earlier Modern Archives: Principles and Techniques (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956).
37 Van Tassel, Recording America's Past: An Interpretation of the Development of Historical Studies in America 1607-1884 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960); Callcott, History in the United States 1800-1860: Its Practice and Purpose (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1970); Burnette, Beneath the Footnote: A Guide to the Use and Preservation of American Historical Societies (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1969); and Rundell, In Pursuit of American History: Research and Training in the United States (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970).
38 For evidence that American historians have continued to ignore the importance of the historical evolution of archives and historical manuscripts repositories, see my "The Concept of Public Memory and Its Impact on Archival Public Programming," Archivaria 36 (Autumn 1993): 122-35 .
39 Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997). The essay on the disappearance of footnotes is found in Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Looking Into the Abyss: Untimely Thoughts on Culture and Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), pp. 122-130.
40 Joseph Hart Brandon, "A History of the Official Records of the Colony and State of Georgia," Ph.D. diss., Emory University, 1974; Richard J. Cox, "The Origins of Archival Development in Maryland, 1634-1934," Master's thesis, University of Maryland, 1978; Lilla Mills Hawes and Albert S. Britt, Jr., eds., The Search for Georgia's Colonial Records , Georgia Historical Society Collections, vol. 18 (Savannah: Georgia Historical Society, 1976); Robert R. Simpson, "Leland to Connor: An Early Survey of American State Archives," American Archivist 36(October 1973):513-22, Simpson, "The Origin of the Arkansas History Commission," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 32(Autumn 1973): 241-54; Simpson, "The Origin of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History," Journal of Mississippi History 35(February 1973): 1-13; and Simpson; "The Origin of State Departments of Archives and History in the South," Ph.d. diss., University of Mississippi, 1971.
41 Alan H. Ginsberg, "The Historian as Lobbyist: J. Franklin Jameson and the Historical Archives of the Federal Government," Ph.D. diss., Louisiana State University, 1973; Victor Gondos, Jr. J. Franklin Jameson and the Birth of the National Archives, 1906-1926 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981); Milton O. Gustafson, "The Empty Shrine: The Transfer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the National Archives," American Archivist 39(July 1976): 271-85; Arnold Hirshon, "The Scope, Accessibility and History of Presidential Papers," Government Publications Review 1(Fall 1974): 363-90; Louise Lovely, "The Evolution of Presidential Libraries," Prologue 7(Fall 1975); 137-50; McCoy, "The Crucial Choice: The Appointment of R. D. W. Connor as Archivist of the United States," American Archivist 37(July 1974); 399-413; and McCoy, The National Archives: American's Ministry of Documents 1934-1968 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978).
42 See, for example, Julian P. Boyd, " God's Alter Needs Not Our Polishings," New York History 39(January 1958): 3-21; Philip M. Hamer," '... authentic documents tending to elucidate our History,'" American Archivist 25(January 1962): 3-13; Lyman H. Butterfield and Julian P. Boyd, "Historical Editing in the United States," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 72(1963): 283-327;and Lyman H. Butterfield, "Editing American Historical Documents," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 78(1966): 81-104.
43 Lester J. Cappon, "A Rationale for Historical Editing Past and Present," William and Mary Quarterly , 3rd series, 23(January 1966): 56-75; "American Historical Editors Before Jared Sparks: "They Will Plant a Forest ...,'" Ibid., 3rd series, 30(July 1973): 375-400; and "Jared Sparks: The Preparation of an Editor," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 90(1978): 3-21. See also the following: Lyman H. Butterfield, "Worthington Chauncey Ford, Editor," Ibid. 83(1971): 46-82 and Fredrika J. Teute, "A Historiographical Perspective in Historical Editing," American Archivist 43(Winter 1980): 43-56.
44 Leonard Rapport, "Dumped from a Wharf into Casco Bay: The Historical Records Survey Revisited," American Archivist 37(April 1974): 201-10; Edward C. Papenfuse, "'A Modicum of Commitment': The Present and Future Importance of the Historical Records Survey," Ibid. 37 (April 1974): 211-21; Loretta Hefner, comp., The WPA Historical Records Survey: A Guide to the Unpublished Inventories, Indexes, and Transcripts (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1980); Edward Francis Barrese, "The Historical Records Survey: A Nation Acts to Save Its Memory," Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1980; Chester W. Bowie, "The Wisconsin Historical Records Survey, Then and Now," American Archivist 37(April 1974): 247-61; Trudy Huskamp Peterson, "The Iowa Historical Records Survey, 1936-1942," Ibid. 37(April 1974) 223-45; Don Farran, "The Historical Records Survey in Iowa, 1936-1942," Annals of Iowa , 3rd series, 42(Spring 75): 597-608; and James A. Hanson, "The Historical Records Survey in Wyoming: 1936-1942," Annals of Wyoming 45(Spring 1973): 69-91.
45 William F. Birdsall, "The American Archivists' Search for Professional Identity, 1909-1936," Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin , 1973; "The Two Sides of the Desk: The Archivist and the Historian, 1909-1935," American Archivist 38(April 1975): 159-73; and "Archivists, Librarians, and Issues During the Pioneering Era of the American Archival Movement," Journal of Library History 14(Fall 1979): 457-79.
46 Shawn Michelle Smith, American Archives: Gender, Race, and Class in Visual Culture (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 7.
47 See, for example, Frank B. Evans, comp. The History of Archives Administration: A Select Bibliography (Vendome: Imprimerie des Presses Universitaires de France for UNESCO, 1979). Two examples that draw some parallels and demonstrate some promise for future work are Mygene Daniels, "The Ingenious Pen: American Writing Implements form the Eighteenth Century to the Twentieth," American Archivist 3(Summer 1980): 312-2 and Laetitia Yeandle, "The Evolution of Handwriting in the English-Speaking Colonies of America," Ibid. 43(Summer 1980): 294-311.
48 Not including, of course, men like Draper, Force, Hazard, and Sparks , mentioned in other contexts above. Lester J. Cappon, "Walter R. Benjamin and the Autograph Trade at the Turn of the Century," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 78(1966); 20-37; Joseph Edward Fields, "Israel K. Tefft--Pioneer Collector," Manuscript 6 (Spring 54): 130-35; Francis C. Haber, "Robert Gilmor, Jr.--Pioneer American Autograph Collector," Ibid. 7(Fall 1954): 13-17; and W. R. Quynn, "Jacob Engelbrecht: Collector of Autograph Letters (1797-1878)," Maryland Historical Magazine 56(December 1961): 399-408. See, also, Charles Hamilton, Great Forgers and Famous Fakes: The Manuscript Forgers of America and How They Duped the Experts (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. 1980), a popular history with numerous illustrations that shows the potential of more scholarly work in this subject.
49 A general overview is Richard J. Cox, "A Reappraisal of Municipal Records in the United States ," Public Historian 3(Winter 1981): 49-63. Other articles of miscellaneous value include Cox, "The Plight of American Municipal Archives: Baltimore, 1729-1979," American Archivist 42(July 1979): 281-92 – incorporated into this volume; Jean T. Kadooka-Mardfin, "The Municipal Archives of the City and County of Honolulu--Its Creation and Collection," Records Management Quarterly 11(April 1977): 38-40;and A. J. Wall, "The Printing of the Records of the City of New York in the Days of William M. Tweed by the 'Ring'," New York Historical Society Bulletin 7(October 1923): 88-97.
50 Maynard Brichford, "Academic Archives: Uberlieferungsbidung," American Archivist 43(Fall 1980): 449-60; Clifford Shipton, "The Harvard University Archives in 1938 and in 1969," Harvard Library Bulletin 18(April 1970): 205-11; and Annable Straus, "College and University Archives: Three Decades of Development," College & Research Libraries 40(September 1979): 432-39.
51 The following represent nearly the entire literature in these subjects: Richard C. Berner, "Arrangement and Description: Some Historical Observations," American Archivist 41(April 1978): 169-81; Frank B. Evans, "Modern Methods of Arrangement of Archives in the Untied States," Ibid. 29(April 1966): 241-63; Mario D. Fenyo, "The Record Group Concept: A Critique," Ibid. 29(April 1966): 229-39; Evans, "Postappointment Archival Training in American Universities, 1938-68," Ibid. 31(April 1968): 135-54; Ernst Posner, "Archival Training in the United States," Archivum 4(1954): 35-47; James L. Gear, "Lamination After 30 Years: Record and Prospect," American Archivist 28(April 1965): 293-97 and "The Repair of Documents--American Beginnings," Ibid. 26(October 1963): 469-75; "History of a Barrow Lab, or The Thirty Years that Revolutionized Paper, Publishers Weekly 189(April 4, 1966): 72-73, 76, 78, 80; Leon DeValinger, Jr., "Lamination of Manuscripts at the Delaware State Archives 1938-64," American Archivist 28(April 1965): 290-93: Rolland E. Stevens, "The Microfilm Revolution," Library Trends 19(January 1971): 379-95; Allen B. Veaner, Ed., Studies in Micropublishing 1853-1976: Documentary Sources , Microform Review Series in Library Micrographic Management (Westport, Conn.: Microform Review, Inc., 1977); Gene Waddell, "Robert Mills's Fireproof Building," South Carolina Historical Magazine 80(1979): 105-35; and Evans, "Archivists and Records Managers: Variations on a Theme," American Archivist 30(January 1967): 35-58.
52 Robert F. Reynolds, "The Incunabula of Archival Theory and Practice in the United States : J. C. Fitzpatrick's Notes on the Care, Cataloguing, Calendaring and Arranging of Manuscripts and the Public Archives Commission's Uncompleted 'Primer of Archival Economy,'" American Archivist 54 (Fall 1991): 466-82.
53 "Report of the Working Group on Standards for Archival Description," American Archivist 52 (Fall 1989): 440-61.
54 Just a few of the comprehensive reviews of American historical writing include the following: J. Franklin Jameson, The History of Historical Writing in America (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1937); H. H. Bellot, American History and American Historians (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1952); Harvey Wish, The American Historian: A Social-Intellectual History of the Writing of the American Past (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960); and Bert James Loewenberg, American History in American Thought: Christopher Columbus to Henry Adams (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972).
55 If one does not believe this, one may examine an example of these reevaluations, especially the editor's introductory essay; Michael Kammen, ed., The Past Before Us: Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980).
56 For such complaints by both professional and amateur historians, see Oscar Handlin, Truth in History (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1979) and C. L. Sonnichsen, The Ambidextrous Historian: Historical Writers and Writing in the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981).
57 See my American Archival Analysis , chapter eight.
58 Lester J. Cappon, "Tardy Scholars Among the Archivists," American Archivist 21(January 1958): 3-16 and David Mycue, "The Activist as Scholar: A Case for Research by Archivist," Georgia Archive 7(Fall 1979): 10-16.
59 Karl L. Trever, "Administrative History in Federal Archives," American Archivist 4(July 1941): 159-69, a classic essay which has seemingly set the tone for succeeding generations of archivists.
60 Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 637.
61 David A. Clary, "Trouble Is My Business: A Private View of 'Public' History," American Archivist 44(Spring 1981): 105-12, is an especially and, I might add, unnecessarily caustic view of this subject.
62 See my essay with Elizabeth Yakel, David Wallace, Jeannette Bastian, and Jennifer Marshall, "Archival Education in North American Library and Information Science Schools: A Status Report," Library Quarterly , forthcoming. A shorter version of this is also scheduled for publication in the Journal of Education for Library and Information Science . This essay demonstrates the vast changes in library and information science programs supporting archival studies or science.
63 My Documenting Localities considers this emphasis. For a review essay on this book, see Brien Brothman, “Where’s Home? Documenting Locality at the Dawn of the Electronic Age,” Archivaria 47 (Spring 1999): 151-157.
64 The articles were James Drew, “Special Report: How Historic Records End Up as History,” Toledo Blade , 23 January 2000; James Drew, “Historian Decries Loss of Prison Registers,” Toledo Blade , 26 January 2000 – these were available through the paper’s online archives at http://www.toledoblade.com . The news story needs to be read in the light of the state government’s history in managing its records, such as that provided by Dennis East, “The Ohio Historical Society and Establishment of the State’s Archives: A Tale of Angst and Apathy,” American Archivist 55 (Fall 1992): 562-577.
65 Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 22.
66 Gondos, Jameson (see note 41 for a full citation). Another example is an analysis of the Historical Records Survey primarily as a public welfare program of the Depression years, measuring its success in that light as well as its value to the historical community; Burl Noggle, Working With History: The Historical Records Survey in Louisiana and the Nation, 1936-1942 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981).
67 Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression , trans. Eric Prenowitz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
68 See, for example, Steven C. Dubin, Displays of Power: Controversy in the American Museum from the Enola Gay to Sensation (New York: New York University Press, 1999); Martin Harwit, An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of Enola Gay (New York: Copernicus, 1996); and Edward T. Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt, eds., History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1996).