Archives in popular culture, libraries, values in roots work, history, and beyond
This week I'll be writing, as always, about archives, libraries, genealogy, and other related subjects. Enjoy!
Good early afternoon everyone! I hope you all had a productive week. I published a post looking at 10 amazing libraries in animation. Likely, it will be the last list of amazing / beautiful / stunning libraries I publish on there. My number of posts on that blog is slowing down and soon I may put it on a temporary hiatus. We will see what happens. With that, let me move on with the rest of my newsletter.
In the world of archives, my colleagues at the NSA (the good NSA, not the one that spies on you) wrote about the Israeli attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981, the Corpus Christi massacre in Mexico in 1971, and arrests creating the first possibility of justice for victims of Guatemalan death squads. In terms of archives in popular culture, Samantha Cross had a post about Mystic Archives of Dantalian. She described it much better than what I can come up with in my review last September, noting that “Dalian is referred to as both an archives and the biblioteca as if the two were the same,” and calls Huey’s access to Dalian as “a clusterfuck of sexual politics wrapped up in a very short sequence.” She also noted that the very concept of an archives is absent, with “no organization or arrangement of the materials,” and noted that the title has no significance apart from making it attractive to the audience. She concludes by noting that since archives are less known and understood in pop culture media, they are “the go-to alternate term when a creator doesn't want to use the word library,” with an archives being whatever a creator wants because there isn’t a “solid idea of what an archives is in pop culture for anyone outside the profession to protest.” I agree with what she is saying about archives, as she is completely right.
I talked a little with her about it on Twitter if you are interested in reading that. AP compiled an analysis of police misconduct record laws in all 50 states, while the Hingham Archives focused on Marion Teague getting an award for “researching and preserving the history of Black and Indigenous people in Hingham,” the SAA’s Web Archiving Section examining how voices of marginalized communities at Arizona State University have been preserved with web archiving, the importance of incorporating DEIA and archival compensation recommendations at the SAA, and John Henry Adams discussing the Women and the Temperance Movement Primary Source Set in The American Archivist Reviews Portal. Also worth reading is the May/June 2021 issue of The Archival Outlook.
There were some wonderful blogs about libraries which I read in the past week, including some on flexibility in a MLIS program, recommendations for mental health books, changing roles of libraries, and why libraries should have dedicated social media pages. It was exciting to hear about a renovation of a public library in Manhattan and an event on June 3 titled “Manuscript Research Orientation Featuring LGBTQ Topics.” Despite these positives, public libraries need money for improvements, with a recent article noting that “the average public library building is 40 years old, but hundreds are more than 100 years old,” summarizing an ALA study. The findings are, honestly, not that surprising for me to hear, as it might be, in some cases, less expensive for cash-strapped library systems to use an existing building for a public library than building a new one in its place. Just as important is the importance of school libraries, a webinar on old companies from the Library of Congress on June 9, and the new law in Maryland I talked about last week.
Then we get to genealogy. There is a helpful guide on using local and family history photographs to tell the stories of your ancestors, genealogists writing on the value of using genealogy dead ends, DNA matches, family trees, and a story about systemic racism. That last post leads to what was said last month, P.J. (Patrick-Joseph Lis) Elias, a GenZGenealogist at The Hidden Branch, who had one of their Tuesday Tips on “Presentism.” Elias defined this as the concept of viewing people in the past by current morals, arguing that ancestors should be viewed “within the world that they lived in,” and that we “must not put our morals on the past.” Elias goes on to say, after saying that many amateur genealogists often miss this, that “we as a group need to get better at looking at historical events and people in a neutral manner,” and add that they hope “that you will start looking at your ancestors in a kinder light, they were products of their time.”
I understand the sentiment of Elias and agree with giving ancestors the proper historical context in an attempt to explain their actions the best way that we can. However, this only goes so far. For instance, it is accepted, nowadays, that slavery is wrong. But, in the past, especially among White people in the United States, it was generally justified as the way things were. Should we not criticize our ancestors who held people in forced bondage, bought and sold human beings, or even traded them? Some of my ancestors, for full disclosure, have been deeply intertwined with the slave trade and slavery itself in the Americas. I see no issue with criticizing them for these actions. The same goes for those who literally burned villages, crops, or scalped Indigenous people. If we went by the norms of the time that these actions occurred, they would be seen as acceptable, as most White settlers did not object. We could excuse these actions and declare “oh, they were just products of their time, it made sense then.” However, if we use current morals, it would, hopefully, be seen as reprehensible. We should recognize what role our ancestors played in society at every level and how it impacted other people.
I further object to the idea that people and historical events should be looked at in a “neutral manner.” As Kamrin Baker, editor in chief of The Gateway said, “the truth is not neutral,” with Amy Beecham, a freelance identity writer, adding “when you’re in a position of privilege in society, you shouldn’t be neutral to what goes on, even if you’re not directly affected.” The same applies to genealogy, which is still, despite more prominence of Black genealogy, Asian genealogy, Indigenous genealogy, and genealogy efforts by people of color, a field dominated by White people, especially White women. When Elias wants genealogists to be “neutral,” he appears to be referring to what Merriam-Webster calls “objective,” or “expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.” I can understand why this makes sense when it comes to professional publications or news articles in mainstream publications. However, genealogy is such a personal endeavor for many, it is inevitable that their feelings, interpretations, or prejudices will be integrated into their roots work, whether they like it or not. And that’s ok! I’d even say that some of my original writings about my ancestors were too objective and that I am moving toward more harshly criticizing some of my ancestors, not treating them with kid gloves. The time for that thinking is over. We need to confront the terrible actions of the past, especially by our ancestors, even if it is painful to do so. If we don’t, we can’t overcome them in the future.
That brings me to history. Smithsonian magazine examined the grief of Mary Todd Lincoln, the discovery of a victim of the Mount Vesuvius eruption, the history of Master Lock, why a 200-year-building in Morocco is a U.S. National Historic Landmark, women’s history in the United States, Mathew Brady’s Civil War photographs, the story of Effa Manley who “advocated for Black rights as a Negro Leagues team owner in the 1930s and ‘40s,” and how a rare silver coin found in Maryland. Perspectives on History had articles on various subjects, specifically deepfakes and history podcasts. I thought their article about contextualizing history was interesting, with the author, Alex Pinelli, noting that he teaches “histories that professional historians have long abandoned,” saying that he tries to “contextualize the past and help students to understand complexities,” not to renounce something, noting a class he taught about Christopher Columbus, noting his students “treated their subject seriously and one another with respect.” Some additional articles I read in the past week focused on Chinese Exclusion Act case files and archaeologists using techniques to get their dates of Indigenous history right.
There were other subjects I’d like to focus on in his newsletter which fall outside the purview of subject areas like libraries, archives, genealogy, or history. Smithsonian magazine reviewed the true story of ‘The Underground Railroad’ (a current series on a streaming platform), scientists finding plutonium made in outer space on the ocean floor, China’s Zhurong rover landing on Mars which cements the country as “a major player in modern space exploration,” asking whether climate fiction readers can reach people in ways scientists can’t, and that while about 50 billion birds populate Earth, four species, in particular, predominate: house sparrow, European starling, ring-billed gull, and barn swallow. I liked reading a LA Times opinion piece by Fernanda Matias which argued that Latinx discrimination is linked to under-representation. They noted that only 4.5% of the characters in the 100 top-grossing movies, from 2007-2018, were Latinx, while only 3% of those films featured “Latinx lead or co-lead roles.” From 2000 to 2009, Afro-Latinx representation in film was 0.6% and Afro-Latinos were only “1.3% of all supporting actor appearances on television.”
The piece noted, rightly, in its conclusion that: “Latinos are not a single entity, but our culture consists of several nationalities, each bearing its own unique traditions. All Latinx individuals hold a distinctive story that should be portrayed for others to see themselves reflected on screen.” Apart from these pieces, Wired magazine had an article outlining a case for letting people work from home forever. As always, The Nib had wonderful illustrations. This included ones about stressing out over whether something is a side effect of the vaccine or not, the truth about occupied Palestine, bosses pushing people to get back in the office and not work from home, the imaginary friends of Joe Manchin, and corporate pinkwishing for their own profits, and ICE police comforted that Kamala Harris declared to Guatemalans that they not come to the U.S.
That’s all for this week. I hope you all have a good week ahead!
- Burkely