Who owns the "past"?

Hi, everyone.

I was reflecting today on some of the discoveries you made in the Archives during Thursday's class, not only about Mary Geraldine Hatt's whereabouts on campus while she was a student here, but also about the kinds of information you were able to easily discern from the boxes and about the ways we are accustomed to looking for information, even if the boxes don't provide it. That called to mind one of Hunter's powerful (I think) implications about archives and manuscripts in his "Introduction" -- the implication that in most cases, history would never be known (or be understood as a "history") if someone had not gone out to deliberately gather it.

I take this impression from the text box on page 14, in which Hunter cites a 2002 article from the Twin Cities Pioneer Press on the first public consciousness of the 1929 stock market crash. It is possible that we might not have understood it as such a "crash" had we not had access to the 1930s census data showing how home values and rent costs increased so exponentially in such a short period of time. Hunter doesn't go so far as to say that histories are constructed, but I think there are strong implications in that direction. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that events may not readily take on historical significance in our minds until we have some way to organize them, measure them, and valuate them. Either way, it sparked a new question for me: What characterizes "past histories" and how can we know the "past"? Who owns the "past"?

I'm still chewing on this notion -- I offer it up to you as journal fodder, as you finish the first step of your Problem Solving Exercise, and as you begin to assign meaning to (or see meaning in) what you are doing. It seems integral to Hunter because he chooses to introduce us to archives (and to differentiate them from other kinds of repositories) by outlining a typology of manuscript collectors, which in turn assumes that this typology is tied to questions of power, control, and interests. You might think about whether and how much these same assumptions are reflected in the work you are doing or the way you are approaching the primary documents at IU.

Next week, when Professor Kellams and I guide you in the second part of the Exercise, we will be demonstrating some online resources and archival research tools. In the meantime, feel free to begin browsing our resources and to see what may be there for you. Please use the weekend to puzzle over your tasks and remember to send us any questions by 9:00 a.m. on Monday 9/13.

Yours in making meaning in the archives,
-Professor Graban