Before taking this class, I never considered how we take in and shape history. I now know this is all done through the collection, discovery, and donation of archives. However, if a scholar goes into collecting and writing about archives with a bias… this can become slippery territory. This leads me to question, who are these people, and why do they obtain so much power? They have the power in their hands to shape history and even, in some cases, dispose of it.

According to Katherine Bode and Roger Osborne, “Book history from the archival record” in The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, “The records that are retained or donated might reflect a hagiographical impulse or the sentimental feelings of an individual. When records are donated and transferred to a formal archive- whether a library, museum, public record office, or university- other processes will further shape the archive through selection and disposal of records, according to the archivists’ methods of valuation. (page, 224″)” This quote demonstrates that some personal feelings and biases shape the process an archive goes through. They can be either deemed important or unimportant and shoved away in a folder that may never be acknowledged. This reminds me of when we were in special collections, and Anna mentioned how much is stored in the SDSU archival collections that have never been touched or read before. This illustrates that there is so much untouched archival history that might have been deemed insignificant by somebody’s biases.

This perfectly aligns with a quote from the shadows archives excerpt, “Given the lack of institutions dedicated to the black experience, the novel became an alternative site of historical preservation, a means to ensure both individual legacy and group survival.” This quote reveals that because of the lack of dedication to the history of the black experience, archives were sitting in these institutions, waiting to be examined. This leads me to question the history we are taught in school and all the facts we do know. How many minority voices have been disposed of over all of these years? Who has the power to deem an archive important or unimportant? I look forward to learning more in our classes this week.