Foreword / Steven Point -- Introduction / Jack Lohman & Coralee Oakes -- Travelling by Carr : new ways of reaching the interior / Jack Lohman -- Living cultures : from artifacts to partnerships / Martha Black -- Living landscapes : Super natural British Columbia / Richard J. Hebda -- Where we've been and who we are : the archaeology collections / Grant Keddie -- A treasure trove hidden in plain view : the BC Archives / Gary Mitchell -- Notes -- About the authors.
Despite the importance of archives to the profession of history, there is very little written about actual encounters with them—about the effect that the researcher’s race, gender, or class may have on her experience within them or about the impact that archival surveillance, architecture, or bureaucracy might have on the histories that are ultimately written. This provocative collection initiates a vital conversation about how archives around the world are constructed, policed, manipulated, and experienced. It challenges the claims to objectivity associated with the traditional archive by telling stories that illuminate its power to shape the narratives that are “found” there. Archive Stories brings together ethnographies of the archival world, most of which are written by historians. Some contributors recount their own experiences. One offers a moving reflection on how the relative wealth and prestige of Western researchers can gain them entry to collections such as Uzbekistan’s newly formed Central State Archive, which severely limits the access of Uzbek researchers. Others explore the genealogies of specific archives, from one of the most influential archival institutions in the modern West, the Archives nationales in Paris, to the significant archives of the Bakunin family in Russia, which were saved largely through the efforts of one family member. Still others explore the impact of current events on the analysis of particular archives. A contributor tells of researching the 1976 Soweto riots in the politically charged atmosphere of the early 1990s, just as apartheid in South Africa was coming to an end. A number of the essays question what counts as an archive—and what counts as history—as they consider oral histories, cyberspace, fiction, and plans for streets and buildings that were never built, for histories that never materialized. Contributors. Tony Ballantyne, Marilyn Booth, Antoinette Burton, Ann Curthoys, Peter Fritzsche, Durba Ghosh, Laura Mayhall, Jennifer S. Milligan, Kathryn J. Oberdeck, Adele Perry, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, John Randolph, Craig Robertson, Horacio N. Roque Ramírez, Jeff Sahadeo, Reneé Sentilles
This catalog presents sites, activities and portraits recorded by Harlan I. Smith while doing ethnographic fieldwork among Nuxalk, Chilcotin and Carrier people in the Bella Coola Valley between 1920 and 1924. Harlan Smith was a self-trained archaeologist, a prolific photographer and one of Canada's earliest ethnographic film makers. He gained experience in Northwest Coast archaeology soon after joining the staff of the American Museum of Natural History as the archaeologist for the Jesup North Pacific Expeditions. Smith worked on both the British Columbia plateau and coastal regions, where he collected some artifacts and photographs, but was mainly concerned with the mapping and excavation of shell heaps. In 1911, Smith joined the Geological Survey of Canada as the head of the Archaeology Section under the direction of Edward Sapir, then Chief of the Anthropology Division. His early work concentrated on discovering and excavating archaeological sites in Eastern Canada and Ontario. In 1919 he returned to the Pacific coast to conduct surveys of archeological sites on Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands. In 1920, Smith went to Bella Coola to begin a period of ethnographic fieldwork focusing on the traditional uses of plant and animal materials. Thomas McIlwraith joined Smith in time for the 1921 fieldwork season and gathered an extensive body of information on Nuxalk social organization and ritual traditions. During these later seasons Smith worked with the carrier and Chilcotin communities, searched for archeological sites in the Bella Coola valley, took plaster casts of petroglyphs and continued to create an extensive photography record both for himself and McIlwraith. Along with his own work, Smith's collection also contains copies of photographs held by local residents. Iver Fougner, the local Indian agent (1909-1939) shared some early photographs and a set of prints of a traveling Bella Coola dance group (numbers 62093-62104) taken in Germany in 1886 were lent by B. Fillip Jacobsen. Smith documented each photograph, the captions often running a half page or more in length. Multiple images of the same object or view were usually given the same caption, with an additional not of the change of view or camera position. Most of the photographs were dated, allowing for some tracking of Smith's traveling up and down the Bella Coola valley. Despite the seeming detail of information however, it is not always possible to determine the exact location of some of the houses, archaeological sites and grave yards. Each catalog entry lists the negative number, picture title, the date the photograph was taken and the condition of the negative. An asterisk following the negative number indicates a contact print is reproduced in the catalog. A brief description of the picture's central image along with any secondary or background objects of interest is taken from Smith's original captions.
Recasting the history of African American literature, Shadow Archives brings to life a slew of newly discovered texts—including Claude McKay’s Amiable with Big Teeth—to tell the stories of black special collections and their struggle for institutional recognition. Jean-Christophe Cloutier offers revelatory readings of major African American writers, including McKay, Richard Wright, Ann Petry, and Ralph Ellison, and provides a nuanced view of how archival methodology, access, and the power dynamics of acquisitions shape literary history. Shadow Archives argues that the notion of the archive is crucial to our understanding of postwar African American literary history. Cloutier combines his own experiences as a researcher and archivist with a theoretically rich account of the archive to offer a pioneering study of the importance of African American authors’ archival practices and how these shaped their writing. 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. Such archivism manifests in the work of these authors through evolving lifecycles where documents undergo repurposing, revision, insertion, falsification, transformation, and fictionalization, sometimes across decades. An innovative interdisciplinary consideration of literary papers, Shadow Archives proposes new ways for literary scholars to engage with the archive.
Highlights lets you explore British Columbia's natural and human history through dazzling photographs and interesting stories about our objects and displays. Who knows, you may even learn a museum secret or two.
