n.an archivist who strives to document the underdocumented aspects of society and to support political and social causes through that workDelgado 1971, 45Howard Zinn, professor of government at Boston University, delivered a paper entitled “The Activist Archivist.” Professor Zinn stressed the need for archivists, like other professional groups, to abandon the screen of professionalism and neutrality in order to humanize their ordinary work and not to limit their concern with political issues to their spare time. He denounced those scholars who by their silence and professed neutrality “buttress the existing social order and values” of society and called for archivists to collect and preserve papers and to tape record experiences documenting ordinary lives in addition to those of the exceptional—the “lower” classes as well as the prominent, for example, women as well as men.Evans 1975, 152Too frequently “activist archivists,” to use Howard Zinn’s term, in their zeal to document contemporary cultures and society have ignored or failed to assume adequate responsibility for the archives of their own institutions.Stiverson 1977, 2First, the activist archivist is too often tempted to reallocate his available resources in an effort to redress what he perceives as inequities in the policies that directed his predecessors. In so doing, he often ignores the basics, and projects of lasting utility are deferred or terminated. The current craze in our profession for documenting women, blacks, and other special interest groups has caused countless man-hours and archives dollars to be diverted into a frantic reanalysis of our holdings for pertinent records to list in specialized finding aids.Knowlton 1987, 23The Georgia Department of Archives and History’s interactions with other minority archives illustrate the sort of mutually profitable coalition that traditional and activist archivists can form.Abraham 1991, 52The activist archivist argument, while attractive, assumes that archivists have been supplied with the resources to keep up with institutional demands and the additional resources to go out and be proactive and that they will be rewarded for doing so.Swain 2003, 146One component in the making of an activist archivist was using oral history to “fill in” gaps and address the less-documented social aspect of history.Greene 2013, 303I believe it is accurate for me to identify as an activist archivist. Thus, social justice advocates and I stand together in recognizing archivists’ agency as the center of archival “power,” in working to strengthen the profession’s advocacy agenda, and in believing that archivists have a responsibility as a profession to diversify their holdings, the profile of their researchers, and the very composition of their working ranks.Wakimoto, Hansen, and Bruce 2013, 442For decades, members of marginalized groups have collected, preserved, and curated collections of materials for and by communities through the work of individual activist archivists.Coyner and Pringle 2014, 460The 1960s and 1970s saw a drastic shift in how archivists approached collection policies. During this period, many activist archivists who had become troubled by the hegemonic nature of archives, started to create more inclusive archives.an archivist who seeks to move the archives profession, archives workplaces, and society in general toward social justiceMotley 1984, 65Activist archivists are those archivists who persistently seek to address major social concerns of the archival profession and the public it serves and to improve their own work places, their professional organizations, and the archival profession in general. Activist archivists are advocates for a more responsible, understanding, democratic profession, who believe these goals are often best achieved through vocal or written expression at professional and public meetings, and in the professional and general literature.Jimerson 2009, 110In 1971 a group of socially concerned members [of SAA] formed ACT, an informal group of “activist archivists” to seek changes in SAA’s internal operations and to encourage the association to take positions on political and social issues.
Notes
Howard Zinn used the term activist archivist on September 30, 1970, during the Society of American Archivists annual meeting in Washington, DC. It was likely the first time the term was used in a public setting. Then as now, activist archivists look for proactive ways to collect, record, and preserve the less documented parts of the world, sometimes through the use of oral histories and photography.
