Scattered and fugitive things : how Black collectors created archives and remade history /
Helton, Laura E.,
Scattered and fugitive things : how Black collectors created archives and remade history / How Black collectors created archives and remade history Laura E. Helton. - xx, 305 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm - Black lives in the diaspora : past / present / future . - Black lives in the diaspora. .
Includes bibliographical references (pages [263]-289) and index.
Value, Order, Risk : Experiments in Black Archiving -- Thinking Black, Collecting Black : Schomburg's Desiderata and the Radical World of Black Bibliophiles -- A "History of the Negro in Scrapbooks" : The Gumby Book Studio's Ephemeral Assemblies -- Defiant Libraries : Virginia Lee and the Secrets Kept by Good Bookladies -- Unauthorized Inquiries : Dorothy Porter's Wayward Catalog -- A Space for Black Study : The Hall Branch Library and the Historians Who Never Wrote -- Mobilizing Manuscripts : L. D. Reddick and Black Archival Politics.
"During the first half of the twentieth century, the efforts of archivists like Arturo Schomburg or Howard University librarian Dorothy Porter shaped the Black imagination and the direction of social and political movements. Every act of acquisition was an argument about the nature of the meaning of Black history. These decisions determined which stories would persist or disappear in the archival spaces of Black memory. In Scattered and Fugitive Things, Laura E. Helton follows these archival efforts across the storylines of six collectors. Their biographies reflect the diverse trajectories of diasporic thinkers in the United States. The self-taught Afro-Puerto Rican bibliophile Arturo Schomburg. Virginia-born Alexander Gumby was a working-class denizen of Harlem's gay underground and a prolific scrapbook maker. Vivian Harsh, the daughter of formerly enslaved parents, organized a collection on Chicago's South Side. Librarian Dorothy Porter became a central character in the Howard University intellectual scene and served briefly at the National Library of Nigeria. Virginia Lee stayed in the South, working within (and sometimes secretly against) the limits of Jim Crow restrictions on Black reading spaces. Historian L. D. Reddick served as curator of Schomburg's collection in the 1940s before joining the southern civil rights movement as its participant-chronicler. In a racially segregated information landscape, these archivists, as well as other Black thinkers, necessarily made their arguments through files and filing systems as well as through poetry and prose. The making of information systems is deeply entwined with Black intellectual history, and this book recovers that strain of practical criticism"--
9780231212748 0231212747 9780231212755 0231212755
2023038828
African Americans--Archives--History.
Archives--History--United States--20th century.
Archivists--History--United States--20th century.
African Americans--Intellectual life--20th century.
African American intellectuals--History--20th century.
African American book collectors--History--20th century.
African American librarians--History--20th century.
African American historians--History--20th century.
Libraries--Special collections--African Americans.
Scattered and fugitive things : how Black collectors created archives and remade history / How Black collectors created archives and remade history Laura E. Helton. - xx, 305 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm - Black lives in the diaspora : past / present / future . - Black lives in the diaspora. .
Includes bibliographical references (pages [263]-289) and index.
Value, Order, Risk : Experiments in Black Archiving -- Thinking Black, Collecting Black : Schomburg's Desiderata and the Radical World of Black Bibliophiles -- A "History of the Negro in Scrapbooks" : The Gumby Book Studio's Ephemeral Assemblies -- Defiant Libraries : Virginia Lee and the Secrets Kept by Good Bookladies -- Unauthorized Inquiries : Dorothy Porter's Wayward Catalog -- A Space for Black Study : The Hall Branch Library and the Historians Who Never Wrote -- Mobilizing Manuscripts : L. D. Reddick and Black Archival Politics.
"During the first half of the twentieth century, the efforts of archivists like Arturo Schomburg or Howard University librarian Dorothy Porter shaped the Black imagination and the direction of social and political movements. Every act of acquisition was an argument about the nature of the meaning of Black history. These decisions determined which stories would persist or disappear in the archival spaces of Black memory. In Scattered and Fugitive Things, Laura E. Helton follows these archival efforts across the storylines of six collectors. Their biographies reflect the diverse trajectories of diasporic thinkers in the United States. The self-taught Afro-Puerto Rican bibliophile Arturo Schomburg. Virginia-born Alexander Gumby was a working-class denizen of Harlem's gay underground and a prolific scrapbook maker. Vivian Harsh, the daughter of formerly enslaved parents, organized a collection on Chicago's South Side. Librarian Dorothy Porter became a central character in the Howard University intellectual scene and served briefly at the National Library of Nigeria. Virginia Lee stayed in the South, working within (and sometimes secretly against) the limits of Jim Crow restrictions on Black reading spaces. Historian L. D. Reddick served as curator of Schomburg's collection in the 1940s before joining the southern civil rights movement as its participant-chronicler. In a racially segregated information landscape, these archivists, as well as other Black thinkers, necessarily made their arguments through files and filing systems as well as through poetry and prose. The making of information systems is deeply entwined with Black intellectual history, and this book recovers that strain of practical criticism"--
9780231212748 0231212747 9780231212755 0231212755
2023038828
African Americans--Archives--History.
Archives--History--United States--20th century.
Archivists--History--United States--20th century.
African Americans--Intellectual life--20th century.
African American intellectuals--History--20th century.
African American book collectors--History--20th century.
African American librarians--History--20th century.
African American historians--History--20th century.
Libraries--Special collections--African Americans.