At Work in the Archives: Place-Based Research and Writing

Lynée Lewis Gaillet and Jessica Rose

Overview

This chapter outlines a plan for incorporating primary and archival research into first year writing course designs.* Correlating directly with recent college initiatives and composition best practices, archival research asks students to see themselves as experts, engage in rhetorical activism, and take on college-to-career projects. At its core, writing with archives not only encourages, but insists upon, interdisciplinary topic selection and research. Because all projects focus upon local communities, archive building and assessment, and stakeholders’ interests in the collected materials, this pedagogical method organically guides students through traditional rhetorical elements: audience consideration, articulation of the writer’s relationship with the subject matter, and blending primary and secondary evidence to craft a convincing (and in many cases, quite passionate) message. This chapter offers students a fundamental understanding of archiving practices and research methods, providing tools that prepare them for interdisciplinary research and writing practices that characterize academic, community, and workplace communication.

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W hat do you imagine when you hear the term “archives”? Do you think of obscure documents or fragile artifacts, dusty attics or damp basements filled with shelves of paper? Although sometimes true, these stereotypes present an incomplete picture of archival work. Archives house physical evidence of the past and offer direct links to community histories. We define archives as both (1) collections of materials related to a person, family, or organization that have continuous social and cultural value, and (2) the places in which these collections are preserved and stored for future use. Many of the materials housed in archives are considered primary sources—direct materials created by or around the research topic and uninterpreted by others. Typical primary archival materials include official documents, letters, photographs, and memorabilia. Strong archival research projects blend primary archival research with secondary research—the published findings of experts—to produce a comprehensive exploration of a research question.

Archives and archival research have recently enjoyed a renaissance and are recognized as important sources supporting a range of exciting commercial, public, and scholarly projects. Historical novels and genealogy projects, biopic movies and public memorials, human rights marches and copyright law all rely upon archival investigation. Archival research can be highly personal, and projects often stem from the writer/researcher’s interests. For example, you might want to learn more about your family’s history, a possible career or a hobby, a social movement issue, or a local legend or public figure. You may want to correct a common misconception, bring to light a neglected person or issue, or illustrate how a local event connects to a larger initiative. In these instances where secondary research may be limited, over-interpreted, or missing, archival research can bridge connections and encourage new scholarship. In this chapter, we introduce concepts of archival investigation and provide ideas and suggestions for researching diverse and fascinating archival materials such as monuments, clothing, letters, photographs, and maps.

You will find numerous advantages when writing with archives. Perhaps most importantly, in this research method you choose topics that you really want to investigate. Rarely do two students in a class write about the same issue or collection. Your project is unique, and you immediately become the subject matter expert, given your familiarity with the topic and experiences. As with all projects, archival researchers must double (and sometimes triple) check findings by consulting published sources to corroborate information. However, the artifacts and primary materials you explore, the research questions you formulate, and the experiences and knowledge you bring to a topic ensure that your project is original. In this approach, you are not asked to capture just a snapshot of scholarly ideas addressing a subject, but instead, are encouraged to make new meaning by interpreting a collection of materials or data through your unique perspective, original interpretation of the material, and personal understanding of people involved.

Within this chapter, we provide guidance for initiating archival research, offer ideas for finding a topic, and discuss issues associated with digital and in-person archival investigation. Because archives are tied to memory, culture, and power, class assignments might introduce study that happens beyond the desktop and library stacks, in places where the research process is determined by the space in which it occurs. We also share anecdotes about writing with archives that demonstrate how you can build an exciting research plan that is at once personal and outward facing.

What Counts as an Archive?

In our current technological moment, where posts, tweets, and even our Internet searches are “archived,” understanding exactly what the term archive means for academic research is critical. Here, we refer to archives as formal acts of gathering and organizing materials, the collections themselves, and the spaces where preservation occurs. Archival research can take place at a variety of locations, including:

• college and university archives
• corporate archives
• government archives
• historical societies
• museums
• religious archives
• special collections
• community archives
• digital archives

Specific goals govern each of the archives listed above, which determines what materials reside in their repositories as well as collection practices. Understanding how collections are collated (or assembled) can sometimes, although not always, help direct your research process. For instance, examining a government archive for what is missing—what is not present in the archive but seems logical to be included—could be as important as discovering what is available. In defining your research goals, knowledge of these differences will help you decide where materials might live and which repositories to consult.

Through archival research, you become an academic detective. Youreconsider what counts as evidence, rethink who can be identified as an expert, and discover how and where historical accounts are generated. Working with primary and archival sources prepares you for community writing and workplace research, where you will likely be asked both to locate information and seek solutions to existing problems. Consider the workplace projects of some of our students who have conducted original investigations in our archival research classes: one student gathered months of data and conducted employee interviews to solve a scheduling problem at the food delivery franchise where he worked. Another student researched blueprints, government documents, and newspaper articles to help determine how best to launch a new business within an existing community. One of our employed students investigated the branding and icon history of the local bank where he worked. Others chose topics closer to home, like the student who researched shifting legislation and tax law to advise her parents about looming changes that would affect their family business. Keep in mind that archival materials can be accessed by visiting physical collections, consulting online websites, or in some cases requesting that digitized holdings to be delivered to you via email or through interlibrary loan.

Archival projects may also be deeply personal and familial. Such projects might include researching an often-told family story, maybe one about immigration, travel, or a birth narrative. These projects often rely upon consulting archival materials such as interviews, family letters and documents, baby books and birth certificates, as well as government records. You might choose to write about personal communities to which you belong—religious, educational, heritage, place, or food. Maybe you want to dig deeper into a personal hobby, which provides a great opportunity to share your passions and expertise with new audiences. Our students have written about a diverse range of topics, including international stamps, NASCAR, vintage wedding dresses, cooking and crafting, conspiracy theories, immigration communities, protest posters, New York’s 1970s disco scene, the natural hair movement, and the history of the Appalachian dulcimer. Topic possibilities are limited only by your interests.

Planning Archives-Based Projects

Archival research requires you to arrive at interpretations of events and ideas independently, rather than solely relying on the interpretations of others or published scholarship. In doing this work, you become the expert on the topics you investigate. However, archival research can initially be confusing for those who are unfamiliar with the process. As you gain experience developing projects that include or prioritize archives, however, the process becomes easier. Archives-based research can be hugely rewarding but requires flexibility and some working knowledge of archival tools. In this section, we introduce those tools and describe ways in which you can prepare for this kind of research.

Topics

Students beginning archival research for the first time often ask, “Where do I begin?” Likely, up to now, your research projects have been assigned and relied heavily upon secondary sources; the published research and claims of experts may have guided both your research process and conclusions. Archival research, however, gives you the chance to choose your own topic, state your own claims, and even make new knowledge based on your research trajectory. 

When selecting a topic, begin with subjects that interest you most. Topic ideas can come from a variety of places. In our archival projects, we have investigated historical issues (the history of music copyright and 19th-century women’s monuments), current social movements and events (women’s marches and health-related artifacts), and labor practices (domestic workers and educators). Your research may be just as varied. Take a moment and think about what interests you personally and academically. Do you have a hobby that you want to explore further; do you want to know more about a community issue; or are you interested in the backstory of a film or book? List three possible research topics, then ask yourself the following questions about each option in order to narrow your focus:

Table 1: Topic Idea Chart

As you brainstorm, you will find that research paths begin to appear. To demonstrate, let’s consider an example: you want to explore the origins of an old family recipe, a source of family pride. Let’s say you are interested in learning more about the original version of the recipe, which includes an unfamiliar ingredient, Carolina gold rice. After quickly researching Carolina gold rice, you discover it is an heirloom rice tied to historic Southern coastal culture, which leads you to hypothesize how the recipe and your family might connect. With additional secondary research, you discover that the rice was brought to the Carolinas from West Africa and was important to the history of antebellum commerce and low-country Creole life. With this information, you can now begin searching for archival collections that feature that specific strain of rice or similar recipes to draw further connections. You might also decide to do some genealogical research to locate where recipe originators likely lived, and you will probably develop additional research questions that arise from findings. Regardless of what you discover, you may gain both a better understanding of your family recipe and expertise in the cultural, commercial, and political facets of Lowcountry foodways—all from a family recipe.

Archival Evidence

Archival research always blends traditional secondary research with primary investigation. Archival holdings frequently include documents, artifacts, and ephemera (described below). Documents refer to organized papers that relate to a person or institution and may include office memos, patient records, press releases, accounting ledgers, journals and calendars, and legal papers. Artifacts—physical items—may be related to a donor’s life or work and could include items as rare as a lost sketch or as mundane as a collection of protest buttons. Ephemera—an item that is temporary or has a short shelf life—may include documents or artifacts, but what makes them so exciting is that they are accidental. These objects were not necessarily meant to be saved and were important only in the moment; examples include receipts, tickets, and advertisements. Ephemera are often collected as reminders and souvenirs of an event. Given these diverse examples of archival evidence and the information they can provide, we encourage you to rethink what counts as evidence. Consider items you have collected or saved: birthday cards, concert tickets, a diary, a favorite doll. If future researchers encounter your collection of ephemera, what might they deduce about you and the time in which you lived? How might they count your materials as evidence?

In addition to documents, artifacts, and ephemera, many archives also collect oral histories. Oral histories include sound recordings and transcriptions of conversations between an archivist or researcher and historical participants and experts. You are probably familiar with the concept of interviewing, a hallmark of journalistic research, in which a reporter asks someoneprepared questions on a topic. The oral history format is similarly characterized by question-and-answer conversations though, unlike interviews where information is analyzed and interpreted, oral histories only collect information for posterity. While oral history prompts are designed to gather specific details and information tied to a specific topic, they are much broader in scope, asking the interviewee to recount facts and expound upon memories and experiences. For this reason, oral histories are not merely tools for research but, more importantly, serve to gather and preserve voices of community members, experiences of participants in community events, and memories of witnesses to history.

Oral history interviews take many forms. Interviewers may submit written questions ahead of time to interviewees, who then answer either in writing, in person, or via phone conversations. Depending on the purpose and occasion, accounts also may be gathered on location from witnesses to an event or through legal depositions, for example. Think about ways in which Ken Burns’ documentaries (“The Films”) and NBC/Ancestry’s “Roots Less Traveled” series incorporate oral histories and archival materials, which bring their topics to life for contemporary audiences. However, oral histories are part of a longer oral tradition, recounted in the past by troubadours and travelling storytellers who repeated historical accounts far and wide to ensure they were kept in the public memory. Currently, through the recordings and transcriptions of the interviews, oral histories remain as living artifacts long after the participants pass away or memories of the events discussed begin to fade. If you are researching familial subjects, consider conducting an oral history interview with a family member. Our students have interviewed relatives to learn more about immigration narratives, experiences living in occupied territories during wartimes, and gentrification of neighborhoods. In our research, we have consulted oral histories to learn first-hand about domestic labor unions and women who worked in traditional male occupations. Thorough information about preparing for, conducting, and storing oral histories can be found on the “Best Practices” page of the Oral History Association website.

Special Considerations

As you prepare to work with archives, keep in mind that collected materials are the natural result of human activity and exist within specific cultural circumstances. How we describe, support, and cite archives responds to those contexts.

Archival Description

The process of archival description is important for both archivists and researchers. Because archives have a significant, physical component, the information those materials share is partly physical as well. For archivists, description is “the creation of an accurate representation of the archival material” and is tied to a collection’s provenance (the record of ownership) and finding aid (Describing Archives xvi). Archivist’s in-depth rules of description are uniform across collections, regardless of material or donor. Layered descriptions reveal relationships between the materials and their sources, as well as among other items found in the same collection. 

As a researcher, your accurate description of an artifact also reveals the layers and relationships among archival materials and other sources you include in research projects. Beginning your research by creating a description of your source will help you understand what you are examining and help capture small, easy-to-miss details. While an archivist’s descriptions are often succinct and summative, research descriptions should be thick. The practice of thick description is rooted in ethnographic observation and begins with pure description—what can only be observed—and then folds in additional context or interpretation. Let’s look at the excerpt below of a thick description from William, a college first-year. This excerpt is the first paragraph of an AIDS Quilt panel he used in his research:

The quilt block is in total twelve-foot by twelve-foot. There are eight panels in this specific block. The specific panel stands vertically three feet wide by six feet tall. It is in the bottom right corner of the entire block. The block is number 4642 out of the 5956 made, so this block was a later addition to the NAMES Project collection. The panel has a solid black background that feels like a rough cotton fabric. At the top of the panel the name Pedro Zamora is spelled out with gold colored felt in all caps. Just below the name in the same gold felt are the years 1972 on the far-left side and 1994 on the far-right side. Below the year 1972 is a Cuban flag, under the year 1994 is an American flag. Both flags seem to be made out of a vinyl fabric. Pedro Zamora was born in Havana, Cuba February 29, 1972 and died November 11, 1994 in Miami, Florida, explaining the Cuban flag under his birth year and American flag under his death year. Below the flags on either side are acting masks and LGBTQ+ pride flags. 

William first frames the object he is observing before describing the object’s smaller elements. He refrains from adding opinion and context, and keeps his description focused only on what he can see and feel. Several paragraphs later, once William is certain he has captured all the details, he then begins to contextualize his findings:

Zamora was presented as a very healthy and ‘normal’ individual that just happened to be living with HIV/AIDS. It was this health and youthfulness that allowed Zamora to reach the younger generation. . . . The panel signifies Zamora’s relationship with the public, his family, and his friends. It shows his lasting legacies to the public and how HIV/AIDS impacted him. The panel also shows where he was from and his career occupation with MTV. This panel was created by his close friends and family with help from the people at MTV studios in the wake of his death to HIV/AIDS.

Practice crafting an artifact description. Select a single object and write a detailed objective description--leaving out your assessment or opinions. Then, thicken your description by adding personal, historical or cultural details. Challenge yourself and see how detailed you can be. In writing archival descriptions, try using your senses to flesh out your analysis: How does your object feel? What is its temperature? Does it have a smell? What are its dimensions? What is the condition of the piece? How is it constructed? Once you feel you have exhausted your pure description, contextualize the object: What do you think the object represents? For whom might it have significance (originally and now)? Do some quick research to discover historical and cultural backstories of the artifact. 

Triangulating Evidence 

“Triangulating evidence,” a common research term, means testing or corroborating a study. To ensure the reliability of findings, you need to seek additional sources that verify your claims. For example, a classroom teacher might design a new teaching strategy to help students get better results on timed exams. In addition to creating a control group for testing findings, the instructor may also conduct interviews with student participants and ask another teacher to observe the classes and students, as well as comparing the final test scores after the two groups receive results. This validation process is less formulaic in archival research since primary projects can vary widely. 

In archival research methods, triangulation seeks to establish validity of findings by consulting multiple accounts of an event obtained from sources, such as individual accounts, public records, community artifacts, corporate records, or private holdings. Think about sources you might use to corroborate, or double- and triple-check findings, for your projects. For example, in archival educational research, you might examine the literary influences of a famous author by starting with the writer’s letters or journal entries in which they allude to a reading history or favorite writings. Next steps in determining works from which the author drew inspiration could include consulting printed catalogs, university calendars, or published professor testimonies that discuss the school curriculum where the author studied. To further verify a list of possible early influences, you might find an inventory of the contents of the author’s personal library. Collectively, these sources provide an overview of possible works the young artist may have encountered. Citing multiple sources serves to authenticate your claims, particularly when readers don’t have direct access to the original artifacts and ephemera that you found and consulted. 

Citing Archival Sources

Academic research always requires acknowledging the materials you consult and investigate. The specific guidelines for citing and formatting bibliographical information depends upon your teacher’s preference or the adopted guidelines of your discipline (e.g., Modern Language Association, American Psychological Association, or Chicago Manual of Style). While you likely are quite familiar with requirements for citing printed materials, such as books, journal articles, and newspapers, documenting archival materials may be new to you. For example, when faced with quoting and citing information found in a file folder contained in a larger box that also houses photographs, letters, and perhaps artifacts such as diaries or military ribbons, how do you begin to cite? Oft-visited reference sources, such as the Purdue OWL and library resources, include information for getting started (see for example “Primary Sources in Archives & Special Collections: Citing Archival Sources”), but in archival documentation, one size doesn’t fit all.  In recent years, as archival research has become more prevalent, the major style guidelines have revised and improved the citation information for primary sources. Begin with the available information found in your teacher’s recommended style guide, but be aware that citing archival materials may require a bit more attention to detail—both in adequately citing references but also in pointing to the actual content of your sources. 

Archival researchers must adopt an extra layer of ethical responsibility, particularly when working with materials that are not published, catalogued, or even available to the public. Adequately citing and documenting a photo album, life events recorded in a family religious volume, or unpublished letters, for example, relies wholly upon the ethical responsibility of the researcher. You must comprehensively describe and catalogue findings, representing not only materials that answer your main research questions, but also information that may contradict your original hypothesis or suppositions. Readers will not have access to these materials and, therefore, cannot double check your findings. Properly citing archival materials not only ensures you represent your research properly, but also responds to the same plagiarism concerns connected with properly citing secondary sources. 

One of our students examined a set of letters sent home from a soldier serving in Vietnam. The student wanted to capture the isolation young soldiers experienced during this controversial conflict. Yes, in this private family collection of ephemera, she certainly found evidence to support this initial research question, but our student also discovered within the correspondence that her relative developed a sense of personal responsibility, strong camaraderie with fellow military personnel, and clear ideas of what path he wanted to take upon his return to civilian life. In the final analysis, she had to include all the findings, even the information that refuted/expanded her initial assumption. When conducting archival research, you may find that once you have examined materials, you must adjust research questions and ethically account for the full range of collated materials. This practice serves to strengthen your stance as a reliable researcher and has the added advantage of suggesting new avenues of research and possible topics that your readers might want to pursue—hallmarks of effective scholarly research.

Conclusion

Incorporating archival investigation early in your academic career sets you upon a research and writing path that you will likely follow throughout college, at work, and in your personal life. We find community study and problem solving to be much more engaging than restating what someone else thinks about an assigned topic, and we hope that archival research serves to increase your awareness of local issues and understandings of people who may be different from yourself.

Works Cited

Bahde, Anne, et al, editors. Using Primary Sources: Hands-On Instructional Exercises. ABC-CLIO, 2014.

Catey, William. “The Psyche of The ACT UP Movement.” The Catey Post, http://williamjcatey.gsucreate.org/introduction/. Accessed August 30, 2020.

Comer, Katie, et al, editors. The Archive as Classroom: Pedagogical Approaches to Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives. Utah State UP, 2019.

Daniel-Wariya, Joshua and Lynn C. Lewis. “The Possibilities of Uncertainty: Digital Archives as Cunning Texts in a First Year Composition Curriculum.” Pedagogy, vol. 20, no. 1, 2020, pp. 141-48.

Describing Archives: A Content Standard, 2nd. ed. The Society of American Archivists, 2013. http://files.archivists.org/pubs/DACS2E-2013_v0315.pdf.

Driscoll, Dana. “Introduction to Primary Research: Observations, Surveys, and Interviews.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Vol. 2. Parlor Press, 2011.

Enoch, Jessica and Pamela VanHaitsma. “Archival Literacy: Reading the Rhetoric of Digital Archives in the Undergraduate Classroom.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 62, no. 2, 2012, pp. 216-42.

Gaillet, Lynée Lewis and Michelle F. Eble. Primary Research: People, Places, and Spaces. Routledge, 2016.

Graban, Tarez Samra, and Wendy Hayden, editors. Teaching through the Archives: Text, Collaboration, and Activism. Southern Illinois UP, 2021.

Greer, Jane and Laurie Grobman, editors. Teaching Writing and Rhetoric at Museums, Memorials, and Archives. Routledge, 2016.

Hayden, Wendy. “Gifts of the Archives: A Pedagogy for Undergraduate Research.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 66, no. 3, 2015, pp. 402-26.

—.  “And Gladly Teach: The Archival Turn’s Pedagogical Turn.” College English, vol. 80, no. 2, 2017, pp. 133-58.

Roots Less Traveled, hosted by Faruq Tauheed. NBC. 2020.

Oral History Association. “Best Practices.” Oral History Association, https://www.oralhistory.org/best-practices/. Accessed 18 Mar. 2021.

“Oral Histories,” https. Accessed 7 September 2020.

“Primary Sources in Archives & Special Collections: Citing Archival Sources,” Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies. https://guides.lib.purdue.edu/c.php?g=352889&p=2378064. Accessed 3 September 2020. 

SAA-ACRL/RBMS Joint Task Force on the Development of Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy (JTF-PSL). “Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy.” Society of American Archivists, June 2018, https://www2.archivists.org/standards/guidelines-for-primary-source-literacy. Accessed April 25, 2020.

The Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives. The Ohio State University and Georgia State University, 2007. https://www.thedaln.org/#/home.

“The Films.” Ken Burns, https://kenburns.com/the-films/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2021.

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