Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies Volume 8 Article 10 2021 Greening the Archive: The Social Climate of Cotton Manufacturing in the "Samuel Oldknow Papers, 1782-1924" Bernadette Myers Columbia University,
[email protected] Melina Moe Columbia University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas Part of the Agriculture Commons, Archival Science Commons, Economic History Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, and the Social History Commons Recommended Citation Myers, Bernadette and Moe, Melina (2021) "Greening the Archive: The Social Climate of Cotton Manufacturing in the "Samuel Oldknow Papers, 1782-1924"," Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies: Vol. 8 , Article 10. Available at: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol8/iss1/10 This Case Study is brought to you for free and open access by EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies by an authorized editor of EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Myers and Moe: Greening the Archive GREENING THE ARCHIVE: THE SOCIAL CLIMATE OF COTTON MANUFACTURING IN THE SAMUEL OLDKNOW PAPERS, 1782–1924 On New Year's Day 1921, historians George Unwin and Arthur Hulme made their way to a ruined cotton mill located on the Goyt River in Mellor, England. Most of the mill had been destroyed by a fire in 1892, but when the historians learned that a local boy scout had been distributing eighteenth-century weavers’ pay tickets to passersby, they decided to investigate. On the upper level of the remaining structure, beneath several inches of dust and debris, they found hundreds of letters, papers, account books, and other documents scattered across the floor.