American Archivist/Vol. 46, No. I/Winter 1983 31 American Archival History: Its Development, Needs, and Opportunities RICHARD J. COX ARCHIVISTS, IN THEIR SELECTION, DE- American archives, to assess its SCRIPTION, and interpretation of strengths and weaknesses, and to suggest historical records, must employ all the some areas for future research. One ad- best qualities of the historian. It is, then, ditional preliminary note needs to be with irony that we view the poor condi- stated. My definition of the archival tion of the study of American archival profession, as will be seen below, is history. Only over the past decade and a broad. I consider its originators—even if half have archivists begun to seriously this necessitates an overly long gestation consider the history of their own voca- period—to be the pioneer manuscript tion. I do not mean to imply that little collectors and first historical societies of has been written and published on this more than two centuries past. Those subject. The literature is voluminous professional historians and historically- and dates back to the primeval period of trained archivists who preemptively American archives, the late 19th cen- write of the American archival move- tury. A careful scrutiny, however, ment as solely the manifestation of a reveals an uneven coverage in both professionalization of history ignore a quality and subject, a truly lamentable main line of its ancestry, one still in situation. It is vital that we know as evidence and vitally important today. much as possible about the development The pioneer essays in American ar- of the profession to aid our continued chival history appeared between the last self-study, reevaluation, and progress, years of the 19th century and the 1920s. especially in time of unusual stress and By then private collectors and historical change. We need to direct the historian's societies had been active in the United perspective not only to the records under States for a century. The formation of our care but to our profession as well. an historical profession, emphasizing This essay is intended to examine the the critical use of sources via intensive trends of research on the history of seminar training, in these same years The author is archivist and records manager, Baltimore City Archives. 32 American Archivist/Winter 1983 focused a new attention on the early in- keeping practices. The American stitutional and individual manuscript Historical Association's sponsorship of collectors. The historians' interest a Historical Manuscripts Commission primarily emanated from the need to and Public Archives Commission, in know of the locations of records, but, 1895 and 1899, respectively, also en- being historians, it is not surprising to couraged the gathering of data on these see this interest expanded to the history subjects. An essay on the "dispersion" of of repositories and biographies of collec- George Washington's papers, a scathing tors and documentary editors. Justin attack on the lack of care of the state Winsor's 1887 essay on the "conspicuous records of New York, and a review of collections extant," based upon his the initial two decades of the Public Ar- monumental eight-volume Narrative chives Commission all were written to and Critical History of America, devotes encourage historians to fight for the bet- equal space to the careers of Jared ter preservation of American historical Sparks, Peter Force, and George Ban- records, but each also provided informa- croft.1 Herbert Baxter Adams, the tion on the history of American ar- leading advocate of scientific history chives.3 This was especially evident by while at the Johns Hopkins University the 1920s. The Public Archives Commis- from 1876 to 1901, also thought highly sion was a catalyst in the formation of enough of Sparks to compose a two- state archives among Southern states, volume biography, a work still valuable and two decades later, in the North today for its liberal publication of his Carolina Historical Review issued be- letters and journals.2 These efforts by tween 1926 and 1929, summary essays Winsor and Adams were among the best on these programs were published.4 of a literature that was large even in Although they were generally only these early years. catalogues of earlier legislation and The historical profession was a strong often included saccharine predictions of impetus for studying the formation of the future, these essays constituted the early manuscript collections and record first serious regional survey of the '"The Manuscript Sources of American History: The Conspicuous Collections Extant," Magazine of American History 18 (July 1887): 21-34; reprinted in the Papers of the American Historical Association (New York: American Historical Association, 1889) 3: 9-27. 2 The Life and Writings of Jared Sparks: Comprising Selections from His Journals and Correspondence, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1893). It is surprising, and regrettable, that Sparks still has not been the subject of a modern biography. 3J. M. Toner, "Some Account of George Washington's Library and Manuscript Records and Their Dispersion from Mount Vernon, With an Excerpt of Three Months From His Diary in 1774 While Attend- ing the First Continental Congress, With Notes," American Historical Association Annual Report 1892 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1893), 73-169; Victor Hugo Paltsits, "Tragedies in New York's Public Records," American Historical Association Annual Report 1909 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1911), 369-78 (this article also was published in the Magazine of History 12 [July 1910]: 36-42); Paltsits, "An Historical Resume of the Public Archives Commission from 1899 to 1921," American Historical Association Annual Report 1922, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926), 1: 152-60. ••Mitchell B. Garrett, "The Preservation of Alabama History," North Carolina Historical Review 5 (January 1928): 3-19; Philip M. Hamer, "The Preservation of Tennessee History," Ibid. 6 (April 1929): 127-39; J. G. deRoulhac Hamilton, "The Preservation of North Carolina History," Ibid. 4 (January 1927): 3-21; Theodore H. Jack, "The Preservation of Georgia History," Ibid., 4 (July 1927): 239-51; Grace King, "The Preservation of Lousiana History," Ibid. 5 (October 1928): 363-71; Charles W. Ramsdell, "The Preservation of Texas History," Ibid. 6 (January 1929): 1-16; James A. Robertson, "The Preservation of Florida History," Ibid. 4 (October 1927): 351-65; A. S. Salley, Jr., "Preservation of South Carolina History," Ibid. 4 (April 1927): 145-57; David Y. Thomas, "The Preservation of Arkansas History," Ibid. 5 (July 1928): 263-74; Lyon G. Tyler, "Preservation of Virginia History," Ibid. 3 (October 1926): 529-38; and William H. Weathersby, "The Preservation of Mississippi History," Ibid. 5 (April 1928): 141-50. American Archival History 33 history of the archival profession and of the Second World War, and the un- were the primary sources for two later precedented proliferation of government excellent composites of archival devel- records forced archivists to grapple with opment in the South.5 issues ranging from disposition of Without the leadership of a national records to dissemination of vital infor- archival body and professional society mation. A common methodology for re- or the convenient forum of a specialized solving records problems was historical journal, however, research and writing research on records legislation and on American archival history, or on any earlier procedures.6 other archival subject, was severely The archival literature of the 1940s limited. This problem was rectified and early 1950s brought forth few new quickly in the mid-1930s with the open- or definitive studies. Leslie Dunlap's ing of the National Archives (1934), the 1944 analysis of the early development establishment of the Society of of American historical societies, concen- American Archivists (1936), and the trating on their role as institutions start of the quarterly American Ar- "organized primarily to collect, chivist (1938). The National Archives preserve, and make available the provided a national perspective to materials for the history of the United hitherto scattered records programs and States or a section of it," was by far the the SAA concentrated on professional best of this period.7 By the end of the issues and concerns; the existence of a 1940s, however, the literature was im- journal enabled a consistent dissemina- proving rapidly. Roscoe P. Hill's 1951 tion of information on such matters. history of searches for American records From the late 1930s through the 1950s in foreign archives, as well as William B. the American Archivist featured Hesseltine's biography of collector and numerous essays on the histories of state historical society administrator Lyman and federal programs, as fledgling na- Copeland Draper a few years later, pro- tional and state programs, the onslaught vided, along with Dunlap's study, a 5Philip M. Hamer, "The Records of Southern History," Journal of Southern History 5 (February 1939): 3-17 and J. G. deRoulhac Hamilton, "Three Centuries of Southern Records, 1607-1907," Ibid. 10 (February 1944): 3-36. 'Christopher B. Coleman, "Indiana Archives," American Archivist 1 (October 1938): 201-14; R. H. Woody, "The Public Records of South Carolina," Ibid. 2 (October 1939): 244-63; Edwin Adams Davis, "Archival Development in the Lower Mississippi Valley," Ibid. 3 (January 1940): 39-46; Harriet Smither, "The Archives of Texas," Ibid. 3 (July 1940): 187-200; Siert F. Riepma, "A Soldier-Archivist and His Records: Major General Fred C. Ainsworth," Ibid. 4 (July 1941): 178-87; Edward F. Rowse, "The Ar- chives of New York," Ibid. 4 (October 1941): 267-74; Waldo Gifford Leland, "Historians and Archivists in the First World War," Ibid. 5 (January 1942): 1-17; William D. Overman, "Ohio Archives," Ibid. 5 (January 1942): 36-39; Henry P. Beers, "Historical Development of the Records Disposal Policy of the Federal Government Prior to 1934," Ibid. 7 (July 1944): 181-201; Carl L.