Working in the Archives (Ramsey, Sharer, L'Eplattenier, Mastrangelo)

"Archival Research as a Social Process" (Lerner)

...attempting to recreate social worlds (196)

...the narrative that I constructed as a reader of those materials (196)

In "Dreams and Play: Historical Method and Methodology," Robert J. Connors writes, "Seldom does anyone plunge cold into the Archive without something to look for, something they're hoping to find, hoping to see proof of" (22). One key player, then, is the researcher him-or herself, given the power of the intents that one brings to bear on the act of archival research. (196-197)

Our filters as researchers work in parallel with additional filters, a veritable purification process of social forces: the choices made by those who donate institutional and personal records, the choices made by those who collect and grant access to those records, and the choices we make as researchers in terms of what to examine and what motivates us to do so. Connors writes, "[The] archive is where storage meets dreams, and the result is history" (17). Whose dreams, of course, Connors does not specify, but the multitude of dreamers when it comes to writing center and composition history create rich possibilities and need to be accounted for in archival studies. (200)

Dreamers, of course, are not limited to those who study history. Higher education's past is also filled with those who dream of reform to current realities to bring about an ideal of educational practice. (200)

The social forces of the present did, indeed, have an effect on my search for the past in this instance, though it was not my initial motivating force. I was just trying to understand an early, interesting-sounding writing laboratory, one that would offer more evidence that early writing centers were far more than sick wards for students suffering from the disease of bad writing. (200)

The histories that emerge from archival research are also never simple, never complete. This conclusion should not be surprising of course, for good historical narratives are about people and the programs and practices that they have shaped. It does not take an advanced degree in psychology to know that people are very complex, and the records to be found in archives only hint at that complexity. (203)

"All historical work, then, is provisional, partial--fragments we shore against our ruin. We are trying to make sense of things. It is always a construction. It is always tottering" (21).

Researchers need to ask: Who are the people who have played a potential role in the narrative that might be constructed from archival evidence? Do the persons being studied, those who contribute to the archives, or those in the present have some stake in the stories being told? (204)

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My own notes:

The Role of the Researcher

1. Who am I, the researcher?
2. What are my motivations

Academic: to defend Murray
Personal: to understand my own literate and school history and to examine a transformative moment in my life)
Professional: to rethink the role Murray plays in my own pedagogy and teaching. Also, thinking about the significance of finding a Murray article in the WAW textbook--the effect that finding him there had on me.

3. What are my filters?
4. What narratives do I impose on my research?