Why do we keep what we keep — and who decides? An archivist digs and collects longreads on how objects and materials shape public memory.
archives
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Movable Feast
“Food media, archival repair, and what we expect from recipes.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Living Memory
“Who, then, are the chroniclers of Black lives in the pandemic?”
Posted inCulture, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Writing
The Secrets of a Hidden Diary
A hidden diary, a love story, and a mystery.
Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Concealing a Catastrophe: ‘The Day the Music Burned’
“The vault fire was not, as UMG suggested, a minor mishap, a matter of a few tapes stuck in a musty warehouse. It was the biggest disaster in the history of the music business.”
Posted inBusiness & Tech, Story
The Internet Isn’t Forever
When an online news outlet goes out of business, its archives can disappear as well. The new battle over journalism’s digital legacy.
Posted inHistory, Nonfiction, Quotes
Did You Happen to See the Most Interesting Man in the World? (He’s In Room 328)
Libraries contain more than books — they have archives, and the archivists want to help you explore them.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Keepers of the Secrets
Who are the most interesting women and men in the world? The archivists, guardians of our forgotten stories.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Helen Gurley Brown’s Nemeses (and Collected Papers)
There is a fantastic piece on legendary Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown and her legacy (or more specifically, who owns Brown’s legacy) in today’s New York Times. Katherine Rosman unpacks the financial and cultural battle over Brown’s estate with nuanced, careful reporting, but she also doesn’t sacrifice any of the heightened details you’d expect from a Helen Gurley […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
How One Magazine Shaped Investigative Journalism in America
The following story comes recommended by Ben Marks, senior editor for Collectors Weekly: Doris Kearns Goodwin’s most recent history, The Bully Pulpit, chronicles the intertwined lives of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, often in excruciating detail, from Roosevelt’s struggles with the bosses of his Republican party to the fungal infections that plagued Taft’s groin. […]