Archives

                                      

Previously, I had a very simplistic concept of archives. I thought of archives as merely a place to store images and text. Nothing more, nothing less. However, my Digital Humanities class taught me that archives are more than just texts and images. Archives are a collection of records that are primary sources that act as evidence for specific people, groups, cultures, etc. In these archives, audios, maps, photos, and/or texts are compiled. Usually, this storage of text is curated. Meaning it hosts a specific idea or topic. For instance, one archive that I recently looked at was from the National Archives. It was based on the Early Modern witch trials, specifically in the UK. This archive contained audio, text, and images, and discussed various cases during the witch trials. I happen to find this archive by simply typing “witch archives”. This was due to my fascination with witches, and not knowing what else to research. If I were to use this archive, I might utilize the sources to discuss what life was like during the witch trials, and how it may have affected people. For clarification, this was an archive that I researched on my own time. As a class, we looked at this video that discussed The Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive. The archive contains photographs from Charles “Teenie” Harris. It has about 80,000 pictures over its 20 years. The pictures are individually cataloged, digitalized, and described; the pictures included events, people, names, and dates. If you would like a more in-depth definition of archives click the link here.

I had never used an archive to do research. It wasn’t until my Digital Humanities class that I had the opportunity to dive deep and explore. While I wasn't using an archive to create an essay. I was using archives to understand what archives are. So in that sense, you can say I was using archives to do research. As you do more research into archives you realize how precious they are. Archives are very important because they allow us to save valuable information. The voiceless and those purposefully left out of history have the opportunity to be heard. This concept was something I had never thought about before. Archives can be used to preserve stories. Once you understand that, you realize how valuable it is, especially when these stories are from people that have been silenced. This TedTalk helps put that into perspective, and I implore you to watch it.

For my digital humanities class, my classmates and I took random photos during the quarantine. In my case, I took photos of “things” that just felt “right”. I took pictures of scenery, food, selfies, plants, and more. The way I see it our archives are history in the making. Yes, it may sound strange maybe even egotistical. Yet I cannot help but feel as though future generations will be looking back and wondering what did we do during the quarantine. How did people deal with COVID-19? And, our pictures can offer a glimpse into what life was like for quarantined students. When keeping that in mind I think our photos are useful. Here are some of my photos with some tags:

Food, Good eats 

Sky, trees, buildings, scenery

If you would like to look at my photo archives here is the link.