Waldo Gifford Leland and the Origins of the American Archival Profession

Citation

Howse Binnington, R. (2012), "Waldo Gifford Leland and the Origins of the American Archival Profession", Records Management Journal, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 130-131. https://doi.org/10.1108/09565691211268180

This is an embarrassing confession to make: after ten years in the archival and records management profession, despite extensive exposure to the American Archival scene, my knowledge of Waldo Gifford Leland was scant. I knew the name but had very little context other than that he had been involved in developing the American Archives tradition. This knowledge was pulled from reading the likes of Jameson and Norton in graduate school.

Peter Wosh's extensive biographical sketch on Waldo Gifford Leland makes for enjoyable reading, the kind of biography that I associate more with Janet Malcolm's In the Freud Archives and that has, to my mind, been lacking where the progenitors of our profession are concerned. The progressive characteristics of “service, duty, loyalty, and sacrifice” that drove Leland's passionate professionalism have become cornerstones of the public records and archival profession in the US. Heavily influenced by his Progressive New England upbringing, Leland would begin his academic studies, intending to be an historian, but would instead find his academic attention redirected to research a survey that would underpin the American archival profession. Working at the behest of the Carnegie Institute, Leland compiled the extensive and ground‐breaking Guide to the Archives of the Government of the United States (1904), a survey that would bring to light absence of centralized public records repositories and a collecting culture that had lead to many key records being held as individual items with little to no institutional context.

Leland's work would lead him to express his concerns for the state of public records in the wake of the creation of State Archives in Alabama (1901) and Mississippi (1902). The creation of both repositories:

[…] offered the promise of a new and more systematic approach to caring for public records in the United States. Leland remained nervous, however, that American archivists failed to appreciate the ways in which their theoretical and methodological approaches should differ from librarians and manuscript curators. He worried that historical societies and research libraries... neglected to distinguish between personal papers and public records […]

[and that] American archivists needed to formulate their own fundamental principles to standardize practices in accordance with generally accepted international procedures[1].

It was this concern which lead to the First Conference of Archivists, a gathering that would have a very global feel as the interest of the fellow members of the American History Association did not completely share Leland's concern or passion for source material in the same way European scholars did.

Wosh manages to succinctly tease out the areas that benefit from re‐examination through the correspondence between Leland and his contemporaries as well as thorough the essays and conference proceedings that are compiled here. Combined with clear and careful synopsis and insight at the start of each chapter, Wosh provides keen insight into Leland's genteel decorum and professionalism and his more cutting and incisive private thoughts and observations on the worlds of historical research, archival preservation and the political realms that frame both. It occurs to me that many of Leland's commentaries and fears regarding the Archival profession are mirrored now 100 years later in concerns over public records at regional, national, and international levels, funding for preservation and access, standards for collections management and archival education. These concerns that Leland had during his career are still very much concerns today and the debates are the same, even though Leland's tone and social observations are very much a product of his time. The precious and precarious nature of the material in our care as professionals is often still as tenuous as during Leland's career; as he said in 1940: “We live, in this century, in times of continuing and increasing stress; at present we are in a state of limited emergency, officially proclaimed.”

Though writing in specific reference to World War II, it occurs to me that Gifford's insight is just a relevant now to the Archival profession: we are information professionals, caught in a perpetual state of flux between global conflict, economic crisis, and political turmoil regardless of nationality or locale. And we are often torn between the interests of two camps: genealogists and academics, both of which are exacting and demanding in their interests and needs. When it comes to public records, we as archivists are (perennially? perpetually? eternally?) juggling the divide between access and preservation, concern for the material itself and concern over securing a future for the material. We are a profession that is consistently utilized and accessed but is continually given short shrift when an agenda driven push comes to political shove, regardless of nationality or locale.

This biography and compilation are welcome reminders and additions to the cannon of archival scholarship and should be an addition to any archival and records professional not only those interested in the American tradition in archives. It reminds us of the importance of international collaboration and support if the profession is to continue to thrive and be successful in its dual mission to preserve and make accessible the histories and public domains in our care and provides intriguing insight into the life and mind of Waldo Gifford Leland.

Notes

Introduction to Chapter 2, p. 60.