Welcome to the Forgotten Stories in the Archives Libguide

The purpose of this Libguide is to attempt to spread awareness on some of the ethical issues facing the archival field, with a specific focus on neutrality and advocacy in the field. We would like to believe that archivists are neutral collectors, helping to save the stories and history of others that have impacted our society, but unfortunately that is not the case. Throughout history, archivists have decided to not collect on certain events or people, thus "erasing that history" from the holdings of many archives nationally.

This Libguide aims to act as one of the possible solutions for these ethical issues through talking about six different events and movements that history has "forgotten." These events include three times in which the United States Government has made decisions that have "stained" their record that have been systematically suppressed, as well as three events that were triumphs for minority groups that have been erased from our history. All of these topics have been described, and for each, three links to archival collections relating to these topics have been provided to allow for further research, and an opportunity to see primary sources associated with the topics.