Archive Research and the Problem with it

Archive research is dream work for many historians. It is time alone with old documents, sometimes obscure, rare, and odd. It allows historians to have the opportunity to discover a story often not written about in history. A story that can be forgotten, or have parts missing in it.

Archive research however is not easy. The most important thing to remember when doing it is to be patient. It is a lot of paper. Sometimes a lot of it is literally useless and garbage. You have to do some digging before you find some that is very interesting. It also helps to go into the archives first and look, rather than to come with a pre-disposed topic and thesis you want to write about. Often this helps allow your work to be created organically. The questions arise the more research you do.

Often times you don’t find the answers and the mystery remains unsolved. With History, there are some things that will remain forever unknown, it is a fact that must be accepted by historians.

Multiple times when I was in the archive I realized I needed the entirety of what I had been looking at rather than only two boxes of the 7 box collection. The two boxes I had ordered, had been the boxes from the middle of the collection. Therefore I had the middle parts of a long series of notes and letters. I had no clue what started the discussion or how the discussion ended.

There are plenty of pros and exciting things though as well about working in archives. One of the most exciting elements is the experience of it. The smell of the old documents and the touch of them. The thrill of possibly finding something that no one else has found or known besides the original authors. The potential to learn something that not many people have ever had the knowledge even existed.

The thrill of the archives for the historian is to once again give a voice to those who have not had the opportunity to speak the loudest.