My friend and colleague Chip Berlet has a fresh and timely post over at Talk to Action that raises an important point that ought not get lost amidst the craziest campaign ever.
He writes that “The prestigious Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard College will host a panel on Monday, Oct 17, titled ‘Righting the Record: Conservatism and the Archives.’ According to the press release:"
Over the past half-century, grassroots activists and organizations both left and right have focused on women's roles, family values, homosexuality, and reproductive policy, transforming modern American life. Yet the collections of major public repositories, especially those housed at universities, tend to document only one side of this complicated history: the left side.
“This claim,” Chip explains, “ is absent any evidence, and is part of a longstanding (and fraudulent) whine from the Right that campuses are hostile to right-wing ideas.”
He goes on to draw from information he provided to Dig Boston, which reported on the Radcliffe event, citing several well-known university based collections at Berkeley, Brown, Kansas and Wisconsin. He also pointed out that locally, Tufts University has a major collection which is soon to
“...announce a major acquisition of conservative and right-wing materials donated from the Somerville-based progressive think tank Political Research Associates (PRA). The collection was built around a gender focus.
The organization was founded in 1981 by political science professor Jean V. Hardisty to create a major public archive of the materials from groups involved in the Religious Right and New Right coalition, with a special focus on gender issues including the anti-feminist, anti-abortion, and anti-gay movements and organizations of the Right. It later expanded its focus to include a broad range of conservative and right-wing groups, always explaining the different ideologies and methodologies, and warning against biased assumptions. I worked for PRA for some 30 years as a researcher.
Archiving materials from right-wing social and political movements is an issue that needs to be discussed. But if there is a "Right Archiving Dilemma." It primarily consists of the lack of knowledge about existing archival collection of materials from conservative and right-wing individuals, organizations, and the many social and political movements on the US political Right.”
Archives and libraries are an important part of our collective memory, so when a major university professes ignorance of other major collections — that is more than a memory lapse.
I am pleased to report however, that the work of Political Research Associates, where I am a Fellow, continues, No doubt, we will have more to add to the Tufts collection in due time.