Angela Oonk hosts a webinar series featuring topics in American history. This month, Clements Curator of Manuscripts joins in a discussion with Derek Kane O'Leary about creation of the first archives in the new United States.

Archives, the foundational resource for historical research, do not emerge from a vacuum. What materials are included in the archive, and why? Whose voices are preserved for posterity, and whose are silenced? In his book, Archival Communities: Constructing the Past in the Early United States, O’Leary takes up this crucial task for the era of the early United States, arguing that key components of America’s archives emerged from within an Atlantic world of circulating scholars, evidence, practices, and ideas. Sponsored by Doug Johnson.