This post is part of the Intergenerational Conversations series.

Review of James B. Rhoads, “One Man’s Hopes for His Society, His Profession, His Country,” American Archivist 39, no. 1 (1976): 5–13, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.39.1.050472×235848660.

By Genevieve Preston, Archivist, San Bernardino County Historical Archives (San Bernardino, California) [PDF Full Text] | [PDF Article + Full Text]

On October 2, 1975, James B. Rhoads gave his presidential address at the 39^th annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists (SAA). His speech focused on the difference archivists could make in the many professional, political, and societal challenges they currently faced. Rhoads’s speech is reflective of his day but also parallels many issues that we as archivists and as a society still grapple with, such as inclusion of everyone in the archives, both as professionals and as users; training for archivists; support for archivists and archives; how to preserve and provide access to records; and the role SAA has in spearheading transitions in the profession.  

Rhoads begins by reviewing the latest developments within SAA, including the hiring of a new full-time executive director, the awarding of two National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants to help SAA be more receptive to its members by providing training, and the planning of a new publications program. These are all activities that still benefit SAA members and the wider archives community today, as SAA continues working to advance the knowledge of archivists and the importance of records. 

Rhoads laments the lack of a comprehensive training program for archivists and calls on SAA to help fill this gap. Archival education was a topic of conversation that preceded the foundation of the society and is one that continues to this day.[1] Rhoads’s focus on the subject was of tantamount importance to society members and can be traced to the 1909 paper by Waldo Leland, “American Archival Problems.”[2] In 1977, just over a year after Rhoads gave his speech, SAA finally issued its first document on archival education, which was eventually superseded by the 2002 Guidelines for a Graduate Program in Archival Studies and its current iterations.[3] Also in 1977, SAA began implementing an NEH grant to improve the quality of archival training workshops.[4] These developments have been extremely important given that most archives workers identify on-the-job training as their primary source of learning.[5] SAA has continued to adapt to the changing needs of archivists by introducing the Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) certificate program in 2011 and offering workshops on reparative description and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) more recently.  

In addition to the lack of training opportunities for archivists, Rhoads is also concerned about the abysmal state of the job market for young people with graduate degrees in history, a very familiar and timely topic as new archivists currently struggle to get permanent full-time positions and pay off student loans. As reported in A*CENSUS II, “Only 36 percent of MLS/MLIS degree holders who graduated from 2000–2021 did so without debt compared with 41 percent of MA/MS/MFA degree holders from the same period… This has important implications for the archives profession as the proportion of MLS/MLIS degree holders saw the largest percentage point increase of any other degree since the first A*CENSUS.”[6]

Pivoting from his discussion of the job market, Rhoads then discusses the demographics of the profession and how “the Society has been democratized in many ways, and women and minorities are now making important contributions to the Society at all levels” (p. 6). Speaking just three years after the Society’s first Committee on the Status of Women (COSW), Rhoads clearly sought to address the changes the Society was striving to undertake, including hiring its first female executive director. Yet he also highlights a study by Mabel Deutrich on the role of women in archives, which revealed that women were paid less and held fewer management-level jobs than men.[7] I went on a tangent to read about her,[8] and it is disheartening to say that Deutrich, like the women she studied, also faced many gender-based challenges in the workplace. As Michele F. Pacifico reported in her 1987 article, “Founding Mothers,” these challenges persisted a decade after Rhoads delivered his speech; she wrote that “Relative to their numbers, women held fewer offices, served on fewer committees, delivered fewer papers, published fewer articles, and received fewer awards than their male counterparts.”[9] Data from A*CENSUS II reveals that the archives profession has become more female-dominated over time, with the number of women increasing from 65 percent of the profession in 2004 to 71 percent in 2022.[10] However, the report also indicates that “Eighteen percent of men in full-time positions earn six figures compared with only 11 percent of women. This may be partially explained by differences in position, with men being overrepresented in leadership positions.”[11] I highly recommend reading Orchard, Chinery, Stankrauff, and McRoberts’ article “The Archival Mystique: Women Archivists Are Professional Archivists” to understand the occupational feminization and gender-typing that has occurred in archives, the historical treatment on women in the profession, and the lack of understanding of archives outside of our profession.[12]

Thus, many of the gender-based challenges that Rhoads merely mentions in his address continue to be significant barriers in the profession today.[13] Likewise, while Rhoads was quick to emphasize SAA’s growing racial diversity, he glossed over a lack of racial diversity in the overall profession, an inadequacy that continues today. A*CENSUS II responses note that the proportion of BIPOC individuals in the archives profession has doubled since the last survey in 2004, although it was still only 16 percent in 2022. The survey also indicates that the profession has not yet reached its goals of DEIA representation, although some steps are being taken to reach these goals.[14]

Reflecting on how the archives profession’s makeup has, and has not, changed since Rhoads’s address, I recognize the need for all institutions to employ DEIA strategies for not only recruiting and hiring but also retaining diverse employees. DEIA must be a cornerstone of archives organizations and institutions. Higher education also must address gaps in curriculum by using DEIA strategies to train staff and recruit more diverse students and faculty. It is a bit disheartening that I am still wishing, as Rhoads states, that “we will not have to wait for the tricentennial to declare that all men are truly created equal and must have equal opportunities to develop, unhindered by social encumbrances or cultural malnutrition” (p. 9). Often, I feel archivists get bogged down in the details of what we do and in our institutional silos, instead of thinking holistically; as Howard Zinn reflected, we demonstrate the “total immersion in one’s craft, being so absorbed in the day-to-day exercise of those skills, as to have little time, energy, or will to consider what part those skills play in the total social scheme.”[15] Zinn’s speech, delivered five years before Rhoads’s, is still considered the call to arms for archivists to reevaluate their own roles as well as the role of archives in a society. Yet, Rhoads’s address reads more as a reiteration of the status quo than a revolutionary piece. I wonder why he did not reflect on archivists’ steps to identify, and therefore create access, to more records. For example, why didn’t he reference, if even briefly, Andrea Hinding’s Women’s History Sources: A Guide to Archives and Manuscript Collections in the United States as a way for the profession to move forward?[16] 

Despite these omissions, Rhoads was excited about the upcoming American Bicentennial and the opportunity it presented to get younger people interested in historical documents. He repeatedly expresses the importance of providing access to records and incorporating them into students’ education. Although he states, “We are not now and probably never will be at a point where we can fling open the doors to schoolchildren and have them riffle through the original diplomatic despatches of the Department of State during Jefferson’s era . . . I think we have an obligation to make certain that the schoolchildren of this country know that such records exist” (p. 8). If only Rhoads had a time machine and could see society’s digital revolution—how amazed he would be with sites such as Founders Online,[17] where anyone can access a transcribed version of a record, making it easy for students to access records’ contents without the need to read flowery script. I do admire how Rhoads wanted archives to “relate closely to our place in the community in which our institutions are located” (p. 8) and focus the records for the audience: “When we talk to the kids we don’t just tell them that Blacks served in the American Revolution; we show them the pension files of some of the many Blacks who served in the Continental Army, and let them read for themselves the self-evaluation of the individual as to his status” (p. 9). However, I cannot help but think what a change could have occurred if Rhoads had also focused on bringing forward other narratives and seeking community involvement.

I do not want to seem overly critical of Rhoads, as 1975 had seen dramatic changes in the political environment and it was considered a dramatically changed landscape since Zinn’s speech and the work of COSW. It is important to remember that President Nixon had just resigned, and Watergate, which has been called the greatest political scandal of the twentieth century, was a fresh trauma and one that transformed America and Americans’ trust in government.[18]  

The remainder of Rhoads’s speech relates to the numerous repercussions from the Watergate scandal, including modifications to public access to federal records and what federal records would be preserved. Congress enacted in the span of just eight years the Freedom of Information Act (1966), Executive Order 11652 (1972), and the Privacy Act of 1974, and formed the Public Documents Commission (1974), to preserve the records of President Nixon, including the Watergate tapes. Rhoads’s speech is extremely optimistic as he sees these acts and the commission as opportunities for archivists to engage in dialogue about, and be responsible for, setting criteria for records and access.

Rhoads’s words about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) are very salient when he states: “I believe that most government activities can or ought to be able to thrive in the sunshine, because I know that undue caution and bureaucratic inertia have made it difficult for citizens and researchers to get early and reasonable access to records” (p. 10). FOIA was created to provide the public with the right to request access to records from any federal agency; the creation of FOIA was led by the press, organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and some congressmen to combat the idea that the government was hiding information and that most records should be available for whomever asked for it, baring national security issues.[19] FOIA gave anyone the enforceable right to obtain an agency record if it did not fall within nine exemptions, but there were many difficulties and questions with access in its first version.

Congress passed amendments to the act in 1974, which required that “‘any reasonably segregable portion of a record’ be released, set tight time limits for responses, amended two exemption categories, and established penalties for non-compliance.”[20] The Privacy Act of 1974 was created to address keeping certain information confidential; due to the nature of many records this made administering it in tandem with FOIA requests fraught with issues of what could be disclosed. Rhoads states, “As archivists, as well as citizens, we have an important stake in re-creating a climate of mutual trust and respect between the public and its servants” (p. 11). Rhoads was confident in his address that the Public Documents Commission would lead to legislation that would establish this trust by addressing the shortcomings of FOIA and making recommendations that Congress would adopt on the control, disposition, and preservation of records and documents produced by all federal officials. FOIA did not, and does not, cover the records of the courts, the Congress, or the White House, nor did it offer a specific definition of a record of a federal agency.[21] Rhoads poses many questions that he hopes the commission will be able to answer that would help with these omissions and difficulties.

The commission was created as part of Title II of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (Public Law 93‑526), which was a direct response by Congress to President Nixon’s attempted removal of papers and tapes he considered his personal property after his resignation.[22] The Public Documents Commission was to investigate presidential and federal records and submit recommendations to Congress for a way to preserve records of the government.[23] Rhoads states:

In summary, my colleagues, we are at a time in our history when records and archives are news. The fact that this nation has emerged as it has from the political travail of the past two years depended so often on good records faithfully kept. It has been a trying time for some archivists, and some of them have performed their duties with exemplary courage. Certainly we have some stirring challenges ahead of us (p. 12).

The commission presented its final report in 1977 as the US National Study Commission on Records and Documents of Federal Officials. The final report begins very forcefully with the statement that “all documentary materials made or received by Federal officials in connection with their constitutional and statutory duties should be the property of the United States.”[24] It then goes into detail on not only presidential, but also congressional and judiciary records. All of Rhoads’s comments about making sure to address federal records were fulfilled.

Nixon challenged the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act. In doing so, he invoked a separation of powers argument, as well as executive privilege; the Supreme Court rejected Nixon’s challenge in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services.[25] While President Nixon was the first president to be affected by a records act, he was not the last to try to shield or remove records from transfer to the National Archives or to allow access: Ronald Reagan (the first president subject to the Presidential Records Act [PRA], which started in 1981) sought to shield email records on the Iran-Contra arms deal; George H. W. Bush’s administration destroyed telephone logs and email records; Bill Clinton’s staff used private email accounts and diaries to avoid a risk of disclosure; etc.[26] “PRA problems stem from the lack of meaningful enforcement mechanisms and the statute’s reliance on a president who acts in good faith,” Langford, Florence, and Newland write, “The result is that… a president can largely evade any meaningful accountability for violations of the PRA while in office by either not issuing PRA guidelines, or… issuing facially valid guidelines, and, in either case, flagrantly destroying records and declining to self-report such destruction to the archivist.”[27] Perhaps the best illustration of the lack of archival power over presidential records is the records of President Trump. Over twenty press statements have been issued since January 2022, explaining PRA and various presidential records in order to combat false reports about the records in the National Archives.[28]

Maybe now is the time for archivists to start requesting that Congress clearly name someone beyond the president and his staff who has discretion over what materials are preserved. Perhaps this is me hoping that establishing such at the federal level will trickle down to the local level. As a county archivist, I too do not have the power to make departments preserve relevant records or even transfer their records to the archive. I have been asked by our county counsel for records that were never preserved or were transferred too many times to count. I explain that I have no power to enforce departmental compliance to retention schedules and transfer timelines. I can only send polite reminders and hope that departments run out of space, as that seems to be the biggest motivator to transfer collections.   

As Rhoads states: “Let us cease to look only inward at matters peculiar to our own profession, our own institutions, important though they are to us. Let us look outward and move forward, confidently, to meet the challenges that surely await us” (p. 13). My hope, and belief, is that we are ever evolving as a profession, just as we are as human beings. We can anticipate goodness by being flexible and open to change and to the belief that others want the same changes, and we can work to improve acceptance, inclusion, and representation not just for our own profession and institutions but also for the betterment of all.

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[1] Frank B. Evans, “Postappointment Archival Training: A Proposed Solution for a Basic Problem,” American Archivist 40, no. 1 (January 1977): 57–74, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.40.1.q8468168205266v5; Richard J. Cox, Elizabeth Yakel, David Wallace, Jeannette Bastian, and Jennifer Marshall, “Archival Education at the Millennium: The Status of Archival Education in North American Library and Information Science Schools,” Library Quarterly 71, no. 2 (April 2001): 141–194, https://doi.org/10.1086/603260.

[2] Robert M Warner, “Archival Training in the United States and Canada,” American Archivist 35, no. 3–4 (July/October 1972): 347–358, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.35.3-4.125k6746779094q7.     

[3] Society of American Archivists, “Guidelines for a Graduate Program in Archival Studies,” last modified June 30, 2023, https://www2.archivists.org/groups/education-committee/guidelines-for-a-graduate-program-in-archival-studies.   

[4] National Endowment for the Humanities, “National Endowment for the Humanities Funded Projects, PM-10366-77,” last modified February 15, 2024, https://apps.neh.gov/publicquery/main.aspx.

[5] As reported in A*CENSUS (2006) and A*CENSUS II (2022). See “A*CENSUS: Archival Census & Education Needs Survey in the United States,” American Archivist 69, no. 2 (2006): 291–618, https://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/ACensus%20Full%20Report%202006_0.pdf; Makala Skinner and Ioana Hulbert, “A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey Report,” Ithaka S+R, last modified August 22, 2022, https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.317224.

[6] Skinner and Hulbert, “A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey Report.”

[7] Mabel Deutrich, “Women in Archives: Ms. Versus Mr. Archivist,” American Archivist 36, no. 2 (1973): 171–81, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.36.2.x74vh77270228681.

[8] Jessie Kratz, “Ms. Archivist,” Pieces of History, last modified March 1, 2016, https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2016/03/01/ms-archivist/.

[9] Michelle F. Pacifico, “Founding Mothers: Women in the Society of American Archivists, 1936–1972,” The American Archivist 50, no. 3 (1987): 384, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.50.3.n755rh1061409085.

[10] Skinner and Hulbert, “A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey Report,” 4.

[11] Ibid., 3.2.

[12] Alexandra A. A. Orchard, Kristen Chinery, Alison Stankrauff, and Leslie Van Veen McRoberts, “The Archival Mystique: Women Archivists Are Professional Archivists,” American Archivist, 82, no. 1 (2019): 53–90, https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081-82.1.53.

[13] Alex H. Poole, ‘“Be Damned Pushy at Times’: The Committee on the Status of Women and Feminism in the Archival Profession, 1972–1998,” American Archivist 81, no. 2 (2018): 394–437, https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081-81.2.394.

[14] Skinner and Hulbert, “A*CENSUS II All Archivists Survey Report,” 3–4.

[15] Howard Zinn, “Secrecy, Archives, and the Public Interest,” MidWestern Archivist 2, no. 2 (1977): 15–16, http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/44118.

[16] Eva S. Moseley, “Sources for the New Women’s History,” American Archivist 43, no. 2 (Spring 1980): 180–90, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.43.2.c22421574h257377.

[17] “Founders Online,” National Archives, last modified February 15, 2024, https://founders.archives.gov/.

[18] Dan Balz, “Watergate Happened 50 Years Ago. Its Legacies Are Still with Us,” Washington Post, June 12, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/12/watergate-trust-government-reforms/; B. R. Civiletti, “Post-Watergate Legislation in Retrospect,” Department of Justice (October 1980), 1–23, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/73468NCJRS.pdf.

[19] Alan Reitman, “Freedom of Information and Privacy: The Civil Libertarian’s Dilemma,” American Archivist 38, no. 4 (October 1975): 501–508, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.38.4.930x715w5766t853.  

[20] Trudy Huskamp Peterson, “After Five Years: An Assessment of the Amended U.S. Freedom of Information Act,” American Archivist 43, no. 2 (spring 1980): 161, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.43.2.cx73t5180025t652.

[21] Ibid., 165.

[22] Congress, S.4016 – Presidential Recordings Preservation Act, December 19, 1974, https://www.congress.gov/bill/93rd-congress/senate-bill/4016.

[23] Len Simon, “Trump Isn’t the First President to Try and Keep Official Records Private. It Didn’t Work Last Time, Either,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 28, 2022, https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/trump-presidential-records-17401304.php.

[24] National Study Commission on Records and Documents of Federal Officials, “Final Report of the National Study Commission on Records and Documents of Federal Officials,” 1977, retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007412697 (accessed February 20, 2024).

[25] John Langford, Justin Florence, and Erica Newland, “Trump’s Presidential Records Act Violations: Short- and Long-Term Solutions,” Lawfare, February 18, 2022, https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/trumps-presidential-records-act-violations-short-and-long-term-solutions.

[26] Jill Lepore, “Will Trump Burn the Evidence?,” The New Yorker, November 16, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/23/will-trump-burn-the-evidence.  

[27] Langford, Florence, and Newland, “Trump’s Presidential Records Act Violations.”

[28] National Archives and Records Administration, “Press Statements in Response to Media Queries About Presidential Records,” https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2022/nr22-001#january-31-2022.