Op-ed: Does the District of Columbia Government Value Its Own History?
The administration’s neglect of DC’s archival treasures suggests… no.
By Kimberly Bender & Neil Flanagan
Millions of historic documents that tell stories about our city, otherwise known as the DC Archives, are not doing too well. Some that capture the fight for Home Rule are locked in file cabinets. Memos that reveal the struggle over Urban Renewal sit unorganized in boxes. And correspondence from long-lost communities is deteriorating due to decades of questionable climate control.
That the District’s leaders have let the most important documents from DC’s history fester unorganized in a converted stable with no secure place for research suggests they do not value our rich history. The Bowser administration might say they do, noting that in 2018, they set aside $80 million, picked a site for a big, beautiful records facility, and promised to start construction in 2019.
Well, it’s now 2020. Nothing’s happened and nobody can tell us what’s going on. This inaction extends 25 years of neglect of the District’s single biggest historical resource.
This is not just sad, but harmful, since understanding history is important in a city that’s undergoing a shocking amount of change. Stories informed by archival research allow us to understand the decisions that made DC the way it is. This can restore the dignity of communities ignored or erased, and it most definitely informs any fight for a more just District. To undervalue the DC Archives is to ignore the tools for making better policy.
In the Archives, historians and genealogists can assemble the stories of people of all races, classes, and genders and from all eight wards. When pieced together, the mundane but universal paperwork — marriage licenses, pothole complaints, and consultant reports — tells vivid stories about the District.
So as things stand, previously ignored communities now face a double erasure: the dire state of the DC Archives means some of the last clues of their lives are physically unavailable, while others have never been catalogued, and more might fall apart before anyone can see them.
The good news is, we have a plan to safeguard DC’s history, which the Mayor and the Council are welcome to adopt.
It is based on the way archives are handled in most states, and has three parts:
First, with the money we already have, the District needs to construct a big, beautiful records facility, that can pull government documents out of basements and rented storage and into a single space for the first time. And researchers will no longer have to work on a folding table surrounded by stacks of boxes.
This would not only make them available, it would cut the District’s rent. Right now, DC pays over $600,000 per year for extra space at a National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) facility in Suitland and, truth be told, the full cost of offsite storage is hard to calculate because each agency does it separately. (Also NARA sometimes throws things away without telling DC — which seems bad).
Second, the Mayor and the Council needs to fund the 20-year backlog of protective and organizational work. Otherwise, the accumulated mold and moisture will continue to damage the paper, even in the big, beautiful records facility (sounds sexy, doesn’t it?). Meanwhile, the lack of organization means that it’s hard for researchers to find information out of the millions of sheets of old paper, like a library without a catalog.
Fortunately, the Council has some unspent funds left over from earlier failed plans for the Archive. They need to use this money to pay archivists. It would also fund the materials and manpower needed to physically protect the documents so they survive long into the future. Eventually, this would have to be supplemented by operational funding, such as the money saved by moving out of the National Archives building.
And finally, the DC Archives should also be made an independent agency, just like the state archives in Virginia and Pennsylvania, or the DC Public Library. This structure would give it an appointed board of citizens and experts to shield one of our most important cultural resources from politics.
At a time when DC is undergoing a lot of change, and where a lot of damage needs to be undone, the DC Archives is one of the most important resources to keep history alive and imagine a better future. The Council and Mayor have a responsibility to preserve this legacy for our citizens.
If you would like to help us build a big, beautiful records facility, please sign our letter (bit.ly/dcarchives) or send a note to your Councilmember.
Kimberly Bender is the founding executive director of the Heurich House Museum. Neil Flanagan is writing a book about the African-American Reno community in Tenleytown and the origins of urban planning in the District.
