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Identity revalidated by being archived?

from Fiona Hoppe, Thursday, September 17, 2009

Eric and Jessica Huntley. Image courtesy of City of London Corporation.

The blog ‘What should we archive?’ referred in passing to the issue of identity and the professionalism or confidence that a small business must have to effectively file its actions and objects for posterity. But I think the subject requires further investigation; after all, what is it that encourages a small business to record itself in the first place?

The story behind the archives of Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications Limited provide an insight into this question. The publishing house was founded by Eric and Jessica Huntley, prominent black political activists, and the archives of this business are on loan to London Metropolitan Archives.

Reviewing a case study on this collection on
The National Strategy for Business Archives website and Richard Wiltshire’s article ’Business Archives in the Public Sector’ from City of London: London Metropolitan Archives, it struck me that in essence civil rights lay behind the project. The very same civil rights that prompted Rosa Parks to stay put in her bus seat in the deeply segregated US state of Alabama in 1955.

The Huntleys’ decision to set up a black publishing house was a ‘reaction to the ban of their friend Dr Walter Rodney, academic and political activist, from Jamaica in 1968. … The business was used to publish important post-colonial texts by Rodney including ‘The Groundings with my Brother’ and ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ which have publicised the message of black empowerment all over the world.’ (Richard Wiltshire, City of London: London Metropolitan Archives).

By loaning their collection of publishing archives to LMA the Huntleys aimed to:

• ’celebrate and disseminate the company’s published works and history to new cross-generational


• educate and empower other communities and promote their histories


• demonstrate leadership to other community elders and friends with similar un-exploited business archive collections’
  (The National Strategy for Business Archives)

Jessica Huntley, Founder and Director, 2009

Is it then that desire to ‘educate and empower’ that drives a small business to preserve its actions for antiquity? And at what point in time does an organisation start purposefully recording its actions for future generations? And does the act of archiving trigger a kind of awareness and upgrading of the past in the consciousness of the founders that in some odd way equips them with the knowledge to go forward in new ways?

It was intriguing and troubling to look at their documented history, their carefully curated hate letters – they filed everyone, and examine this through a present day lens of polarised identity and conflict. I don’t know where this heads, knowledge transfer-wise, but it was powerful stuff.

It would be fascinating to learn from the archivists at Thomson Reuters or Unilever for example, those companies that have long and well documented histories, why and under what circumstances did their founding fathers believe their then small company’s actions worth recording. And was it the values they had embedded in the organisation that were the real drivers to recording the movements of the business?

The decision for a small business to record itself seems bound up in its sense of values and identity and its desire to pass those values on to future generations for their empowerment.