At the John Carter Brown Library (JCB), it can sometimes seem like the entire collection is shouting. Some of this noise, particularly the dominance of European male voices, is unsurprising. John Carter Brown (1797–1874) was one of the first collectors of “Americana,” amassing a library of printed materials about the Americas from the late 15th century to the early 19th century. The collection’s silences are also unsurprising; among them, it can be challenging to find women authors or creators, or even subjects, in our collections.
Read more: https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/archival-shouting-silence-and-volume-in-collections-and-institutions-april-2024/