"My diary is going to be a valuable thing one of these days": the cross-generational lineage of black women's archives
Date
2024
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
This dissertation examines the collecting practice and archive formation of the writer, educator, and activist Alice Dunbar-Nelson in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to understand how and why she built her personal archive over several decades. While Alice Dunbar-Nelson is best known for her marriage to critically acclaimed poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, materials in her collection reveal that she was much more than just a wife; she was a poet, a novelist, a suffragist, a cultural critic, and a champion for Black education who was determined to define herself on her own terms. Archival materials such as correspondence, scrapbooks, diaries, manuscript drafts, and much more shed light on both the public and private moments of Alice’s life as she navigated what historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham calls, the politics of respectability. By centering the lifecycle model of archives, this project traces the cross-generational lineage of Alice’s archive as it transformed from a personal collection to a public/accessible archive due to preservation efforts of her niece Pauline A. Young, and recovery work and scholarship by Akasha Hull. In the form of both an in-person exhibition and a series of essays, this dissertation centers Black feminist memory work to highlight the lifespan of Alice’s archive over the twentieth century while also suggesting a re-reading of Black women’s archive formation by considering the role of descendants’ and scholars' preservation of their ancestors’ legacy. Alice’s intention to document herself was an act of survival and resistance that allowed her to rewrite and reimagine herself so that future generations would be able to learn from the past. Her papers and collecting practice serve as a model for understanding the complexities of early twentieth-century Black women, encouraging us to embrace all parts of their lives.
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Keywords
Dunbar-Nelson, Alice, Archives, Black women's archive, Black women's history, Cross-generational lineage, Memory work