{"product_id":"9780231212748-scattered-and-fugitive-things-how-black-collectors-created-archives-and-remade-history","title":"Scattered and Fugitive Things","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHow Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eScattered and Fugitive Things\u003c\/i\u003e tells the stories of the Black collectors who dedicated themselves to documenting the history of African American life, traveling from the parlors of the urban north to HBCU reading rooms and branch libraries in the Jim Crow south.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner, 2025 Merle Curti Intellectual History Award, Organization of American Historians\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner, 2024 Arline Custer Memorial Book Award, Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHonorable Mention, 2025 Lawrence W. Levine Award, Organization of American Historians\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFinalist, 2025 ASALH Book Prize for Best New Book in African American History and Culture, Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuring the first half of the twentieth century, a group of collectors and creators dedicated themselves to documenting the history of African American life. At a time when dominant institutions cast doubt on the value or even the idea of Black history, these bibliophiles, scrapbookers, and librarians created an enduring set of African diasporic archives. In building these institutions and amassing abundant archival material, they also reshaped Black public culture, animating inquiry into the nature and meaning of Black history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eScattered and Fugitive Things\u003c\/i\u003e tells the stories of these Black collectors, traveling from the parlors of the urban north to HBCU reading rooms and branch libraries in the Jim Crow south. Laura E. Helton chronicles the work of six key figures: bibliophile Arturo Schomburg, scrapbook maker Alexander Gumby, librarians Virginia Lee and Vivian Harsh, curator Dorothy Porter, and historian L. D. Reddick. Drawing on overlooked sources such as book lists and card catalogs, she reveals the risks collectors took to create Black archives. This book also explores the social life of collecting, highlighting the communities that used these collections from the South Side of Chicago to Roanoke, Virginia. In each case, Helton argues, archiving was alive in the present, a site of intellectual experiment, creative abundance, and political possibility. Offering new ways to understand Black intellectual and literary history, \u003ci\u003eScattered and Fugitive Things\u003c\/i\u003e reveals Black collecting as a radical critical tradition that reimagines past, present, and future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55448232362358,"sku":"9780231212748","price":119.13,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_28450332.jpg?v=1743503534","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780231212748-scattered-and-fugitive-things-how-black-collectors-created-archives-and-remade-history","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}