In preparation for the upcoming final I recently finished
reading Susan Tschabrum’s "Off the Wall and into a Drawer: Managing a
Research Collection of Political Posters.” The article is a great introduction
to dealing with graphic collections that do not fit securely into an archives collection
policy (and contains a lot of information about cataloging and access
challenges that I will include in my paper). Being about political posters
specifically it also contained content about the social meaning of these
posters that may be beyond my paper topic.
Tschabrum argued that because the people who create many
political posters are advertising unpopular, controversial, and occasionally
illegal activity, they offer invaluable insight to those groups. With
marginalized groups, this is a huge advantage to studying political posters. My
main concern with the article is that Tschabrum does not really discuss the
negative social implications of political posters or the effects that this has
on archives. The use of propaganda has a long history connected to political
posters and complicates their meanings. This does not lessen the research value
of the posters, but I think people should be careful when looking at this
material. Since Tschabrum took on the job of promoting political posters, I
understand why she emphasized the social responsibility to save political
posters over their more tumultuous history.
Toward the end of the article Tschabrum stated, “Popular
culture studies thrive on the careful consideration of the cultural detritus of
industrial society – postcards, comic books, travel brochures, TV commercials,
and so on – whose lowly status, fleeting nature, and/or ubiquity speak volumes
about the social groups that made and used them.” (323) On one hand, this is a common
defense of studying ephemeral-type material. However, since these are the types
of material I enjoy studying, it is great to find the words coming from someone
writing specifically about archives.
Reading
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