My former co-teacher works as a historian and archives technician. When I told her I wanted to visit the archives, she immediately connected me with Alexandra Kolleda, archivist at Fort Monroe. The Casemate Museum was closed when I arrived, so I felt like a real VIP with my special invitation. Kolleda showed me around, and I had an awesome time soaking up Hampton’s rich history through the archives.

Digital Access

The website is pretty easy to navigate and quite appealing to history enthusiasts. Brief overviews of collections are shared alongside photos of some of the artifacts. The website shares information about events, walking tours, and museum visits. It even invites the public to share their experiences and oral histories and donate artifacts to the research department. All resources are open to the public, though researchers interested in browsing the archives should send a request to researchrequest@fortmonroe.org. 

As for now, there are no in depth descriptions of the collection on the website. Kolleda has been working on digitizing the resources and hopes to change that by the end of the year. She feels strongly about open access and believes that all the resources should be available to the public at no cost. While the information is free and available, Kolleda understands that lots of people, local and out of state, may not have the transportation to physically visit the fort. Once the resources are uploaded to the website, they will be easily accessible to everyone.

The Space & Physical Access

The archival staff jests that being tall is ideal for working in a library and being short is ideal for the archives. No lies were detected! Traversing the colonial structures at Fort Monroe is a lot like playing limbo because some of the ceilings are incredibly low. I was given an N-95 mask prior to leaving the Casemate Museum to visit a second building that houses many of the books. When I inquired nervously about the need for a mask, I learned that some of the buildings are quite old with little air control, so mold thrives in the environment. Kolleda mitigates the mold issue with fans as you can see photographed below. She also manages an air conditioned quarantine room for more severe mold cases in which materials are encased in plastic bins with baking soda to draw out moisture. For the most severe cases, she uses a freezer.

In hindsight, I should have inquired about how some of the resources are handled, if gloves are required, and if researchers have ever damaged resources through carelessness, but I was a bit distracted by an overwhelming urge not to touch anything icky. I also felt a sense of reverence and awe for the books, contrary to their ickiness, that they should be treasured rather than manipulated by unclean hands.

Services & Intellectual Access

When I first arrived at the Casemate Museum, I was greeted by Dr. Bonnell, Director of Museums, Education, and Interpretation, who bragged about Kolleda’s contributions to the department. When Kolleda first joined the staff, there was very little organization. Items were vaguely logged alphabetically, but there was no system to discern the contents of the collection. In casual conversation, Kolleda addressed some issues that exist with the current filing system which she is working to correct, but from what I gathered from her humble account and Dr. Bonnell’s proud version of things, Kolleda has improved everything. She preserves the resources, organizes them using the Library of Congress cataloging system, creates bibliographies to improve accessibility for researchers, logs the items in spreadsheets, and scans and digitizes them. Her organization system is thorough! I can’t imagine how much harder research must have been before she joined the team.

Patrons & Staff

The purpose of the archives is to collect and preserve resources so that researchers will have access to history. Anyone interested in research can schedule a meeting with an archivist. Most often patrons are authors who wish to publish historically accurate literature and college professors and students conducting scholarly research. Genealogy is also a major focus of archival research as many researchers use the resources to trace ancestry. 

The archival staff’s goal is to remove the barriers to access. As stated earlier, resources are available to the public free of charge eliminating any financial barriers. Access to transportation, or the lack thereof, creates another challenge which digitization is currently combating. However, there are other barriers lying beneath the surface that the staff is actively battling. Kolleda admits that most of the artifacts and archives are filled with items donated by White Americans, so the history presented is generally told from a White American point of view. The department is actively partnering with local organizations to collect items for Indigenous American and African American representation. 

According to Rubin & Rubin (2020), one of the core values of archivists is to “promote collections representing the broadest range of individuals and groups, including encouraging the development of collections related to underrepresented groups and providing the broadest range of viewpoints (p. 701). Having a more diverse archival collection is one way to ensure that Indigenous and Black voices are heard. Kolleda explained that archivists have sometimes been complicit in racism, intentionally and unintentionally, having controlled what resources were shown to researchers and what could be published by them; and she expressed how her department works to right those wrongs and provide inclusive and accurate accounts of history. She recommends that archivist and librarian candidates read Silencing the Past by Michel Rolph-Trouillot which describes in more detail how marginalized groups have been silenced by one sided accounts of history. 

Collections

The collection dates back to the early 18th century. It includes books, letters, newspapers, pamphlets, scrapbooks, illustrations, maps, and sheet music. Since the fort was once a coastal artillery base, many of the items are military documents and records. I was especially intrigued by the Rebellion Record Series which has been difficult to preserve. Since they are already digitized, it will not be too great a loss once they are finally destroyed. I was also intrigued by one of the original fort maps which identifies the contraband quarters where African American soldiers seeking refuge from the Confederate Army were housed under the Confiscation Acts of 1861. Kolleda also pointed out Black businesses established on base as soon as 1862. I confessed that I knew very little about the history of Fort Monroe, and though I grew up in Hampton, Virginia, I don’t recall learning about it in school.  Luckily, her department is working on developing a curriculum to teach students Fort Monroe’s history. With distance learning technology, this curriculum will not only benefit local students, but classrooms all over the country will potentially have access.

Final reflections

I still have one more library to visit, so it may be a little premature to declare this experience as my favorite. However, I was incredibly pleased with the tour Ali Kolleda gave me of the Fort Monroe archives, and I was impressed by her model representation of the core values of archivists including advocacy, diversity, preservation, and social responsibility (Rubin & Rubin, 2020, p. 703-705). 

References:

Fort Monroe. (n.d.). Fort Monroe research and collections. https://fortmonroe.org/history-education/research-collections/.

Rubin, R. E., & Rubin, R. G. (2020). Foundations of library and information science (5th ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman.