Excavating Myth and Memory in Congressional Papers

ABSTRACT Congressional papers constitute some of the most unique archival collections to find their way into American repositories. Often voluminous, complex, and appended by donor stipulations and financial considerations, they have been the subject of decades’ worth of archival conferences, scholarship, legislation, and practical manuals. These discussions have long upheld the belief that congressional papers retain inherent research and historic value, largely due to their documentation of legislative processes and topical subject areas. This article interrogates the origins of that presumptive value, positing that archivists have customarily drawn on traditional narratives of American identity and democratic governance to justify and inform the acquisition, appraisal, processing, and deployment of congressional collections. The article first reviews the robust history of the congressional papers community, surveying the evolution of rhetoric around archivists’ assignation of inherent value to congressional papers and critically examining the ways in which that value is shaped by American practices of myth-making. Drawing from memory studies and concepts of the mythic imagination, the article then problematizes the passivity of American democracy in congressional archival praxis, taking into account burgeoning national reckonings and re-reckonings with the nature of American government itself. Implicating archival praxis in the perpetuation of narratives that do not reflect or represent the current state of the nation, the article then suggests modes of alternative intervention for archivists working with congressional papers, calling for a critically contextual reimagining of the field.