Reweaving the Textile Industry Archive: Strategies for Building Inclusive Collections on the Legacy of the American Textile History Museum

Farwell, Marcie

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/111800 Copy

Description

Title

Reweaving the Textile Industry Archive: Strategies for Building Inclusive Collections on the Legacy of the American Textile History Museum

Author(s)

Farwell, Marcie

Issue Date

2021

Keyword(s)

• Libraries
• Archives
• Textiles

Abstract

The Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives at Cornell University has a distinguished history in collecting the materials related to unions, with particular strengths in the area of textile and garment manufacturing. It was fitting, therefore, that when the American Textile History Museum (ATHM) closed its doors in 2016, the Kheel Center acquired the bulk of the library and archives as well as many fabric samples. This article explores the ATHM’s mission to tell “America’s story through the art, science, and history of textiles” and how by bringing these collections to Cornell we can expand that story. Today, the global textile and garment industries employ an estimated forty to eighty million people, yet very few Americans understand the impact that it has on the lives of the people who make their clothes and on the earth’s fragile ecosystem. By combining emerging technology with expanding collecting areas and engaging new audiences with these incredible foundational materials, the Kheel Center can build more representative and discoverable collections upon ATHM’s enduring legacy.

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press and the Illinois School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Series/Report Name or Number

Library Trends 70 (1). Summer 2021

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/111800

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2021.0011

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2021 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owning Collections