Off the Record: Telling Lives of People Hidden in Plain Sight
Off the Record: Telling Lives of People Hidden in Plain Sight with Elise Lemire, Doris and Carl Kempner Distinguished Professor of Literature, Purchase College of the State University of New York, author of Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts (2009)
College of the Holy Cross, Worcester
Off the Record is a direct descendant of the 2010 conference Imagining Lives: Preserving and Interpreting Personal Stories, which took as its theme personal narrative in local history. “What about the people whose lives were not as readily reconstructed from written records in our collections?” we asked ourselves. How might we find out about people who did not write letters or own property, who, perhaps preferred (or were relegated to) anonymity and invisibility. What might we learn, and how might we introduce others to lives lived “off the record?” We feel we have assembled a superb conference for you (and for ourselves): delving into the challenges of finally addressing the history of slavery in Massachusetts some 200 years after it was abolished, and with that a slow redefinition of who might be the (past) residents and citizens of the towns and cities we serve; programming that serves the interest of our public to look behind the scenes of history, to join the chase for both that elusive extra fact and the larger understanding of how our predecessors lived in the places we live in. Were divisions between richer and poorer as rigid as they appear to be today? Were the people who are now “off the record” (in)visible to their neighbors? How did they see each other? Relate to each other? How do you interleave the “larger” story and the personal tidbit; create a compelling tour that brings to life that which isn’t there?