In response to the question -- “Since the history of the future is happening now, what is consciously being done in Virginia now as a form of making a record for historians of the future?” -- we should keep in mind the fact that historians are not _dependent_ (and indeed have reasons to view with skepticism) records that are “consciously” created with posterity and historians in mind.
     The primary source record on which historians chiefly rely is being created for its own purposes today--all kinds of transactions and correspondence and journalism and notes of phone calls or emails created in the course of living--rather than for posterity.  Goeffrey Elton, the distinguished Tudor-Stuart historian from Cambridge University, treats the distinction rather nicely in his book _The Practice of History_ (New York 1967) pp. 75-76 appended below.
     In this regard the urgency is less to MAKE than to PRESERVE the record -- hence, for example, the historical importance of the Librarian of Virginia’s proper insistence upon the transfer of ALL the public papers from the Gilmore administration.  Hence the importance of microfilming newspapers before the paper crumbles. Hence the importance of getting your grandparent’s letters out of the attic and into a repository somewhere.  Etc.

Jon Kukla

G. R. Elton’s explanation of this matter follows:
     “There is a single question which the researcher must ask himself in assessing his evidence: how and why did this come into existence? From the historian's point of view, all evidence divides into two kinds:
that produced specifically for his attention, and
that produced for some other purpose.
What survives from the past was put together either by someone who wished it to survive, or by someone who had a purpose to serve in which the prospect of the historian's interest played no part.
     The first comprises in the main evidence of a literary and often secondary kind: chronicles, memoirs, notes of self-justification, letters intended for publication. To the second category belong pretty well all documents and records--most but not all letters and state papers, official memoranda whether published or not, reports of commissions and of lawsuits-the products of policy, business, and the ordinary events of life--but also the material relics of past societies, such as buildings or artifacts. These lists are not exhaustive; the categories are, and the historian should always first become clear with which of the two he is dealing. . . .
     Material in the first category, being designed to affect the writing of history, can be judged with relative ease. The purpose which produced it was rational and therefore identifiable; the interests of the producer can usually be ascertained without trouble. Whether actor or himself historian, [the producer] is likely to have a case to make: his case once determined, one can judge both his own production and the material which he provides accordingly.
     Things are rather more complicated with evidence of the second kind--far and away the most important and common. At first sight it might seem that a financial account, the record of a court case, or a house cannot bring trouble to the historian; as long as he can read or recognize them, they will, since they were never meant to deceive him, tell him the truth. But the point is, on the one hand, that to see them is not necessarily to understand them, and on the other that they may well have been intended to deceive someone else. A proper understanding of a given document involves separating the specific from common form and grasping the process by which it came into existence. It is here that professional learning comes into its own; only full ranging knowledge of what occurs in the papers of a given period or problem will prevent misapprehensions.
     A few examples will show this best. In the Tudor Star Chamber, complainants invariably charged the opposing party with a violent or riotous act; but since this was requisite if the court was to have jurisdiction, it may be no more than a matter of form. On the other hand, it may record a real event; only the experienced student, weighing up the various documents in the case, will be able to arrive at a reasonably safe opinion whether the assault and disturbances had really taken place. Thomas Cromwell almost invariably signed himself as his correspondent's ‘loving friend'; it would be extraordinarily rash to base any deductions as to relationship or personal feelings on that phrase, though something may quite possibly be inferred from its absence.”




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Jon Kukla ....................... Executive Vice-President
1250 Red Hill Road ........ Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation
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