Does the archives represent Mount Holyoke College as a community?

Alexis Lewis

The Mount Holyoke College Archives is an excellent resource for people interested in learning more about the history of the college. I would argue that along with learning about the history of the college, people can also discover the Mount Holyoke College community at the archives. Although the archives does not represent the college community as a whole since information pertaining to staff, faculty and other employees is absent, it does accurately represent the student community at Mount Holyoke.

The archives represent the student community at Mount Holyoke because they capture many of the unseen aspects of a group of people that constitute that group as a community. For example, in collecting student records, handbooks, personal letters and yearbooks from the 1950s the archives documents shared values of this group of students, and the way in which these values were reiterated in everyday life. I would argue that one essential aspect of community is the fact that communities often have shared values and that these shared values are reiterated through various ways among the community. In documenting this phenomenon, the archives represent community.

Furthermore, the archives also accurately documents the importance of tradition at Mount Holyoke by keeping information on rituals such as Junior Show, Mountain Day, and Founder’s Day. I would argue that traditions also act to constitute a group of people as a community by not only reiterating shared values, but also by uniting all group members regardless of differences such as religion or social status. In documenting this important aspect of student life, the archives represent the Mount Holyoke College community.