Does the archives represent Mount Holyoke College as a community?

Christine Padilla

I would argue that yes the archives represent Mount Holyoke College as a community. Specifically, I think that they represent the history of Mount Holyoke as a community. The archives represent how Mount Holyoke has served as a community over the years as well as the changing MHC. I would argue that the college archives symbolically represents the college as a community through the materials that it contains. Materials and records pertaining to the people who composed the past communities of Mount Holyoke (alumnae, faculty, etc) as well as information regarding the way of life for each generation is maintained and preserved there. In a sense, the archives are responsible for keeping memories of the past communities of Mount Holyoke alive.

Our research projects can be used to support the idea of how the archives may represent MHC as a community. Most of us are gathering information on the similarities and/or differences of certain aspects of Mount Holyoke as a community in the past compared to what we presently understand Mount Holyoke community to be, using the materials in the archives as our sources.