Historical Record Quotes

“In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“The historical record often neglects certain kinds of stories. For example, in the Library of Congress, OSS veterans helped catalogue the OSS records; this was a good service to the country, but they often catalogued the names of men and not the names of women. In memoirs that men wrote about the war years, the names of women are, likewise, often absent – they’re “a shapely analyst.” Say or “a woman from Harvard.” I’m grateful to have a way to fill in the stories of figures who, despite their importance, don’t receive their due space in the archives.”
― Elyse Graham, Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

“there is a sense in which literacy actually distorts the archeological record, for while it illuminates the centers of civilization, it makes the darkness surrounding even darker.”
― N.K. Sandars, The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the Ancient Mediterranean 1250-1150 BC (Ancient Peoples & Places)

“So much of this story is about power and how it shapes our knowledge of the environment. By not trusting someone because of their gender, race, age, or class, we lose crucial information. We erase their contributions and discount their observations. Margaretta's and Elizabeth's respective lives and work illuminate the frustrating hurdles they faced as women, despite the privileges afforded to them by their wealth and race. The [Morris] sisters developed strategies and methods to counter the distrust, the exclusion, even the attacks. Despite all of that, they have been erased from the historical narrative. They have been forgotten.”
― Catherine McNeur, Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science