@thetravelingarchivist: I once spent days processing prototype ostomy bags and colostomy devices. Training photos. Instructional videos. The full archive of a major medical supply company. And I treated it with the exact same care as a letter from 1850. That’s the job. We do not decide what is historically significant based on medium, comfort level, or our preferences. Medical device history matters. Patient care history matters. And corporatate history (eye roll) matters. The unglamorous, clinical, deeply human stuff that nobody wants to touch — that’s often where the most important stories live. I’ve found rat nests full of 200 year old botanical remains inside the walls of a historic Charleston kitchen house. I’ve handled human hair, old teeth, circumcision tools, worn shoes, you name it. Mystery objects that required actual research to identify. Things that arrived with no context, no label, no explanation.Every single one of them had a story worth keeping. Here’s what I want people to understand: archives are not just elegant manuscripts and leather bound diaries. They are the full, weird, uncomfortable, sometimes gross record of human life. And somebody has to process it, preserve it, and make it findable. That somebody is us. Dirty job. Extraordinary results. ##archives##History##archivesoftiktok##medicalhistory##preservation

The Traveling Archivist

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Friday 24 April 2026 20:18:09 GMT