Electronic Green Journal

This article maps the contemporary political landscape shaping archival practice in the United Staes (U.S.). It examines how executive interventions, funding instability, and the privatization of historical production have intensified the governance pressures facing archival institutions. It introduces the term Commercial History Production Centers (CHPCs) to describe for-hire firms that integrate archival custody, infrastructure, and narrative production within market-driven frameworks, raising critical questions about transparency, labor, and public accountability. In response, the article advances Radical Archivy as an approach to preservation that reconceptualizes sustainability as a matter of governance, labor, narrative authority, and access, rather than solely as a technical concern. Drawing on professional and international sustainability frameworks, it presents the Sustainable Governance and Ethical Stewardship Questionnaire for Engaging with Archival Environments, a public-facing tool designed to help donors, artists, community members, and institutional clients evaluate archival stewardship across sectors. By empowering those who entrust repositories with their memories and records to assess archival practices, the article contributes to an ongoing reorientation of archival culture toward accountability, care, and structural transparency.