UC Berkeley

This dissertation examines the piece by piece collection of American archives from independence through the Civil War, explores the Atlantic context that these collections emerged in and depended on, and analyzes the historical narratives that they bolstered. Through six chapters, it shows that the development of U.S. historical societies, archival collections, and historical narratives was a far more contentious, uncertain, and global process than has been recognized. After a chapter examining the nature of American archives in an Atlantic context, it charts the attempts by different Americans from the Revolution through the Civil War to collect and narrate an antique, a medieval, a colonial, and a revolutionary history for the nation. Each of these is explored in a separate chapter, followed by a final chapter about women's influence on the development of collecting and archives throughout this period. This process of collecting and narrating American history took place in a dynamic hemispheric and transatlantic context as the U.S. expanded as a global power. Yet, it played out on a local level too, fragmented among the states. Without this framework comprising the global and local, it is impossible to understand how and why Americans in this period built the archives and told the histories that they did. Meanwhile, this dissertation shows how the authority and the responsibility to collect historical materials shifted unevenly over the course of these decades among individuals, historical societies, states, and the federal government. The dissertation asks why certain materials were collected, which narratives were imposed on or excluded from these archives, and who was empowered or denied the right to build these networks and collections, narrate the American past, and claim belonging in it.