Accessible
for people with disabilities Archives
The Collections
Most
of the collections are on-site at the museum’s main Fort Place facility
but some materials are in off-site storage. Approximately 1000 linear feet
of materials, comprising personal papers, manuscripts, exhibit records, local
community records, photographs, and special collections, are located at Fort
Place. A small selection of Anacostia Community Museum historical and administrative
records are kept by the archives and supplement the institutional records
held by Smithsonian Institution
Archives.
Discrete Collections
Holdings include the personal papers of individuals with national
or local reputations. Among these materials include the papers of Frederick
Douglass Patterson, Madame Lillian Evanti, Lorenzo Dow Turner, Ethel Payne,
Joy McLean, Col. West A. Hamilton, Charles E. Qualls, Ella Pearis, and Alice
B. Finlayson. In addition, collections of family papers that document everyday
life and family history in diverse communities include the Sullivan, Griffith,
Henson, Plummer-Arnold, Harris, Bryan, Lucus, and Robinson-Smith papers. The
archives also contain the records of several organizations, such as the Bladensburg
Union Burial Association, with records dating from 1874–1978; the Chitlin
Market; and the District of Columbia Art Association. Catalog records are
available on SIRIS.
Exhibition Records
These records document the museum’s myriad exhibits from
1967 to the present and also complement the institutional records held by
Smithsonian Institution Archives . Highlights from the collection include:
The Anacostia Story: 1609–1930; The Real McCoy: African-American
Invention and Innovation, 1619–1930; Climbing Jacob’s Ladder:
The Rise of Black Churches in Eastern American Cities, 1740–1877; The
Harlem Renaissance: Black Arts of the Twenties; Banding Together: School Bands
as Instruments of Opportunity; and Black Mosaic: Community, Race, and Ethnicity
among Black Immigrants in Washington, D.C. Catalog records are available
on SIRIS.
Photographic materials
The archives house over 50,000 images, with the strength residing
in the visual documentation of the community, exhibitions, programs, educational,
and outreach material spanning the museum’s forty-three years. The collection
also includes works by historical and contemporary celebrated photographers.
Among these photographers are Arthur P. Bedou, Prentice Herman Polk (P. H.
Polk), Addison N. Scurlock, Carl Van Vechten, Ernest C. Withers, Robert H.
McNeill, Titus Brooks Heagins, Kerry Coppin, Dennis C. Calhoun, and Fern Logan.
In addition, the Dorn C. McGrath Jr. slide collection dates from 1969 to 2000
and provides an extensive resource of the built and natural environment of
the Anacostia community.
Special Collections
The archives include over 200 volumes of books dating from
the early 19th century to the present. Poems on Various Subjects Religious
and Moral by Phillis Wheatley is the earliest publication in the collection.
Posters, sheet music, pamphlets, vertical files, and audiovisual materials
are also among the holdings in the Anacostia Community Museum Archives.