Scattered and Fugitive Things How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History

Winner, 2025 Merle Curti Intellectual History Award, Organization of American Historians Winner, 2024 Arline Custer Memorial Book Award, Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference Winner, 2025 Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award, Library History Round Table of The American Library Association Honorable Mention, 2025 Lawrence W. Levine Award, Organization of American Historians Honorable Mention, 2025 S-USIH Annual Book Prize, Society for U.S. Intellectual History Finalist, 2025 ASALH Book Prize for Best New Book in African American History and Culture, Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) During the first half of the twentieth century, a group of collectors and creators dedicated themselves to documenting the history of African American life. At a time when dominant institutions cast doubt on the value or even the idea of Black history, these bibliophiles, scrapbookers, and librarians created an enduring set of African diasporic archives.