Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Documenting Environmental Activism in New York State

Abstract

A significant component of the political history of New York and other states in the second half of the twentieth century is the extraordinary growth of a social movement directed at environmental issues. The authors completed a case study of a documentation project to collect archival records about the history of environmental affairs in New York State. This article critically examines documentation strategy and the evolution of statewide documentation projects in New York, describes the implementation of a documentation project for environmental affairs, and suggests methods for improving the identification and selection of records of enduring value. The project set out to answer a number of questions about the scope of environmental affairs, the nature of the political culture for environmental public policy, and the best way to develop an effective methodology for collection development, for record surveying, and for the education of record holders. A primary finding of the study was that holders of archival records are in dire need of education about the importance of and methods for depositing, providing access to, and preserving archival records.

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