Lester J. Cappon and the Creation of Records: The Diary and the Diarist

Cet article est un examen de Lester J. Cappon comme expert en preuves historiques, en édition de documents et en théorie et pratique archivistiques, puis comme créateur de sources archivistiques, conscient de laisser des traces documentaires pour les chercheurs futurs.L'article se penche sur les façons dont Cappon s'est servi de son journal intime comme déclencheur de la mémoire dans le but de documenter sa vie, sa carrière et sa famille, puis comme moyen de se motiver à poursuivre ses propres projets de recherche (surtout les préoccupations avec la gestion de son temps).L'article expose les caractéristiques mécaniques et physiques du journal intime.On pourrait s'attendre à ce qu'une personne comme Cappon, avec ses intérêts et ses habiletés professionnelles soit plus porté à l'autoréflexion -et on n'est pas déçu.Cappon écrivait à la fois pour être lu et pour qu'on se rappelle de lui, choisissant d'inclure dans ses textes des commentaires très personnels à son égard et au sujet de sa carrière, ainsi qu'au sujet de sa famille et de ses collègues.Cappon se servait souvent de son journal intime comme moyen de réfléchir à sa propre carrière et aux possibilités quelle offrait, surtout quand il approchait de l'âge de la retraite.Il est clair aussi qu'il tenait son journal intime pour un lectorat futur, puisque plusieurs entrées sont très formelles, tant au niveau de l'expression que des explications.ABSTRACT This article is an exploration of Lester J. Cappon as an expert in historical evidence, documentary editing, and archival theory and practice, and of his own creation of archival sources and sense of leaving behind documentary traces for future researchers.It considers how Cappon used his diary as a memory device to document his life, career, and family, as well as a means to prod himself about his own scholarly projects (especially his concern about how to manage his time).It reviews the mechanics and physical characteristics of the diary.One would expect an individual with his interests and professional abilities to be more self-reflective about the diary process -and we are not disappointed.He wrote both to be read and remembered, including in his entries highly personal comments about himself and his career, as well as his family and colleagues.Cappon often used the diary as a means to reflect on his own career and its possibilities, especially as he reached his retirement years.It is also clear that he wrote the diary with a future audience in mind, many of the entries having a formality in expression and explanation.ARCHIvARIA 75 (Spring 2013): 115-144 Archivaria, The Journal of the Association of Canadian Archivists -All rights reservedHow, then, do we approach a diary (or memoir) written by someone who is a master in understanding the nature and vagaries of historical evidence and its survival?When writing his diaries, Lester J. Cappon must have relished the prospects of their potential use, he himself being an expert on the nature of historical evidence.Lester J. Cappon (1900-1981) was a historian, archivist, scholarly publisher, and documentary editor who played a leading role in the formation of the archival and documentary editing professions in mid-twentieth-century America.Cappon served as president of the Southern Historical Association (1949), the Society of American Archivists (957), and the Association for Documentary Editing (979), a rare achievement in professional leadership, and his archival writings are still cited (although less often than they used to be).Cappon was Jennifer Jensen Wallach, "Closer to the Truth Than Any Fact": Memoir, Memory, and Jim Crow (Athens, GA, 2008), 30.She also suggests that comprehending the value of memoirs depends on comparing them with other documentary sources: "The way the past is remembered is often at odds with what really happened.It is the job of the historian, or the scholar of the historical study of memoirs, to compare memoirs and other historical documents in order to compose as complete and as verifiable a depiction of a historical moment as possible" (pp.33-34).

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