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Paper short abstract:

This paper uses Swedish and Swedish American archives to explore the relationship between cultural heritage archives and object collections. How might (in)significant objects and stories change how we research everyday life if material culture and paper archival are accessed together?

Paper long abstract:

In the fall of 2022, while researching at the Swedish Emigrant Institute, the nurse’s cap I found tucked into a box of letters, menus, and photos was relocated to the textile collection in the museum magazine. A later visit to the textile magazine, 15 minutes away by bus, revealed a sheaf of notes next to a collection of dresses that did not exist in the corresponding archival collection. In many institutions, items and documents like these have been sorted into specific categories for preservation, organization, and storage purposes. My research explores Swedish-American women's experience of migration and re-migration through the affective stories of household objects and clothing, topics long counted as insignificant in many of the collections I work in. Though collections are increasingly featured in exhibits in exhibits, the separation of objects and archives has often rendered them difficult to find and access together.

Approaching “insignificant stuff” through researching gender and women's history and folklore at the archival and museum divide, I explore the meaning of continuing boundaries between archives and material object collections in Swedish and Swedish American Archives. What types of materials move or get stuck between archives, museums, and libraries? What does it mean to study everyday life when linked object collections and paper archives are often stored separately? How do materials gain or lose significance through regular reordering in everyday practice? What significance may be found in reuniting objects and archives in everyday archival and curatorial practice in the face of financial or spatial uncertainty?