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While it is not yet clear what exactly was lost in a fire that destroyed a Highlander Education and Research Center building, the Wisconsin Historical Society said the majority of the center's archives are safe.
The Wisconsin Historical Society started collecting labor and trade union records from around the country in the 1920s, and then began collecting national civil rights records in the 1970s, according to Matt Blessing, an administrator with the group.
The group formed an arrangement with the Highlander Center in 1971 to become its official archivist, and Wisconsin Historical Society representatives have traveled to the center in New Market, Tennessee, for a new collection of records every five to 10 years since, he said. Their last visit was in 2010, and the next was planned to take place this summer.
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Right now, the Wisconsin Historical Society holds nearly the complete Highlander Center archives from 1917 to 2005, including: 104 archive boxes, 50 reels of 35 millimeter film, plus more than 1,600 tape recordings, over 400 video recordings and about 22,000 photographs, negatives and transparencies.
The records chart the organization's history confronting social justice issues like labor, civil rights and poverty, and its conflict with the government during the McCarthy era of the 1940s and '50s. The archive also includes photos of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and Pete Seeger, who trained at Highlander Center workshops.
Blessing said Highlander Center staff are making plans to send the historical society records that survived Friday's fire because they were stored in another building.
Unknown what records burned in fire
The Highlander Center has not responded to requests for information on what the burned archives contained. Blessing said the historical society is trying to figure that out, too.
"I think it's likely meeting minutes, board reports and other administrative records from recent years that were lost in the fire Friday," he said.
"Organizations like Highlander produce a large amount of records. Of those records, a small percentage are going to have long-term value," Blessing said. "There's a tremendous amount of chaff."
The historical society archivists' job was to filter out things like cancelled checks, and select meeting records, newsletters and other items that shape an organization's history.
Blessing said the historical society plans to work with the Highlander Center to share digital copies of many of the Wisconsin archives to help them return to basic operations, like posting photos online or in newsletters.
"That's what we've worked with Highlander on since 1971," Blessing said. "We're saddened by the loss of their headquarters building, their historical records and and considerable stress on their employees. Thankfully, no one was injured and so many of their records are preserved at the historical society, and we can share those back with them."
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