1 Dr. Jonathan Prude, Emory University “The Great Transformation ...

18collaborating in the joint project of understanding the past both as it can be known today byrecognizing wider frameworks and as it was directly known by contemporaries.This brings me to the final topic I want to mention. Another way historians andpreservationsts might see themselves joined at the hip is that they both root their knowledge inevidence from earlier times, whether documents or buildings. There have always been forcesaffecting access to such sources, whether inclinations to shred payroll books or temptations toreplace old structures with shopping malls. And we need to continue raising our voices to defenddocuments and buildings from such depredations. In this sense we’re all preservationists. But weneed to acknowledge a new variable in play: digitization. The possibility of placing both textsand views of places or things online is fast upon us and we need to think together about how torespond. Should we willingly accept libraries and archives that are only digital? Are we open tovirtual tours of the Old Slater Mill--to tours that are only virtual? I think these questions arerelated and merit serious thought. Because if we want to have a voice in determining the place ofdigitization in the years ahead we need to develop our arguments thoughtfully and, I’d suggest,cooperatively. We need to listen to one another. Because by listening to one another we will beable to determine how best to keep safe, interpret, and share with our audiences the imprints ofhistory. Imprints like the piece of wood found in a Webster, Massachusetts mill, preserved in thattown’s local museum, and on which a Ph.D. candidate in history, shortly after having his closeencounter with a spinning wheel, found this inscription:“On this 1st day of January 1866/ I place this board under the eaves,I am a laborer on the Mill/ I work at plainning floor boards/ My age is 18 years.Perhaps when you find This here laid/My bones perhaps will have decayed.”Thank you.