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Re: Jackie Kennedy's Pink Dress



I am sure we are all well aware of issues that involve donor restrictions,
historic value, and public pruience.  But I am also concerned that we step
back a moment and reflect on "just who do we think we are?!"  Where in the
Archivist's Oath does it require us to be guardians of (subjective) good
taste?  Why do we gravitate toward assuming "the public" need archivists to
license their interests and censor their viewing habits?  I once had a
archives visitor who needed to look at photos of burn victims.  I came to
believe that it may have helped her deal with a horrifying death in their
family.  I don't believe that visitors to the Holocaust Museum are all
motivated by grisly baseness.  Although I wouldn't want to have the Pink
Dress on display in an exhibition titled, "Murder and the Presidency!!", I
must say, it does hold a lot of poignant and tragic power for me.  One of
millions, I have never come to grips with the JFK assassination which was my
childhood introduction to grief and loss.  There IS an area between
gratutitous pandering and a lockbox for ever.  After all, we ARE here to
make information available and NOT just under those conditions that satisfy
our personal sense of decorum.

f. michael Angelo
library director
independence seaport museum
211 s. columbus blvd.
philadelphia, pa  19106


-----Original Message-----
From: Archives & Archivists [mailto:ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU]On
Behalf Of Eva Krusten
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2000 2:21 PM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: Re: Jackie Kennedy's Pink Dress


Do the people who feel that they have some kind of right to see Jackie
Kennedy's blood stained pink suit also feel that they have the right to hear
tapes dealing with the deaths of the astronauts in the Apollo (204) launch
pad fire in January 1967, or the Challenger shuttle craft?  Someone asked
why an archives would preserve something if it was not displayed.  Just
because an archives has such material and preserves it for historical
purposes, does not mean that every portion of it can and should be released
to the public.

Eva Krusten
(Stated as personal opinion rather than in a professional capacity)

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