University of Minnesota Libraries Unveils One of the Largest Public Human Rights Archives

From the University of Minnesota Libraries:

The University of Minnesota now has one of the largest human rights archives at a public university, and it’s already helping researchers, educators, and human rights advocates across the globe.

“With everything that’s happening in the world, if we can highlight aspects of the history of human rights, maybe that provides us an opportunity to learn what not to do in the future,” said Kris Kiesling, director of  the U of M’s Archives and Special Collections (ASC).

Unlike other collections in ASC, the Minnesota Human Rights Archive (MHRA) is an umbrella archive composed of new human rights materials donated to the Libraries, as well as existing materials housed in other collections.

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From the Givens Collection of African American Literature to the Immigration History Research Center Archives, there’s a trove of materials about civil rights, LGBTQ rights, child labor, domestic violence, public health, and more. ASC archivists and curators are already investigating how their materials relate to human rights, and how their collections are positioned under the MHRA umbrella.

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Planning for MHRA began around eight years ago when Barbara Frey — the former director of the U of M Human Rights Program and a founder and previous director of the advocates for human rights — began contacting The Advocates, CVT, and other organizations across the state.

Kiesling — alongside University Archivist Erik Moore and Social Welfare History Archivist Linnea Anderson — met with Frey, Weissbrodt, and Meyer Weinshel, former collections and outreach lead for UMN’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, to build the MHRA.

The team transferred some materials from HRC in 2016, and later on, Patrick Finnegan, former assistant director of HRC and administrative associate for The Advocates, surveyed and listed Weissbrodt’s personal papers and research materials.

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Pooling new and existing materials under the human rights umbrella not only helps researchers by condensing the initial hunt-and-gather phase of their projects, but it also helps potential donors. It’s easier for them to articulate their goals for their material, Moore explained, and it’s easier to connect their work to the broad framework of human rights, than a more granular collection like the University Archives.

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