The Society of American Archivists at Seventy-Five: Contexts of Continuity and Crisis, A Personal Reflection

This essay does not recount the history of the Society of American Archivists' first seventy-five years. It suggests one possible framework for understanding the complex context of the Society's evolution—the cultural milieu and multiple intersecting influences that have contributed to making the SAA the organization it is. It proposes that the past seventy-five years can be construed as a single moment, the moment of the SAA's emergence. The last seventy-five years can be regarded as an era of chronic crisis and evolving frontiers. In fact, our own experience bears a marked resemblance to the 1930s, which seems more current today than it often did to those generations between the thirties and ours. Starkly put, the SAA's founding members are not only our predecessors; they are also our contemporaries.