“Though necessary to the work of uncovering the past, archives are nevertheless limited and misleading storehouses of information. While at times imposing and formal enough as to seem all-encompassing in their brick, glass, and steel structures, archives only include records that survived accident, were viewed as important in their time or in some subsequent period, and were deemed worthy of preservation. These records were originally created by fallible people like you and me, who could err in their jottings, hold vexed feelings they sometimes transmitted onto the page, or consciously or unconsciously misconstrue events they witnessed. Even in their most organized form, archived records are mere scraps of accounts of previous happenings, "rags of realities" that we painstakingly stick together in order to picture past societies.” HistoryArchivesPublic History Book:All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake Source: All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake