Dorothy Berry Never Thought She'd Be An Archivist

The new digital curator at the Smithsonian NMAAHC speaks to Lorain.

Illustration by Tirzah Khan

I have no idea how I first got acquainted with Dorothy Berry via Twitter but in any case, I’m so glad that I did. Her Twitter feed is chock full of Black history, whether she’s talking about magazines from the Harlem Renaissance, giving a private showing of the Houghton Library (her previous place of employment) to Yara Shahidi and Professor Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, or posting old newspaper articles of her ancestors’ romantic scandals, Berry is the real deal.

I’m lucky to have caught her to have this conversation because Berry is in a state of transition. As I speak to her via zoom, she’s in the midst of moving from Cambridge, MA to Washington D.C where she works as the newly minted digital curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture (NMAAHC).

Stacked behind her are loads of books and boxes but one poster catches my eye. She tells me it’s of Bert Williams, one of the first major Black celebrities in the United States and the first Black performer to star in the Ziegfeld Follies. She also tells me he performed in blackface.

That’s what I admire about Dorothy: She always mic-drops historical facts.

Tell me a bit about your personal background because your family has a really deep history.

Where's a good place to start with that? Geez. My folks met in the seventies in an intentional, Christian community. They are Bohemian, spiritual people. My mom's from Brooklyn. She's like very classic American story of Brooklyn Jews that came over from Belarus and get into the clothing garment industry work in factories, et cetera. I think on that side I would be the first generation to not be in Yiddish speaking households.

My dad’s family is from the Ozarks in Southwest Missouri. When I was 10, the house that his great, great grandparents built in 1873 had been in the family ever since. Because we inherited it and I think at the time we were living in St. Louis. My folks just decided it would be a good idea to move down there. That house is very old and there's a cemetery in the backyard that is the community cemetery for indigenous people and former enslaved people and people that could not afford to be in the town cemetery. Both sides of my family really are savers of things.

Growing up, were you always interested in savoring things?

Oh yeah. I always loved history. I remember asking for history books. I loved my little American Girl doll activity books because I wanted to read the little facts. Real little, uh, dork there. Part of it I think it's ‘cause St. Louis, ‘cause it's where I was born and lived till I was about 10. It's a really historical city. We didn't have money. So we were always at the museums that are open for free, you know? That always really fascinated me. Just wanting to know all of the facts.

Did you know early on that you wanted to be an archivist?

No. When I was little, I wanted two things: to be an opera singer and a professor of fairy tales at Oxford University. I don’t even think I had ever even heard opera. I had a book of classic fairytales, which is not a kid's book. This book had the first English language printed edition of classic fairytales. But what I really liked, because I don't feel like I really understood the fairy tales as well in that book, was the introduction, ‘cause each story had an introduction that talked about the history of it.

I took classical voice for like 12 years. I have a degree in vocal performance and decided that I didn't wanna pursue a career in that because that is a lot of struggle and you can always sing in your life. Having salaries and insurance and stuff is pretty cool in our society.

Even the archives thing, it sort of…I fell into it because I like history. And so when I was in doing my music undergrad degree, I had a class in 20th century styles and techniques of sound and I was like, oh, actually I'm really interested in this musicology thing. Maybe I wanna do that. Who knows? And so I applied to some different schools, but also because I don't come for money, I was like, but I need to do something that you can get a job in. So I'll get this library degree too. It just kind of tumbled forward.

Do you have a memory of some type of historical find that you came upon that reminded you that your job was worth it?

Ooh, that's a good one. I generally feel like any time you can share materials with people who aren't expecting this type of material, that's like a worth it moment. I feel like every time I read something from archives that is, um, very human, those are moments that resonate with me strongly. So when you're reading letters and it's not necessarily like, oh this is a really big, important historical find because it proves that X person was talking to X.

When you're reading something and it's like, “I was on business in Chicago and those Chicago guys drink way too much. I'm just trying to do this business. But this guy was super wasted.” That sort of thing I always love because it's like, right.

What are some of the most frustrating parts of your previous job as an archivist?

A lot of these materials are held within institutions and you have to be constantly aware that you are working within those institutional constraints. If you work for the government, there are probably certain types of speech that you are not going to be doing on the government websites.

What’s the way that I balance this so that I'm not doing something that I find unethical or inaccurate? But it's the same thing at a university. What is the goal of this university archive at the core of it? The goal for the archive might be to spread knowledge. The goal for the university is to spread knowledge, to increase donations from such and such and to increase registration from such and such.

I think what can be tough is that people outside of archives oftentimes have like a very idealized, conceptual view. And it's the same for museums. You can work in other contexts and it might be less stable but potentially more fruitful for you. But if you work for the university, you work for the university.

When it comes to digital and print archives of Black life, how do you juggle these two modes?

Some of the things I really value about digitizing material from print archives is that it expands access. It hopefully enhances the ability of people to access material without having to have interactions that might be damaging. So thinking of something like records around slavery, those are very emotionally trying to go through.

At least in my experience, there is a benefit to being able to research those things. If you want to at home or in a space where you can take breaks or go get a cup of tea or listen to music and be mad. You can't do that in the physical, quiet reading room spaces. In the reading spaces themselves, statistically, the staff is primarily white, if not entirely. Probably a lot of or most of the visitors as well.

It can still be jarring when you're working with certain types of material and just, you know, ‘cause it reminds you of historical circumstance and that's true of slavery. That's true with dealing with racially inflammatory material. I've done a lot of work with describing and providing access to blackface and minstrelsy stuff. When you're in the moment, it's like, why am I in this room? There's a lot of levels of context. And I personally think that there is a benefit for folks being able to have more control over their experience.

At the Smithsonian, can you tell me about your new title?

Sure. This is the end of week three. It's a unique position because it is a curatorial position that is not in the office of curatorial affairs. It's a new position for the museum, which means that what I'll be doing is sort of to be discovered in many ways. A lot of it is working with all of the genius curators at the museum and the genius tech people to figure out what are our overarching narratives? How are we creating stories that make all of this information and amazing collections material accessible to everybody online?

Sometimes when you have so much human wealth, it's like, how do we actually connect this? Some of it will be just really practical like spreadsheets, publication schedules, and editorial products.

When it comes to digital archival curation of Black life where do you see it going?

Something I would really love to do or be part of eventually would be figuring out how to engage the many Black creatives on the internet that work with historical materials. Me and my supervisor were just talking about the folks that have been syncing tracks from Beyoncé’s new album to archival videos of a dance party from the 80s.

People maybe aren't thinking of that as like archival work but that's a great creative reuse of archives. But outside of very few people, none of that stuff is cited. There's not a relationship with the collections. I think of Renata Cherlise of Black Archives. She's amazing with always having the references. I would love to figure out reciprocity. What’s a way that we as people that have all these materials can benefit those creatives with increased access and maybe platform? They can also benefit us by helping us think of new ways that collections can be used.

For anyone who wants to build their own archive, what tips would you give them?

I would recommend this book published by the Society of American Archivists called Creating Family Archives. It’s a really good practical guide.

I would recommend talking to any elder in your family who is happy to talk to you. You may have to sweeten your elders up. You can have all the photos in the world but if you don’t have someone telling you, “Oh that’s Aunt Ida and that’s this person and they don’t like each other, that’s why they’re doing that kind of stuff” then they lose their meaning and the value that you’re trying to gather. Try to get the photos together and have someone talk to you about them.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.