Connecting the Docs: Storytelling With Archival Records

Join the team behind Connecting the Docs, the State Archives of North Carolina’s podcast, as we detail how to use archival collections to create historical narratives and share skills you can use in your own research. Oral historians John Horan and Annabeth Poe will begin with an overview of Connecting the Docs, including audience statistics and how one letter from our private collections inspired an entire podcast episode of content. Then, Records Description Unit head Joshua Hager will give an overview of how archivists used our Treasurer’s and Comptroller’s collection to call attention to work done by enslaved laborers. Reference Archivist Katherine Crickmore will follow by highlighting criminal records used in the murder ballads episode of our true crime series. Finally, Archivist T. Mike Childs will demonstrate how he put together the more lighthearted story of Slow Poke the Possum using state agency records. Stick around for a Q&A session, then leave with the confidence to “connect the docs” on your own by researching at the State Archives of North Carolina!