Publication Date
January 1999
Abstract
A full thirty years ago Rudy Vecoli, director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, reminded archivists that "the portrayal of diversity has been an ideal to which we have paid lip service rather than a task to which we have addressed ourselves." Gradually, lip service paid to diversity within archival and museum organizations-whether it be a diverse staff or diverse collections or diverse exhibits-is giving way to sustained and effective action. There is a large measure of enlightened self-interest driving this action; even for the relatively homogenous populations in the states of the upper Midwest, diversity is an increasingly important fact.