Organiser les masses : le traitement des archives photographiques du journal L’Humanité

Abstract

The photo collection of the newspaper L’Humanité, published by the French communist party, was deposited at the departmental archives of Seine-Saint-Denis in 2003. It comprises more than two million pictures. Its arrival at the departmental archive service forced the staff there to adapt their working methods. The challenge was take into account the requirements of all the partners in the project. On the one hand it was necessary to guarantee the material and intellectual control of the collection, which did not have any inventory or catalogue. On the other hand, it was an obligation to maintain the communicability of the pictures and their daily use. The authors of this article present the different strategies worked out to take up this challenge. They show how, once the mass of documents was properly sorted, it was possible to undertake the treatment and description of the photos as a long-term project. They describe the range of topics covered by the photos and their sometimes complex origins, and they identify the gaps in the collection as well as other, similar archival collections. They give an account of the various events that can have an impact on the integrity of a newspaper photo archive like this one. They give an overview of the results accomplished and suggest too the impact in terms of organisation, means and necessary skills that the arrival of a collection like this one can have on a heritage-based structure such as a departmental archive service.

Keywords

• archives
• archival collections
• photography
• press
• newspaper
• twentieth century