Vom verborgenen Spezial-Wissen zum zugänglichen Wissensort? Von Nutzen und Nutzung kommunaler Archive

Abstract

Today, archives are considered accessible places of knowledge par excellence and thus represent a modern counter-image to the long-dominant framework of hidden, exclusive knowledge of the elites in power. The article traces opening tendencies in the 19th and 20th centuries. On the one hand, it examines who gained access to urban memory. On the other hand, it sheds light on how the functions of the archives for city and society changed, which sources were regarded as relevant for specific periods and how this influenced the formation of records. Archives not only served as custodians of histori-cal material and advisors to the administration, but also took on tasks of urban representation. As archives became more professional from the end of the 19th century, they offered increasing opportunities to open up access to historical material to more and sometimes also new user groups. Since the second half of the 19th century, municipal archives developed into places where new knowledge of urban history was produced and communicated.