Settler archives are situated across the U.S. and housed within institutions such as university campuses. They were invented and placed strategically to help attune the world both to ideal representations of knowledge, understanding, and humanity and to their promises of salvation, progress, and development. In this essay, I argue settler archives…

Utah's libraries were perceived as instruments for "the establishment of a recognized social order" by each successive group that came to power and were often founded as the result of conflict between Mormon culture and the larger American society. On their arrival, Mormons established libraries primarily to provide access to information…