Welcome to the Digital Archive of Animal Activism at the University of Michigan!
This digital archive brings together materials documenting the history of animal activism at the University of Michigan. It includes items from student advocacy groups, such as protest images and organizing records, as well as materials that bring attention to the university’s long and influential history of animal testing in research. These include the personal papers of laboratory directors, institutional documents, and accreditation reviews.
Our goal is to provide researchers, students, and all other interested parties with a comprehensive, educational, and accessible resource that centers the breadth of animal activism at U-M, while also placing these movements in conversation with the powerful research infrastructures they worked to challenge. The University of Michigan is home to one of the oldest and most widely influential animal testing research laboratories in the country: Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine (ULAM). The long presence of ULAM also means that animal activism has been active on campus for decades. Yet the university archives overwhelmingly reflects the institutional history of animal testing rather than the grassroots movements that contested it.
Archives have historically and most often continue to privilege the voices of institutions and peoples in power over those of activists and counter movements. This imbalance is precisely what motivates our archival porject. By highlighting the activist materials but also presenting them alongside the university’s research records, we seeks to make visible the perspectives and histories that have be present but underpriveleged within traditional university archival collections.
Disclaimer
Please be aware that this archive includes sensitive content, including some images and descriptions of animal abuse and suffering. These materials may be upsetting, and we encourage viewers to proceed as they feel comfortable.
Positionality
We as future archivists acknowledge that the creation of archives often reflects the beliefs of those who create it. Therefore, in order to promote full transparency we would like to acknowledge how our positionality may have shaped this archive. Although we come from a diverse array of backgrounds in regards to this topic there are a few key beliefs that we all share and may have influenced the creation of this archive. We believe in the importance of animal welfare, the need and importance of activism, that privacy should be protected, and that information should be shared.
Privacy Statement
Currently, all items in this archive are historical. This was an intentional choice to help protect the identities of activists. In today's political climate, activists across U.S. campuses are being unfairly targeted and harrassed, subjected to unjust disciplinary actions, and even illegally deported. We welcome the addition of contemporary materials, however we want to leave the choice of inclusion to activists and community organizations so that privacy and safety remains under their control.
Materials
The included archival materials primarily come from The Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan and come from boxes and folders that have not been digitized. Much of the materials on activism come from Deep Blue Documents.
Meet The Team
