Historical Responsibility

Had an interesting conversation with someone while checking my email in the library today. He seemed to have a good knowledge of the various archives in the city (I've seen him in a few of them before) and we got chatting about different collections. What was interesting was that he mentioned one set of records - which I've worked in for an earlier period - and said that there were some letters in there of his, which he'd asked not to be microfilmed, for reasons of privacy. Furthermore, he said that one scholar had used these letters in a book on the city, which had upset him a great deal.

This got me thinking about our responsibility, as historians, to respect the privacy of our subjects. I don't think that this is a question that is raised particularly often as part of our training - certainly it isn't part of the Cambridge graduate training program. The reason for this, I suspect, is that we insulate ourselves off from our subjects, to an extent, finding it easier to conceptualise them as 'characters'(a term I see used quite often) , rather than as real people.

This process of insulation is particularly easy for me, as I concentrate on a period from which few key players are still alive. Even so, I'm not completely safe, as it's perfectly possible that the child or grandchild of one of the people I discuss could take issue with my portrayal of their relative. While I, of course, want my work to be relevant to modern life, the idea that it could impact on someone so directly and personally is rather horrifying. What's worse is that there's no effective way to avoid it, short of bending the facts to portray everyone in the best possible light - obviously not an option for a serious historian. Perhaps the best defence is to do what we do anyway: strive for the most accurate view of the past that we can.