Janet Berry Hess

Osage and Settler: Reconstructing Shared History through an Oklahoma Family Archive Janet Berry Hess

[Against the understanding of Jacques Derrida, who initiated analysis of archives as an expression of state power, the archive can be seen as a disruption or break in the standard presentation and operation of power. In this text I employ a family archive--consisting of correspondence, diaries, interviews, journalistic accounts, records, photographs, artwork and maps--as well as archival and historical material from the Osage to document a unique relationship among white settlers, the Osage, and African Americans in Oklahoma.