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The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: Access and Control over Controversial Records

As the nations archives, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) preserves
and provides access to records that document how our government conducts business on behalf
of the American peoplepast and present. For the American citizen, NARA provides a form of
accountability through the records within its custody which affect the nations collective
memory. A plethora of these records, however, contain evidence of the federal governments
misconduct in episodes in American history which affected public trust. The Tuskegee Syphilis
Study records are a prime example of records within the custody of NARA that continue to have
a lasting affect on public trust in the federal government. Even though NARA disclosed administrative records that document the governments role in the study, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study records continue to challenge the institution on a variety of archival issues such as access, privacy, collective memory, and accountability. Through historical case study methodology, this study examines the National Archives and Records Administrations administrative role in maintaining and providing access to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study records, especially the restricted information. The effect of the changing social context on NARAs recordkeeping practices of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study records is also explored.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-08232006-130621
Date06 October 2006
CreatorsWhorley, Tywanna
Contributorsellen detlefsen, Margaret Kimmel, Elizabeth Yakel, Richard Cox, Stephen Thomas, Joe Trotter
PublisherUniversity of Pittsburgh
Source SetsUniversity of Pittsburgh
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-08232006-130621/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

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