Johnathan Thayer

Johnathan Thayer, Assistant Professor
Rosenthal Library, Room 241
Graduate School of Library and Information Studies
Queens College, City University of New York
Phone: (718) 997-3757
E-mail: jthayer@qc.cuny.edu

Education

PhD in History, The Graduate Center, CUNY
M.L.S. Queens College, CUNY
B.A. in English, Wesleyan University

Work Experience

Senior Archivist, The Seamen’s Church Institute of New York and New Jersey

Teaching:

Coordinator of the Archives and Preservation of Cultural Materials Certificate, GSLIS, Queens College, CUNY
Graduate Advisor for MLS/MA Dual Degree in LIS and History
Faculty Advisor for the Queens College Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists
Graduate Fellow in Labor Studies, Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies, CUNY (2013-2015)

Courses Taught:

LBSCI 709: Research in Library and Information Studies (GSLIS)
LBSCI 730: Archival Appraisal, Arrangement, and Access (GSLIS)
LBSCI 732: Archives, Manuscripts, and the Shape of Material History (GSLIS)
LBSCI 790.3 / HIST 799: Public History (GSLIS and History)
LBSCI 757: Introduction to Digitization (GSLIS)
LBSCI 795: Internship (GSLIS)

Research & Professional Interests

I teach classes based on my experiences in the field of professional archival work, with a focus on fundamentals of archival practice, including archival appraisal and documentation, access systems, digitization, and the preservation of cultural heritage materials. My approach to teaching archival theory focuses on answering the question “Why do archives matter?” and translating the discussions that follow into opportunities for archival advocacy. Potential topics include the relationship between archival access and political power, archival records as potential tools for accountability and justice, archival ethics, and intersections between community archives, public history, and social memory.

My research interests include intersections between maritime, labor, and urban history; the contexts of creation, use, and disposition of government records; archival advocacy; rethinking “archival literacy”; and critical approaches to archival education.

I interpret my role as Coordinator as that of a facilitator whose primary task is to ensure that archival education at GSLIS is as inclusive and diverse as possible. To that end, I seek collaboration with like-minded practitioners, academics, institutions, and professional organizations.

In addition to work on publications and conference presentations, I have coordinated student-led collaborations with Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground and Documentation Services at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. I am also the lead researcher on Mapping New York City’s Sailortown, which uses digitized archival material and data visualization to represent the cultural palimpsests of New York’s historical waterfront. Other projects include the Seamen’s Church Institute’s American Merchant Marine Veterans Oral History Project, a publicly accessible digital archive consisting of over 800 audio clips from interviews with more than 70 veteran merchant mariners. Beginning in 2010, I have been the lead archivist for the Seamen’s Church Institute’s Digital Archives, which hosts more than 12,000 digital archival items.

Selected Publications

Monographs

Thayer, J. Citizenship, subversion, and surveillance in U.S ports. (under contract with Palgrave-Macmillan).

Edited Volumes

Downing, K., Thayer, J., Begiato, J., eds. Negotiating masculinities and modernity in the maritime world, 1815-1940. (under contract with Palgrave-MacMillan).

Book Chapters

Thayer, J. Introduction and “Sailors’ homes”: Sailors’ boardinghouses, maritime reform, and contested masculinities in New York’s sailortown. (Downing, K., Thayer, J., Begiato, J. eds.). Negotiating masculinities and modernity in the maritime world, 1815-1940. (under contract with Palgrave-MacMillan).

Thayer, J. (2019). Sailors ashore in New York’s sailortown. (Freeman, J. B., ed.). City of labor, city of struggle: How labor movements changed New York. Columbia University Press.

Thayer, J. (2017). Merchant seamen, sailortowns, and the philanthropic encounter in New York City’s sailortown. (Worthington, D., ed.). The new coastal history: Cultural, urban and environmental perspectives. Palgrave-MacMillan.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Williams, C. B. and Thayer, J. (2020) Connecting community college students to primary source archival materials. College and Undergraduate Libraries, DOI: 10.1080/10691316.2020.1739585

Thayer, J. (2012). Mythmaking and the archival record: The Titanic disaster as documented in the archives of the Seamen’s Church Institute of New York and New Jersey. The American Archivist 75(2), 393-421.

Conference Presentations:

Litvin, S. and Thayer. J. (2019). Problems in partnerships: Addressing institutional difference in a collaborative world. Paper presented at the American Association for State and Local History and International Coalition of Sites of Conscience conference, “What are We Waiting For?,” Philadelphia PA.

Thayer, J. and Tummino, A. (2019). A community-centered model for archival education: A proposal-in-progress for an embedded fellowship program for archival studies students. Paper presented at the Archival Education and Research Institute (AERI) conference, Liverpool, UK.

Thayer, J. (2019). Sailors ashore: Sailortowns as portals to national and global reckonings. Paper presented at the North American Society for Oceanic History, “Connecting the Global and the Local: The Sea and Maritime Cities,” New Bedford, MA.

Thayer, J. (2019). Andrew Furuseth, the International Seamen’s Union, and the political ideology of maritime masculinity. Paper presented at the Global Maritime History digital conference, “Maritime Toxic Masculinity.”

Thayer, J. (2019). A 101-introduction to digitization of (maritime) cultural materials. Paper presented at the Floating Conference on Digital Maritime Heritage, Brooklyn, NY.

Thayer, J. and Cirasella, J. (co-Moderators). (2017). Preparing Graduate Students for Careers in Academic Librarianship. Paper presented at the LACUNY Institute, Queens, NY.

Thayer, J. (2016). Mapping masculinites in New York City’s sailortown. Paper presented at the Maritime Masculinities conference, Oxford, UK.

Thayer, J., Carra, R., Delgado, J. Fontánez Rodriguez, C. and Hartmann, R. (2016). Resurrecting local public history at the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground. Paper presented at the CUNY Public History Conference, “Afterlives: Place, Memory, Story,” NY, NY.

Thayer, J. (Chair). (2016). Reaching new audiences, repurposing old materials. CUNY Public History Collective Conference, “Afterlives: Place, Memory, Story,” NY, NY.

Thayer, J. (2016). Text mining, data visualization, and archival theory and practice. Paper presented at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference, PIttsburgh, PA.

Thayer, J. (2016). Merchant seamen, masculinity, and the philanthropic encounter in New York City’s sailortown. Paper presented at the “Firths and Fjords: A Coastal History Conference,” Dornoch, Scotland.

Breir, S., Vazquez, A., Battistella, M., and Thayer. J. (2015) Technical and conceptual challenges of developing the CUNY Digital History Archive (CDHA). Paper presented at the CUNY IT Conference, NY, NY.

Thayer, J. (Moderator). (2015). Alternative career paths for archivists. Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference, Roanoke, VA.

Litvin, S. and Thayer, J. (2015). Oral history as living history: Archives, documentaries, advocacy, historical interpretation, and tours of historical sites. New England Regional Conference of the Association for Living History, Farm, and Agricultural Museums, Mystic, CT.

Thayer, J. (2015). The haystack: Who controls the archive in the age of big data? Paper presented at the CUNY Graduate History Conference, “Identities, Ideologies, and Interactions: Conceptualizing New Histories,” NY, NY.

Thayer, J. (2015). The Seamen’s Church Institute’s American Merchant Marine Veterans Oral History Project: An archival intervention. Paper presented at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting, NY, NY.

Thayer, J. (2014). Shore leave denial in historical context: A timeline of restricted mobility and unfree labor at sea and in port. Paper presented at the “Health and Welfare of Seafarers Conference,” Hull, UK.