Collection: Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) Records - Special Collections Finding Aids at BGSU (2024)

The materials in the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Archives span the years from 1969 through 2005, with some noticeable gaps in certain record series. The records are arranged chronologically in each record series, with national organization material filed first, followed by regional chapter material. For the researcher interested in the evolution of the popular culture movement, these records would prove useful.

The collection has very few proceedings, although minutes can be found for national and regional chapters in their newsletters within the collection. It also has no governance documents, and very few business papers from its officers, board members, advisory boards, area chairs, awards committees, or other committees.

Academic papers presented at national and regional conferences make up one-third of the collection, and a major strength of the holdings is that it contains almost half of the papers presented at the first conference in 1971. There are very few papers, however, from after 1990 within the collection. Some of these papers, especially from the 1970s, are also available on microfilm.

A scrapbook contained in the collection, which was kept by Michael Marsden, is an excellent resource on BGSU's role in the popular culture movement in the early 1970s. There is very little representation of press coverage of the association in the collection.

The collection is strong in its holdings of the national newsletter editor's files from its first two decades of publication and also contains records which trace the establishment of the PCA/ACA H-Net discussion network and the organizations' website.

The collection includes a complete run of the national PCA newsletters through 1990 (with five volumes also available on microfilm). There are sporadic holdings of the American Culture Association Newsletter and of regional chapters' newsletters. The collection also contains twenty-two (22) programs from the past thirty-five annual national conferences, yet has sporadic holdings of regional chapter conference programs, with the best-represented region being the Southwest/Texas chapter, donated by Peter C. Rollins. Programs from some international conferences are in the collection as well.

Other strengths of the collection are a sampling of early monographs published by the PCA, which were written by the founders of the association, and a copy of the 1969 American Studies Association conference program at which the Popular Culture Association was formed. The collection has very few photographs, audio, or video recordings to document the history of the PCA and ACA.

This archival collection was established after PCA Secretary/Treasurer Ray Browne suggested the creation of the archive in the Popular Culture Association Newsletter September 1983 issue. This is an active collection and materials are added as they are received.

This collection includes 10 archival boxes of unprocessed materials that have not yet been added to this inventory.

n.b. Eight rolls of microfilm, containing issues of the Journal of Popular Film, were transferred from MS-44 to that journal's manuscript collection (MS-116) in October 2006. Folders containing postings to the H-PCA/ACA discussion network written by Peter C. Rollins, responses to those postings, and related subject files, were transferred to the Peter C. Rollins manuscript collection (MS-45). A folder of records related to a 1972 BGSU popular culture course, originally moved from Jonathan Slott's papers (MS-6), was, in turn, moved to the Michael Marsden collection (MS-121). Two monograph pamphlets, originally part of the Marshall Fishwick collection, were transferred to this collection (MS-44) in September 2006.

The Popular Culture Association (PCA) was founded in 1969 as a spin-off of the American Studies movement. Some members of the American Studies Association felt that the organization had become elitist in its approach to cultural studies (which, it should be noted, has since mitigated). There was little room for material culture, popular music, movies, and comics, and so the Popular Culture Association was created to further the study of popular culture.

The founders of the PCA were Russel B. Nye, who served as President; John G. Cawelti, Philip G. Durham, and Marshall Fishwick, who served as co-Vice Presidents; and Ray B. Browne, who served as Secretary/Treasurer.

The first national meeting of the PCA was held at Michigan State University in East Lansing, April 8-10, 1971 with just a handful of sessions. Today, the annual meetings are held in cities across the United States and Canada, and have grown to over 2,000 participants and 500 sessions. As early as 1971, regional chapters of the organization formed and have included groups in the Far West, Great Plains, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northeast, the Pacific, the South, and the Southwest and Texas. Today, many of the regional groups also hold annual conferences.

As an offshoot to the Popular Culture Association, the American Culture Association (ACA) was formed in 1978. The ACA was founded in order to include traditional studies of American literature, the arts, history, and to study American culture and its influence on other cultures.

Both national organizations, as well as many of the regional chapters, have published newsletters throughout their existence. The Popular Culture Association Newsletter (PCAN), published out of BGSU, first appeared in October 1971 and was published until the mid-1990s. A second newsletter, Popular Culture Methods, devoted to popular culture pedagogy, was published from August 1972 until it merged with PCAN in 1977. The American Culture Association published a newsletter sporadically throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1994, Peter Rollins founded the H-PCA/ACA discussion network and went on to establish a website for the national organizations in 1995. These entities have essentially taken the place of the PCA and ACA newsletters. It should be noted that most of the regional chapters also have their own websites.

The Journal of Popular Culture, which began publication in 1967 by the BGSU Popular Press, is a venue for scholars in the area of popular culture to publish their research. This peer-reviewed journal is now published by Blackwell Publishers and is the official publication of the PCA. The Popular Press began publishing the Journal of American Culture in 1978 as the official publication of the ACA. In the Spring of 2000, the name of the publication was changed to the Journal of American and Comparative Cultures, and is now also published by Blackwell Publishers. Some of the regional chapters also publish their own scholarly journals.