As an archivist, Emma Prince often finds herself in dusty museum storage rooms and sometimes-moldy home attics.
She and her nearly all-women team of genealogists and historians build archives for museums, schools and other organizations through her St. Louis-based company, .
In her work organizing catalogs and tracking down lost ancestors, Prince also challenges popular notions about who does this kind of research.
鈥淚 think that people imagine old men in tweed jackets,鈥� Prince said. 鈥淭hat's definitely not our staff. [It鈥檚] kind of fun to show up to meetings and be a little bit more modern and kind of move the profession forward.鈥�
Since she founded Backlog in 2021, Prince鈥檚 clients have included the City Museum, Walt Disney Hometown Museum and St. Louis University High. Backlog鈥檚 historians also connect with people virtually by hosting about archiving digital work or decoding old documents. Prince said the company鈥檚 specialized services often come into play when individuals get stuck.
鈥淲e do a lot of 鈥榖rick wall鈥� research, like, 鈥楬i, my family鈥檚 from St. Louis, [and] we can't connect to this different generation. Can you help us?鈥� So archives [work] is more the organization of stuff, and the genealogy [work] is doing research sometimes with that stuff.鈥�
To hear more about the retrospective and forward-looking nature of Emma Prince鈥檚 archival work and how detective skills are part of her process, listen to full St. Louis on the Air conversation on , and , or click the play button below.
鈥�鈥� brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Ulaa Kuziez, , , , and . The audio engineer is .
