Digital photography has revolutionized archival research, and not always in good ways. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is just around the corner and will almost certainly further change the way researchers conduct their work. Many decades ago, one entered the archive with paper and pencil. Photocopying was a gamechanger, when allowed, though there was the risk of damaging documents. Digital photography reduces the possibilities of injuring the document, though it also changes one interaction with it as a physical object. Photography also quickens the acquisition of materials but not the cost of intellectual engagement and reflection. Many a scholar has thousands of photographs they have yet to really examine.

Researching The Killing Age brought me to numerous archives and libraries, each with their own policies about how to examine their holdings. Over the coming months I will upload examples from the archive. I begin with a few from the National Archives in London, customs records from 1698 and 1865. You will notice the older document is in some senses more detailed, likely the result of England’s policies of mercantilism. The British export economy had grown fantastically by 1865; note, as well, the large quantity of gunpowder exported to British West Africa: 350,480 lbs.