Marion Stokes | |
|---|---|
 Stokes as a young woman | |
| Born | Marion Marguerite Butler November 25, 1929 Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | December 14, 2012 (aged 83) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Television producer, archivist |
| Spouse | John Stokes Jr. |
Marion Marguerite Stokes (née Butler; November 25, 1929 – December 14, 2012) was an American access television producer, businesswoman, investor, civil rights demonstrator, activist, librarian, and archivist, especially known for hoarding[1][2] and archiving hundreds of thousands of hours of television news footage spanning 35 years, from 1977 until her death in 2012,[2][3] at which time she had been operating nine properties and three storage units.[1] According to The Los Angeles Review of Books review of the 2019 documentary film Recorder, Stokes's massive project of recording the 24-hour news cycle "makes a compelling case for the significance of guerrilla archiving."[2]
- ^ a b Vogt, PJ; Goldman, Alex (December 12, 2013). "#9 – The Second Life of Marion Stokes". On the Media (Podcast). WNYC. Retrieved August 22, 2014.
Marion Stokes was a hoarder. When she died last year, her family had to figure out what to do with 9 separate residences and 3 storage locations full of stuff – everything from tens of thousands of books to decades-old Apple computers. This is the story of how they found a home for the strangest artifact in her collection — 140,000 videocassettes filled with 35 years of round-the-clock cable TV news.
- ^ a b c Hadland, Grace (April 23, 2020). "Marion Stokes and the Power of Guerrilla Archiving". Los Angeles Review of Books. Archived from the original on August 12, 2022. Retrieved August 13, 2022.
Some might characterize Stokes's activities as hoarding, a compulsive act performed by eccentrics and neurotics unable to let go of things. But others might consider her practice one of radical historiography, Stokes's fundamental project being one of liberation: of truth, of knowledge, and, ultimately, of people.
- ^ Winsor, Morgan (December 9, 2013). "TV producer's collection of 840,000 hours of news tapes finds a home". CNN. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
Marion Stokes, a child of the Great Depression, spent her life saving everything – literally. The Philadelphia resident kept everything from newspapers and electronics to empty cigarette packets and sticky-notes. Among the cardboard boxes and magazine stacks in her home were 140,000 cassette tapes containing recordings of all local and national TV news programs from every channel.