Private Institutions

As is the case with private individuals’ archives, the archives of private institutions are donated on a voluntary basis to the Danish National Archives. This collection therefore consists of a more or less random selection of the archives of many defunct and still-existing institutions.

It should be noted that the archives of many private institutions are to be found in collections other than the Danish National Archives, e.g. the Danish National Business Archives and the many local archives in Denmark (see Other Repositories).

The Danish National Archives hold approximately 700 archives of private institutions, which vary in size from a single box or volume to several thousand archival units. The private institutions are of many different kinds, e.g. political parties, associations, organisations, popular movements, societies, clubs, committees, foundations, and a few business enterprises.

The West Indies

The archives of the many different private institutions are not catalogued according to subject, but alphabetically according to the relevant institution’s name. A preliminary search for archives relevant to the West Indies has elicited the institutions listed below in alphabetical order, but there are doubtless other institutions of possible relevance.

Dansk Vestindisk Selskab (the Danish West Indian Society) (private archives no. 10,609), comprise 7 archival units from the period 1880-1978. This Society was founded in 1917 with the objective of bringing together persons with an interest in the former Danish West Indies and strengthening the cultural links between Denmark and the United States Virgin Islands. The most important contents of these archives are correspondence etc. 1922-1977, filed in chronological order or systematically, and lists of members, etc. Many pictures have been transferred from the Danish West Indian Society’s archives to the Prints and Photographs Collection of the Private Archives Department. They consist primarily of an album of managing director Torben Rist’s photographs of the St. Croix Cooperative Sugar Factory 1916, Th. Engelhardt’s photographs taken on a voyage with the "Valkyrien" (10 photographs), and Peter Andreas Heiberg’s landscape photographs (5 photographs).

Foreningen De Danske Atlanterhavsøer (the Commission for Promotion of the Danish Colonies) (private archives no. 10,154), comprise 38 archival units from the period 1901-1919. This association was founded in 1902 with the objective of furthering developments in the Danish West Indies and other colonies. The archives include minute-books (boxes nos. 1-5), lists of members (boxes nos. 6-10), letter copybooks (boxes nos. 12-18), journals (boxes nos. 19-26), and journal files (boxes nos. 27-38). The Commision was reorganised in 1919, which resulted in extended activities and a change of name to Dansk Samvirke (Danes Worldwide). This latter association of expatriate Danes still exists, and the material transferred from it to the Danish National Archives makes up private archives no. 10,279.

Dronning Louises Forening for Syge- og Børnepleje på De Dansk-Vestindiske Øer (Queen Louise’s Fund for Nursing and Child Care in the Danish West Indies) (private archive no. 10,032), comprise 15 archival units from the period 1903-1919. The Fund was established in 1910 and liquidated in 1919, but the fund-raising in aid of nursing and child care began in 1903. The archives include the board’s journals and correspondence etc. 1903-1919 (9 boxes) and its accounting files 1903-1919 (5 boxes). The Queen Louise Home for Children, a well-run institution, is still in existence near Frederiksted on St. Croix.

Komiteen til Fremkaldelse af Nordamerikanske Tilbud om Køb af De Dansk-Vestindiske Øer (The Committee to Promote an American Offer to Buy the Danish West Indies) (private archive no. 10,163), comprise 1 box of material from the period 1897-1903. This Committee was founded in 1897 with the objective implied by its name. The archives comprise minute-books and correspondence.

Finding Aids

The archives of private institutions are summarily catalogued in Martin Larsen & Birgit Nüchel Thomsen, eds., Rigsarkivet og hjælpemidlerne til dets benyttelse, vol. IV:3, Copenhagen 1999. See also the brief survey in Wilhelm von Rosen, ed., Rigsarkivet og hjælpemidlerne til dets benyttelse, vol. I:2, 1983, pp. 848-849. At present, the easiest way to gain an overview of the private archives is to use the website: Danmarks Nationale Privatarkivdatabase. This website also offers information about private archives outside the Danish National Archives.

Literature

In general, see the introduction in the above-mentioned catalogue by Martin Larsen & Birgit Nüchel Thomsen. More technical archival considerations are to be found in Vello Helk, Om indsamling og ordning af nyere privatarkiver i Rigsarkivet, in Arkiv, vol. 9, 1983, pp. 109-127.