LJ Woolcock

LJ Srolovic is a historian, archivist, artist, and independent scholar based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They received a Bachelor of Arts in history from Pitt in 2015, and a Master of Arts in history from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2019. They are steering committee co-chair of Three Rivers Archivists, the archives professional group for Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania, and co-founder of the Pittsburgh Independent Scholars Association (PISA).

Their historical research focuses on urban history in Pittsburgh, New York, and Boston from the 18th-21st centuries. They are especially interested in Land; reframing the history of American cities by engaging with Indigenous history and methods; and the construction and shifting identities of neighborhoods over time. They are currently researching a journal article on the 19th-century Black community in Five Points, NYC, and its relationship to the earliest instances of municipal slum clearance in the United States.

Their archival work focuses on promoting local history as essential history, especially in Pittsburgh, and personal archives. They have worked in a broad range of library and archives institutions, including the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, the Mount Holyoke College Archives, the Sexual Minorities Archive, and the University of Pittsburgh’s Archives and Special Collections. They are developing an experimental archival project using their own personal and family archives to explore how difference is marked in archives; how we decide whose lives are worthy of historical significance; and the confluence of memoir and archives.

Their artistic practice weaves together all of these threads. Working primarily in photography, ink, and collage, their work explores our relationship to the landscape and urban spaces; ephemera; and the meanings we make as we move through our daily lives. 

In their work as a graduate administrator, they strive to build community amongst graduate students, faculty, and staff in everything they do, participating fully in the University's vibrant intellectual community. They plan to pursue further graduate study in library science and history in the coming years.