The Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries has acquired the records of the Modern Language Association (MLA), the leading professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The extensive archive documents the MLA’s activities from its founding at Johns Hopkins University in 1883 through 2017.
Housed in 290 record cartons and spanning more than a century of scholarship, the collection chronicles the evolution of modern languages and literatures as an academic discipline. Materials include committee minutes, reports, correspondence, conference proceedings, and editorial records from MLA’s executive, publication, and governance committees. The archive also contains foundational documents related to the MLA Handbook and Style Manual, one of the “big three” academic style guides alongside APA and Chicago/Turabian.
“The MLA’s records are a rich source of information for anyone studying intellectual history, disciplinary development, and the institutional structures that shape scholarly communication,” said Katie Carey, Hodson Curator for the Ferdinand Hamburger University Archives at the Sheridan Libraries.
Among the collection’s highlights is a detailed biography of philologist and MLA founder Aaron Marshall Elliot, an early faculty member in Hopkins’ romance languages department. Elliot edited MLA publications for more than 25 years and founded Modern Language Notes (MLN), the first technical journal in the field. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press since 1903, MLN became the property of the Hopkins Press upon Elliot’s death in 1910. The journal later benefited from the editorial leadership of renowned Hopkins professor Richard Macksey, who served for many years as its Comparative Literature editor.
The archive also holds materials related to the Publications of the Modern Language Association (PMLA), which Elliott helped establish, and documents the development of the MLA Handbook and Style Manual, resources that have shaped generations of academic writing.
“As institutional history becomes increasingly important to humanistic inquiry, it’s exciting to center the MLA archive at the university where it began,” said Mack Zalin, librarian for modern languages and literatures at the Sheridan Libraries. “Scholars from around the world will be able to study and contextualize this remarkable collection.”
Zalin learned of the collection from Paula Krebs, executive director of the MLA, and collaborated with Derek Schilling, a professor of French and director of the Centre Louis Marin at JHU’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, to bring it to the university.
“The MLA was founded at Johns Hopkins in 1883, so it is particularly satisfying that we return to Baltimore,” said Krebs. “Researchers will be able to access this rich set of resources on the institutional history of the study of language and literature.”
“This is a signal opportunity for both institutions,” said Schilling. “I’m humbled to know that the Sheridan Libraries will be preserving this part of our early institutional and departmental legacy.”
The Records of the Modern Language Association, 1883-2017, are being processed and will be made open for research use during the 2025-26 academic year.