Additions to American Memory online collections

[Danna Bell-Russel]

Announcement is made of additions to the National Digital Library online
collections. This announcment is being posted to a number of lists.
Please accept our apologies for any duplication

Three More Ameritech Grant Winner Collections Now Part of American
Memory

It is with pleasure that the Library announces the most recent
collections to be released as a part of the LC/Ameritech National
Digital Library Competition: “First-Person Narratives of the American
South, 1860-1920", by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
“Small-Town America: Stereoscopic Views from the Dennis Collection,
1850-1920", by The New York Public Library, and  “The African-American
Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920", by the Ohio Historical Society.  With a
gift from the Ameritech Corporation, the Library of Congress sponsored a
three-year competition to enable public, research, and academic
libraries, museums, historical societies, and archival institutions
(except federal institutions) to create digital collections of primary
resources.  These digital collections complement and enhance the
collections of the National Digital Library Program at the Library of
Congress.

“First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920" is a
compilation of printed texts from the libraries at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill which documents the culture of the
nineteenth-century American South from the viewpoint of Southerners. It
includes the diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and
ex-slave narratives of not only prominent individuals, but also of
relatively inaccessible populations: women, African Americans, enlisted
men, laborers, and Native Americans.   The award from the Library of
Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition supported the
digitization of 101 titles; the university supplemented these with
another 40. The presentation through American Memory links to the
digital texts mounted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, where they form part of a larger digital collection titled
Documenting the American South
<http://metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/index.html>  The larger collection has
four other components: Southern Literature, North American Slave
Narratives, the Southern Home Front, 1861-1865, and, most recently, the
Church in the Southern Black Community. Conversion has recently
begun for texts in this last collection, which earned the university a
second LC/Ameritech award in 1998/99. (Information on that award can be
found at the following url:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award/99award/unc99.html ) “First-Person
Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920" can be found at the
following url: <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ncuhtml/>
Information about the 1997 award can be found at
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award/97award/unc.html>

“Small-Town America: Stereoscopic Views from the Robert Dennis
Collection, 1850-1920" contains 12,000 photographs of New York, New
Jersey, and Connecticut from the 1850s to the 1910s from the collections
of the New York Public Library. The views show buildings and street
scenes in cities, towns, and villages as well as natural landscapes.
They also depict agriculture, industry, transportation, homes,
businesses, local celebrations, natural disasters, people, and
costumes.  In general, stereoviews are more journalistic than is formal
photography, and they feature subjects and interpretations not readily
available in other formats (local history, for instance). Stereoviews
were most popular between the 1850s and the 1910s as they were a
principal form of home entertainment, perhaps second only to reading as
a personal leisure activity. Small-Town America can be found at
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/nyplhtml/> The announcement of The
New York Public Library award can be found at
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award/97award/nypl.html>

The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920 is a selection of
manuscript, printed texts and images drawn from the collections of the
Ohio Historical Society.  The digital reproductions document the history
of black Ohio from 1850 to 1920, illuminating the story of slavery and
freedom, segregation and integration, religion and politics, migrations
and restrictions, harmony and discord, and struggles and successes.  The
manuscript materials include the personal papers of prominent
individuals, association records, a plantation account book, ex-slave
narratives, and
documents relating to the freeing of individual slaves. Photographs
depict ex-slaves and African Americans serving in the army, the police
force, and the Ohio House of Representatives. In addition, roughly
15,000 articles relating to African Americans have been scanned from
Ohio newspapers. The African-American Experience in Ohio can be found at
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ohshtml/> The announcement of the
Ohio Historical Society Award can be found at
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award/97award/ohio.html>

Information about the Ameritech competition can be found at the
competition home page which is located at
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award/index.html>

Questions about the collections should be directed to <ndlpcoll at loc.gov>