Announcments of Updates to Two American Memory Collections

[Danna Bell-Russel]

Announcement of Updates to two American Memory Historical Collections

This announcement is being posted to a number of lists. Please accept
apologies for any duplicate announcments. Send any questions regarding
this announcement to NDLPCOLL at loc.gov.

The American Memory staff is proud to announce updates to two of the
historical collections currently available online: The New Deal Stage:
Selections from the Federal Theater Project, 1935-1939 and Music for the
Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885.

The update to The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theater
Project, 1935-1939 adds an additional 10,000 images, primarily
playscripts and administrative documents to the documents already
online. The New Deal Stage collection includes playscripts, production
materials including the production notebooks with plot synopses, notes
and blueprints of set designs and director’s notes, photographs, posters
and administrative records selected from a New Deal WPA arts project. At
their height these WPA projects provided work to over 12,000 out of work
artistic professionals, encouraged the development of over 1200 plays
and the introduction of over 100 writers to the American public. The
Federal Theater Project was the largest of the New Deal arts program
with a budget of 46 million dollars by 1939. As the program was not tied
to success or failure at the box office the participants were able to
take greater risks in play selection and take longer time for
rehearsals. Some of the more visionary projects included a swing version
of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” and what is popularly known as
the “voodoo” version of MacBeth, the staging of classic Shakespearian
tragedy with a largely African-American cast which was directed by Orson
Welles.

The New Deal Stage can be found at the following URL:
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fedtp/>

A new special presentation “Greatest Hits, 1870-1885” has been added to
Music for the Nation site. The material on this site has been taken from
Julius Mattfield's "Variety Music Cavalcade" 1620-1969: A Chronology of
Vocal and Instrumental Music Popular in the United States (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1971). In addition more than 24,000
additional sheet music items have been added to the collection, bringing
the total number of musical compositions represented to over 47,000
items. The first of the Library’s digitized collections to consist
entirely of sheet music, Music for the Nation provides a close look at
musical Americana in the post-Civil War period, providing a
comprehensive view of the range of music being published in the United
States at that time. In addition to providing access to the sheet music
of the time, the collection also includes performances of selected items
by the Music for the Nation Singers, composed of staff members of the
Library of Congress.

Music for the Nation can be found at the following URL:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/smhtml/

At present there are more than 60 freely available collections available
in American Memory, which is a project of the National Digital Library
Program. The program aims to bring more that 6 million items of American
history to citizens everywhere as a Gift to the Nation for the Library's
Bicentennial on April 24, 2000. Recently added collections document the
career of Calvin Coolidge, quiltmaking in America and folk songs from
the South.

The Library of Congress, founded April 24, 1800, is the nation's oldest
federal cultural institution. It preserves a collection of 115 million
items -- more than two-thirds of which are in media other than books.
These include the largest map and film and television collections in the
world. In addition to its primary mission of serving the research needs
of the U.S. Congress, the Library serves all Americans through its
popular Web site <http://www.loc.gov> and in its 22 reading rooms on
Capitol Hill.