#clir

Spent a morning a couple weeks ago walking around the Garden District / St. Charles Avenue areas shooting with my recently infrared converted camera. These are also my first time editing with the CLiR panel. Here are some of my favorites…

Party on Lake Mead

A government employee studying the water levels (or was he studying something else??) took a picture of a party boat on Lake Mead with Fortification Mountain in the background. Everyone on the boat seems to be having a great time, but some of the ladies are sitting in a position that doesn’t appear safe. So this holiday season, at your holiday party or gathering, have a good time, but always remember to be safe.      

This image was scanned as part of our digitization grant project with the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR).  We look forward to uploading all of the rest of this report, and many others, to the National Archives Catalog in the beginning of 2020!

During the Civil War, the Government tried a new approach to filling its personnel shortage: It opened its payrolls to women for the first time. Check out this article in the National Archives News here: https://www.archives.gov/…/women-pave-way-to-federal-employ…

This turning point in women’s history is thoroughly documented in a series of records, Recommendations for Employment at the Schuylkill Arsenal, 1861-1867 (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/854656), held at the National Archives at Philadelphia. Most of the applications were women who had relatives in the Union Army, and the records primarily consist of letters of recommendation by various politicians and other notable citizens for individuals seeking jobs at the Arsenal, primarily during the Civil War.

These records will be digitized in their entirety because the PACSCL: The Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries​, of which the National Archives at Philadelphia is a part, has been awarded a $496,000 grant from the Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives initiative of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)​, generously supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation​, for its project “In Her Own Right: The Many Faces of Women’s Activism, 1820-1920.”

Led by PACSCL members Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries​, Drexel University College of Medicine Legacy Center Archives, and the Friends Historical Library​ at Swarthmore College​ and involving a total of 11 partner institutions, including the National Archives at Philadelphia, the project will complete the digitization and online presentation of a significant body of letters, diaries, photographs, organization records and other documents, totaling 117,000 pages. These documents illuminate women’s efforts to assert their rights and work for the rights of others in a variety of spheres in the century leading up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote, in 1920. The images and associated metadata will be released into the public domain for use by researchers and the general public. The project will commence in February 2018 and is anticipated to be completed in autumn 2019 and available to researchers in advance of the 19th Amendment centennial.

The project builds on earlier work conducted with the assistance of a Foundations grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities​. The newly digitized materials will be available through the website developed as part of that project, as well as in the National Archives Catalog (www.catalog.archives.gov). Project participants also intend to expose the materials via their own websites as well as such sites as the Digital Public Library of America and the Internet Archive.

To safeguard the digital data for the long term, PACSCL member Lehigh University​ is making space available in its state-of-the-art data storage repository in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. (Having no female students in the 1820-1920 time frame, Lehigh is not contributing collections.) Bruce M. Taggart, Vice Provost of Library and Technology Services, noted that Lehigh is contributing this service to the project as part of its commitment to the PACSCL consortial process and the University's interest in furthering PACSCL's ongoing program of cooperative digitization.

Denver Doll as Detective, or, Little Bill's Bold Risk | Nickels and Dimes | Northern Illinois University Digital Library

Denver Doll was one of the first female detectives in American fiction, originally appearing in Beadle’s Half Dime Library, but depicted here on the cover of a later Deadwood Dick Library reprint. Like many of the women in Wheeler’s stories, she dresses and acts like a man, even owning and operating her own mine. Unlike many of the non-conforming women in Wheeler’s other novels, however, who eventually settle down, she instead resumes the life of an detective adventurer at the conclusion of Wheeler’s final Denver Doll story.

This dime novel comes from the Johannsen Collection, which we'll be digitizing over the next three years through a Hidden Collections grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources.

CLIR and HBCU Library Alliance form national partnership

Major Richard Robert Wright Sr., a former slave and the founding president of Savannah State, believed that there should be a day when freedom for all Americans is celebrated. The holiday proclamation was signed into law on June 30, 1948, by President Harry Truman. It was the forerunner to Black History Day and later Black History Month. Photo courtesy of Asa H. Gordon Library Special…