New collections, digitized historic newspapers, and online exhibits from the Digital Library of Georgia from July-September, 2023

Mastrovita, Mandy L

Summerlin, Donnie S

English

DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University

Georgia Library Quarterly Volume 60 Issue 4 Fall 2023 Article 14 11-1-2023 Digital Library of Georgia (September 2023) Mandy L. Mastrovita University of Georgia Donnie S. Summerlin University of Georgia Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/glq  Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Mastrovita, M. L., & Summerlin, D. S. (2023). Digital Library of Georgia (September 2023). Georgia Library Quarterly, 60(4). Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/glq/vol60/iss4/14 This News is brought to you for free and open access by the Active Journals at DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Georgia Library Quarterly by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@kennesaw.edu.  35 IN THE NEWS  Digital Library of Georgia News (September 2023)  he DLG has made its 3 millionth digitized and full-text-searchable historic newspaper pages available freely online.  The title page of the first edition of the May 22, 1917, issue of the Atlanta Georgian reports on the destruction caused by the Great Atlanta Fire of 1917 and the city’s effort to control the damage. This issue marks the 3 millionth page digitized by the Digital Library of Georgia.  The newspaper circulated daily from 1906 to 1939, was the first Hearst-owned newspaper in the South, and is the most prominent example of sensationalist yellow journalism in Georgia. In its first year of publication, the paper infamously printed stories intended to inflame racial tensions that contributed to the start of the Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906.  Famed newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst purchased the Atlanta Georgian in 1912. Under his ownership, the paper printed increasingly scandalous headlines and illustrations that dramatized local crimes, including its coverage of the Leo Frank case in Atlanta.  The digitization of this title was funded through a grant from an anonymous donor as part of their mission to provide resources that promote a greater understanding of Georgia’s history during this important period.  DLG. has developed an online press kit, which includes: • An image, description, and link out to our 3 millionth page; • A link to our press release; • An interactive map showing which cities and counties in Georgia have newspapers digitized by the DLG; • Eleven impact stories that demonstrate how digitized historic newspapers have helped people find what they were looking for; • A link to “Covers Dixie Like the Dew”: A History of Newspaper Journalism in Georgia; • A blog post written by DLG staff of the five favorite newspaper pages; • Links to instructional videos on how to use the Georgia Historic Newspapers site.  You can read more about everything on the blog. T	Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, May 22, 1917 1Mastrovita and Summerlin: Digital Library of Georgia (September 2023)Published by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University, 2023 36 eorgia Historic Newspapers Update Summer 2023  This summer, the Digital Library of Georgia released 28 newspaper titles to the Georgia Historic Newspapers website funded or otherwise supported by shared institutional partnerships with the following organizations: • Chattooga County Historical Society with a grant from the Tillotson–Menlo Charitable Foundation, Inc. • Forsyth County Public Library • Georgia Public Library Service • Georgia State University Library • Kennesaw State University Museums, Archives and Rare Books • Mercer University Libraries • Middle Georgia State University Library • National Digital Newspaper Program with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities • Taylor County Historical–Genealogical Society • A grant from an anonymous donor  You can read more about these titles on the DLG blog .   tandard Telephone Company Records documenting Standard Telephone Company’s provision of services to rural northeast Georgians for the past century are now available online.  Selected by statewide cultural heritage stakeholders and funded by the DLG’s competitive digitization grant program, this collection is the Habersham County Historical Society’s first collaboration with the DLG and is available here: Standard Telephone Company Records  The collection contains historical materials dating from 1904 to 1999 that come from the archives of the independently owned Standard Telephone Company (STC). Headquartered in Cornelia, it provided telephone service to rural northeast Georgians. Among the materials are items recognizing 50 years of service from the Standard Telephone Company’s longtime employee, Henry Davis, the first African American telephone engineer in Georgia and possibly the nation.  Dean C. Swanson, former president of STC Holdings, and Jim Johnson, former president of STC, jointly establish the importance of making this work accessible freely online: The Independent Telephone Companies in Georgia had the most difficult economic and physical deployments due to the nature of the rural areas; these pioneers persevered G	S	Pamphlet celebrating the dedication of the Henry Davis Building, recognizing fifty years of service from the Standard Telephone Company’s longtime employee, Henry Davis 2Georgia Library Quarterly, Vol. 60, Iss. 4 [2023], Art. 14https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/glq/vol60/iss4/14 37 with great risks. Digitization would be a great tribute to them. Additionally, the circumstances and conditions under which the Standard Telephone Company was developed are highly generalizable. They can serve to glean similar processes in other rural areas for which this kind of history is not available. While the Habersham County Historical Society has a museum of Standard Telephone’s history and phone apparatus, we know too well that the younger generation will often turn to online digitized history to learn about the history of this industry. Given that, we feel digitizing this information is of great value to future generations.  About the Habersham County Historical Society  The Habersham County Historical Society was formed on February 22, 1973, by 12 citizens from Clarkesville, Cornelia, and Demorest, on the campus of Piedmont College. In 2018, the society compiled the county’s history in a bicentennial publication: A Brief History 1818–2018, Habersham200: New Thoughts of Old Things. To celebrate its 50th Year Golden Jubilee, the society published a commemorative edition that is available on Amazon. The celebration was hosted by Piedmont University on March 11, 2023, and celebrated the entire county.  For highlights of the celebration, visit https://www.habershamcountyhistorical50.com/.  You can find Habersham County Historical Society online at: https://habershamhistoricalsociety.org/.      ral history interviews of W. W. Law, civil rights workers, and 20th-century Savannah civil rights history are now available freely online   Another project selected by statewide cultural heritage stakeholders and funded by the DLG’s competitive digitization grant program is the Walter J. Brown Media Archives’s W. W. Law Collection, this partner’s fourth collaboration with the DLG.   The content for this project consists of oral history interview videos with W. W. Law and other Savannah, GA, community members involved in the Civil Rights Movement. The tapes were shot just prior to Mr. Law’s death and are the longest and most detailed interviews he did on his life and career as a civil rights activist.  The footage was shot in 2001 by Lisa Friedman O	Interview with W. W. Law, Part 2 of 2; B-Roll of Green Meldrim House and Beach Institute African-American Cultural Center. Image courtesy of the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection 3Mastrovita and Summerlin: Digital Library of Georgia (September 2023)Published by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University, 2023 38 with the help of the late oral historian Cliff Kuhn for the purpose of creating a documentary on the life of W. W. Law. Although that project never came to completion, it still managed to yield important historical content about Savannah civil rights workers and community leaders, including Aaron Buschbaum, Dr. Clyde W. Hall, Edna Branch Jackson, Ida Mae Bryant, Rev. Edward Lambrellis, Richard Shinholster, Tessie Rosanna Law, Dr. Amos C. Brown, Mercedes Arnold Wright, Carolyn Coleman, E. J. Josey, Walter J. Leonard, and Judge H. Sol Clark.  W. W. Law was fired from his job working for the post office in 1961 because of his civil rights work but was reinstated after an intervention by NAACP leaders and U.S. President John F. Kennedy. As with all civil rights movements in American towns and cities, stories of lesser-known activists in the Civil Rights Movement and the historical impact made by community leaders like Law and the others interviewed in this project are invaluable for researchers interested in the history of civil rights in Georgia.  Luciana Spracher, director of the City of Savannah Municipal Archives, defines the importance of digital access to this content and the stewardship of this audiovisual work that was granted to the Brown Media Archives and made accessible through this DLG subgrant: The City of Savannah Municipal Archives’s W. W. Law Collection represents his life’s work, as left behind by him at the time of his death in 2002. The Walter J. Brown & Peabody Awards Collection’s collection of W. W. Law material includes video interviews where Mr. Law discussed his life and legacy less than a year before his death, as well as interviews with people well-represented in the papers of our collections that document civil rights activities in Savannah. Both collections complement and enhance understanding of the other. The opportunity to hear these individuals recall the events represented in our collections is invaluable to students and historians who are studying and learning from them. Greater discoverability of the interviews online will assist researchers in seeking insight into the Civil Rights Movement in Savannah, as well as the larger movement in Georgia and the United States.  About the Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection  The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection is home to more than 350,000 analog audiovisual items, over 5,000,000 feet of news film, and over 200,000 digital files. It is the third-largest broadcasting archive in the country, behind only the Library of Congress and the UCLA Film & Television Archive. The Archives comprise moving image and sound collections that focus on American television and radio broadcasting and Georgia’s music, folklore, and history; this includes local television news and programs, audio folk music field tapes, and home movies from rural Georgia. Learn more at libs.uga.edu/media/index.html.  nline Exhibit Intern Inspired by Georgia LGBTQ+ Artists in the DLG  Sarah Mayo held the position of online exhibit intern for the Digital Library of Georgia and the New Georgia Encyclopedia from January 19 to April 16, 2021. You can read about her experience with digital curation and project management through this internship on the DLG blog as well as its results in her online exhibit, “LGBTQ+ Art and Expression in Twentieth-Century Georgia.”    Mandy L. Mastrovita and Donnie S. Summerlin are digital projects librarians  and archivists with the University of Georgia Libraries O	4Georgia Library Quarterly, Vol. 60, Iss. 4 [2023], Art. 14https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/glq/vol60/iss4/14

Digital Library of Georgia (September 2023)

https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2665&context=glq

Digital Library of Georgia (September 2023)

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