American MemoryThe National Digital Library Program: Archived Documentation

The Library of Congress / Ameritech National Digital Library Competition (1996-1999)

Awards and Collections

In the three years of the competition, a total of twenty-three awards were made. After the first year, proposals from consortia were encouraged. The number of institutions receiving funds for digitization was thirty-three. The brief descriptions given below and the longer descriptions on individual award announcement pages may not reflect the collection as it was eventually mounted online. When the awards were announced, preliminary titles were devised. In many cases, these were adapted for added clarity when the collections were folded into the American Memory digital library context. For some projects the quantity of materials was adjusted. Some awardees generously provided descriptive records for materials digitized with other funds. In other cases, technical challenges led awardees to negotiate a reduction in content. Since one of the important objectives of the competition was to allow institutions to learn about the challenges of digital conversion projects, quality was favored over quantity.
 

Award Year:  1996/97

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The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920

22,000 pages of primary materials, both text and image, focused on themes such as slavery and emancipation, religion, public opinion as expressed by orators and in newspapers, and political action.

Ohio Historical Society
Amount of award: $72,844
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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African-American Sheet Music Digitizing Project

1,500 pieces of African-American sheet music dating from 1870 to 1920.

Brown University
Amount of award: $72,193
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936: Images from the University of Chicago Library

5,800 photographic images documenting natural environments, ecologies, and plant communities in their original state throughout the United States at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century.

University of Chicago
Amount of award: $67,418
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920: A Study Collection from the Harvard School of Design

2,500 lantern slides assembled to support teaching and student presentations in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning.

Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Amount of award: $33,214
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920

100 printed texts documenting the culture of the nineteenth-century American South from the viewpoint of Southerners.

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Amount of award: $74,782
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Historic American Sheet Music: 1850-1920

3,000 pieces of historic American sheet music from the period between 1850 and 1920 representing a wide variety of music types

Duke University
Amount of award: $64,688
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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History of the American West, 1860-1920: Photographs from the Collection of the Denver Public Library

7,500 photographs taken between 1860 and 1920 documenting the lives of the Plains, Mountain and Southwestern tribes of Native Americans and the mining booms in Colorado and access to 48,000 previously digitized photographs.

Denver Public Library
Amount of award: $71,250
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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The Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920: Photographs from the Fred Hultstrand and F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collections

900 images documenting the settlement and agricultural development of the Northern Great Plains in the forty years spanning the turn of the century.

North Dakota State University
Amount of award: $15,628
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Small Town America: Stereoscopic Views from the Dennis Collection, 1850-1910

11,552 stereoscopic views representing the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut from 1850 to 1910.

New York Public Library
Amount of award: $74,596
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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The South Texas Border, 1900-1920: Photographs from the Robert Runyon Collection

8,241 photographs depicting preparations for the Mexican War and World War I, the region's cities and towns, agriculture, technology, leisure activities, and natural features during the first two decades of the twentieth century.

University of Texas, Austin
Amount of award: $46,945
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Award Year:  1997/98

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American Indians of the Pacific Northwest

2,350 pictorial images and 6,000 pages of manuscripts, printed ephemera and journal articles concerning Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest from 1763 to 1920 from collections at the University of Washington, the Eastern Washington State Historical Society in Spokane, and the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.

University of Washington with the Eastern Washington State Historical Society and the Museum of History and Industry
Amount of award: $82,943
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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The Emergence of Advertising in America, 1850-1920

8,500 images relating to the history of advertising including Eastman Kodak ads, tobacco related posters and insert cards, and ephemera representing ads for bicycles, patent medicines, and food.

Duke University
Amount of award: $75,000
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Haymarket Affair: Chicago Anarchists on Trial

approximately 5,500 pages/images including the complete original transcripts of the proceedings of the historic Haymarket trial.

Chicago Historical Society
Amount of award: $57,260
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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North American Indian Photographs by Edward S. Curtis

2,222 plates from one of the best recognized and most significant records ever produced of the culture and daily life of about 80 Native American tribes.

Northwestern University
Amount of award: $49,777
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Prairie Settlement: A Story of Determination

2,500 glass plate negatives of images recording the process of settlement of Nebraska between 1886 and 1912 and approximately 3,000 pages from diaries and letters written by the Oblinger family as they moved from Indiana to settle in a sod house on the prairie.

Nebraska State Historical Society
Amount of award: $65,464
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Reclaiming the Everglades: South Florida's Natural History, 1884-1934

9,291 texts and photographs documenting the history of South Florida, and especially the Everglades, from collections at the University of Miami, Florida International University, and the Historical Museum of South Florida.

University of Miami with Florida International University and the Historical Museum of South Florida
Amount of award: $137,188
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century

9,600 talent flyers and promotional pamphlets representing text and images from performers and public speakers, including educational, cultural and religious lecturers, politicians, as well as vaudeville and variety acts.

University of Iowa
Amount of award: $73,348
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Award Year:  1998/99

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The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820

745 items (15,050 pages) from the rare books, pamphlets, newspapers, maps, prints, and manuscripts collected by Reuben T. Durrett and by the Filson Club Historical Society, documenting the settlement of Ohio River Valley from 1750 to 1820.

University of Chicago Library with the Filson Club Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky
Amount of award: $145,596
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Chinese in California, 1850-1920

12,500 items, including photographs, cartoons, personal diaries, business records, broadsides, pamphlets, and other printed matter documenting nineteenth and early twentieth century Chinese immigration to California and the West.

The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, with the California Historical Society
Amount of award: $150,000
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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The Church in The Southern Black Community: Beginnings to 1920

19,000 pages from approximately 100 works, including autobiographies, sermons, church reports, religious periodicals, and denominational histories, tracing the experience of Southern African Americans and the transformation of Protestant Christianity into the central institution of black community life.

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Amount of award: $74,513
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Maritime Westward Expansion

7,500 items from the archival collections of published and unpublished materials dating from the mid to late nineteenth century, including logbooks, diaries, letters, business papers and other manuscript items, images, imprints and ephemera, and maps and charts offering a unique maritime perspective on the history of westward expansion in the U.S.

Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc.
Amount of award: $57,218
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Pioneer Trails: Overland to Utah and the Pacific, 1847-1869

155 items (approximately 6,040 pages) from 59 diaries of overland trail experiences written between 1847 and 1869, along with 16 maps, 75 photographs and illustrations, and selections from 5 immigrant guides.

Lee Library at Brigham Young University with the Utah Academic Library Consortium and the Utah State Historical Society
Amount of award: $64,875
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement

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Shaping the Values of Youth: A Nineteenth Century American Sunday School Book Collection

121 American Sunday school books published between 1815 and 1865 by The American Tract Society, the American Sunday School Union, and other religious publishers to teach juvenile readers moral conduct and good citizenship.

Michigan State University with Central Michigan University
Amount of award: $123,763
Online Collection | Contact Information | Award Announcement


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