Historic newspapers online--Chronicling America

Photo from Library of Congress

 As an archivist, I understand that the majority of archival materials are not digitized or readily available on the web.  But, as a writer without the money and time to travel to various archives, I've searched the web for useful, valid sources for historical research.  More and more are becoming available, often as a result of institutional collaboration.

A website I've been using the past few weeks,  Chronicling America, is produced by a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.  The partnership, known as the National Digital Newspaper Program, is an ongoing project to develop a searchable database of U.S. newspapers and to digitize selected historic pages. Currently more than a million digitized newspaper pages are found in Chronicling America. Digitized newspapers date from 1836-1922 and represent newspapers from all U.S. states and territories.  A directory of newspapers from 1690-present is also part of the website, and a list of topics widely-covered topics is included to help guide researchers.  (Although most of the listed topics don't relate to my current research, glancing through the topics sparks my imagination.  A short story involving the roller-skating craze, maybe? A character who practices yoga in 1905?  So many possibilities to explore.)

In a related project, the Rural West Initiative, Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University has produced a database visualization based on Chronicling America.  A timeline and US map are combined, enabling users to see the geographic distribution of American newspapers over time.  Added filters limit results to newspapers in a particular language.  For me, the visualization is interesting, but less useful than the newspaper project itself.


Weekly Newspapers, 1690-2011 from Geoff McGhee on Vimeo.

If you know of some good sources you'd like to share, please feel free to comment or share a link.  I'm always looking for more.

Seeing History

I've recently come across a couple sites those of you interested in history might enjoy.

WhatWasThere.com ties historic photos to Google maps to create a virtual time machine, allowing viewers to superimpose street scenes from the past over those from today.  I particularly like the option to fade the historic photograph, which creates a ghost image over the present-day setting.  Anyone may register to upload photographs and basic metadata on WhatWasThere.com.  Currently most of the images are from the United States, but hopefully a wider range of sites will be represented as more people use the service.


History Pin  created by non-profit We Are What We Do in partnership with Google also matches up historic photos and Google maps.  Users can add stories about any of the represented places as well as uploading their own photos.  The images can be searched by place, subject, and date, allowing you to really pinpoint what you're seeking.  I wish this site had the fade function available on WhatWasThere.com, but other than that, I prefer History Pin.  Because History Pin is partnered with Google, registration was a snap with my already existing Google ID.



Some archivists express hesitance towards their archives participating in sites like these, primarily because of the wide-open access.  Anyone can post a photo and create metadata, which may or may not be accurate.  Also, putting your images out there, you lose control over who may be subsequently using them and for what purpose.  I think those are legitimate concerns, but in the balance between open access and intellectual control, I lean strongly toward access.  I like the idea of history being recorded and interpreted by anyone.  What do you think of these sites?