National History Day: Historic American Newspapers Prize

Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), this prize is awarded in both the Junior and Senior divisions to an outstanding entry in any category that utilizes the newspaper resources that are available on the Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers web site (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/). Each content item from Chronicling America (article, image, etc.) used for the entry must be noted in the Primary Sources section of the Annotated Bibliography and follow proper NHD citation guidelines for Web content.

The Chronicling America web site provides free access to over 5 million pages of select digitized historic newspapers published between 1836 and 1922. It is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a long-term partnership between NEH and the Library of Congress to digitize representative historic newspapers from all 50 states and U.S. territories. Chronicling America currently has digitized newspapers from 28 states and the District of Columbia, with new content added regularly, including newspapers published in foreign languages starting with Spanish and French. Primary sources are not limited to newspaper articles, but also include advertisements, images, literary prose, and other content that appears in historic newspapers. In addition to providing basic factual details about an event or topic, historic newspapers can shed light on local perspectives about a major historical event, insight into social or cultural practices, traditions, political opinions!
, economic circumstances, and a wealth of other historical information.

For more information on NEH visit their homepage at https://www.neh.gov/.

For more information on Chronicling America visit the mini site at https://edsitement.neh.gov/what-chronicling-america.

Source and for other prize categories: https://nhd.org/SpecialPrizeinfo.htm

Welcome to Erenst Anip, VTDNP Project Librarian

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The Vermont Digital Newspaper Project welcomes, Erenst Anip, who, in February, accepted the position of Project Librarian for the VTDNP, Phase 2.
Erenst began working officially with the VTDNP at the University of Vermont on Monday, April 1, 2013.

Erenst comes to UVM and to the Vermont Digital Newspaper Project from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library where he served previously as Project Manager for the Hawaiʻi Digital Newspaper Project — the Hawaiʻi state component of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) — as well as Social Media Lead for the UH Mānoa Library. Erenst has an MLIS from the University of Hawaiʻi, and undergraduate degrees in International Business and Marketing and International Development. He has also served as Co-director for the Language Documentation Training Center and Instructor in the Indonesian Language Program at UH Mānoa. We are delighted that Erenst is on board as Project Librarian. We look forward working with him and to benefiting from his skills and expertise to deliver more great historical newspaper co!
ntent to Chronicling America!

– Birdie MacLennan

Chronicling America now at 6 million+ pages; Vermont contributes 129,900 pages

The Library of Congress announced on March 18 that Chronicling America has been updated with over 880,000 new pages of historic newspaper content – bringing total number of pages to 6 million+.

This update includes four batches with 28,000 + pages of new Vermont content — including the Spirit of the Age, the St. Johnsbury Caledonian, and the Bennington Banner families of titles — completing the titles for our Phase 1 (2010-2012) grant

 In addition to newspaper content, NDNP state partners have contributed 117 title essays, including eight by VTDNP project historian, Prudence Doherty.

 An alphabetical listing of Vermont titles and available newspaper essays can be viewed here: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers/Vermont

Thanks to Prudence, there is also an interactive map that provides access by geographical region to Vermont newspaper titles on Chronicling America. A version of the map will soon be added to the VTDNP web site, but for now, you can read more about it and interact with it, on the blog:  https://vtdnp.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/vtdnp-interactive-map/

   Updates & Enhancements to Chronicling America from the Library of Congress

Deborah Thomas, NDNP Coordinator at the Library of Congress posted the following information about the March 18 updates and enhancements to Chronicling America.

March 18, 2013 — Chronicling America has been successfully upgraded in server, software, and content.

Here are some details on the update:
– more than 800,000 new pages (6 million+), including new contributions from Indiana and North Dakota,
– new content in French and Spanish from Arizona, Louisiana and New Mexico ,
– more than 130 new titles represented, and
– 117 new essays that NDNP state participants have provided.

Additionally, we hope you will notice additional performance improvements in searching and image loading (note: these will be not so obvious at first as we “prime the pump” (i.e. allow the image cache to build up) in the first few days after going public, but it should be apparent shortly.)

We’ve added a few new features and some bug fixes in this release too:

– added iOS support for panning and zooming on iPhones and iPads
– added thumbnail navigator on every page image (this is a feature of the newest version of OpenSeadragon)
– added a Citation feature at the bottom of every newspaper page image (look below the image)

– on the All Digitized Newspapers tab,
                – display all states represented in the geographic name fields in digitized titles (i.e. 752 values)
                – alphabetize titles within states
                – a bug associated with Ethnicity and Language filters (dependent on MARC record values) has been fixed

Be sure to check out Chronicling America, including our Vermont titles …. and the new interactive map that provides a geographical view of Vermont newspapers that have been digitized.

Happy reading!
 – Birdie MacLennan

VTDNP Interactive Map

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After completing a short course on spatial literacy and online mapping, Prudence Doherty of the VTDNP project management group was inspired to create an interactive map that provides access to the newspaper titles digitized during the first phase of the project. A version of the map will soon be added to the VTDNP web site, but for now, try the one below.

It’s simple to use. First, click on an icon to get a list of newspapers from that location. Then click on a title to get access to the digitized content. You can also start by selecting “View Larger Map” at the bottom left corner of the map.

PBS documentary, The Abolitionists, and a headline from Vermont

The Abolitionists has been airing this month in three parts on PBS’ American Experience series – Tuesdays, January 8th, 15th, and 22nd, 2013 from 9-10.

The Abolitionists is a fascinating documentary that features extracts from many archives and yes, many newspaper headlines and articles. These primary resource materials from the nineteenth century figure prominently.

You can watch The Abolitionists on your local Public Television station.
The Vermont Public Television (VPT) schedule is listed here: https://www.vpt.org/show/19661/101

You can also view it online:
https://video.pbs.org/video/2323777396

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided major funding for The Abolitionists.  The Library of Congress and its Chronicling America website, and numerous other archival and cultural heritage organizations contributed to the development and creation of The Abolitionists.

In August 2012, the VTDNP was contacted by Tiffany Hagger – one of the researchers working on The Abolitionists.  She wrote to request a high resolution image of a page containing the newspaper article “California and Slavery”from the Burlington Free Press, Mar. 1, 1850 (p.2) to use in the documentary.  She had discovered the article on the Chronicling America website.  VTDNP was pleased to play a small role in contributing this image for inclusion in The Abolitionists.

If viewing The Abolitionists on the Internet or on the DVD, you can use the time or chapter index feature to see the Burlington Free Press “California and Slavery” headline that begins “Chapter 12 – The Great Compromise,” – at approximately 1:25 into the video.  The camera lingers on the Burlington Free Press banner and article headline “California and Slavery,” and then scrolls down to zoom in on the text, “the Union is not worth preserving” while a voice-over introduces the question of territories acquired after the Mexican-American War and the debate surrounding California joining the union as a free state, along with other circumstances leading to the “Great Compromise” of 1850.

BFP-1850-03-01-p2
You can read the complete full-text to the article on Chronicling America: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84023127/1850-03-01/ed-1/seq-2/

And don’t forget to watch The Abolitionists !
It is a compelling and well-done documentary, and part of our nation’s history.

– Birdie MacLennan