Recap: National Digital Newspaper Program Conference 2015

October 7, 2015 VTDNP

Another year, another National Digital Newspaper Program Conference! Last month, Jeffrey Marshall, project director and principal investigator, Erenst Anip, project librarian, and Karyn Norwood, digital support specialist, traveled to Washington, DC, for the annual conference for the National Digital Newspaper Program between September 16th and 18th. Below, a recap of just a few of the exciting moments of the conference!

There are some exciting developments on the national level for Chronicling America: significantly, on October 7th, the program celebrated the surpassing of 10 million newspaper pages freely available online, which is a huge accomplishment! Vermont alone has contributed around 260,000 pages from 59 newspaper titles to this number.

12002069_1147279645300983_4871639606192641295_n — An early cake celebration at the conference for reaching 10 million pages.

Continue reading Recap: National Digital Newspaper Program Conference 2015 →

User Spotlight: Richard H. Allen, Local Historian

August 27, 2015 VTDNP

And we are back with our User Spotlight Series feature! We are delighted that Richard H. Allen, a Vermont-based historian and author, took the time to share his experience with Chronicling America and how it helped with the research for his upcoming book: Ambition and Grit: The Life of Truman Naramore, Civil War Veteran and Entrepreneur.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Lucille and Richard Allen on Buck Mountain, Lake George, New York.

Richard H. Allen is a native of Plattsburgh, New York and has lived in Vermont since 1973. He received his B.A. from Harpur College, State University of New York at Binghamton, and his M.Ed. from the University of North Dakota. He taught elementary school for 40 years, 37 of those years in Williston, Vermont. He lives with his wife Lucille in Essex Center and they have three grown children. He has authored or co-authored five other books: The Vermont Geography Book; The History of Williston Central School, 1950-2000; Essex and Essex Junction, with his wife Lucille; North Williston: Down Depot Hill; and Williston, Vermont: Commemorating 250 Years of Town History.

Continue reading User Spotlight: Richard H. Allen, Local Historian →

First of Phase III Content Available on Chronicling America!

July 21, 2015 VTDNP

We’re excited to announce that the first batch of Vermont content for Phase III is now online on Chronicling America!

This first batch consists of the rest of the Orleans County Monitor from Phase II, from 1913-1922. We now have a complete run of the newspaper title from 1872-1922 available for browsing, searching, and printing!

monitor_prospectus_Apr15 — Prospectus for a new Orleans County, Vermont weekly paper, from the first issue of the Orleans County Monitor.

Read a recent blog post written by Prudence Doherty on the Monitor‘s inception: “Here Comes the Monitor!”

Browse issues of the Orleans County Monitor on Chronicling America from 1872-1922.

Browse issues of the preceding title: the Orleans Independent Standard (digitized in Phase II) from 1856-1870.

Enjoy! Happy searching.

-The VTDNP Team

“Would you mountaineer this summer?” Vermont’s Long Trail

July 16, 2015 VTDNP

deanb03077 — “Tucker party on Mount Abraham.” Hand-colored lantern slide image courtesy of UVM Center for Digital Initiatives.

“The value of the free publicity that the Long Trail brings to Vermont, cannot be told. Leading magazines and great city newspapers have told of the glories of sun rises and sun sets seen from these mountain tops.” -News and Citizen, July 21, 1922

At the height of a new focus on nature, the outdoors, camping, hiking, and physical health in Progressive Era America, James P. Taylor (1872-1949), an associate principal of the Vermont Academy at the time, had a vision of creating a trail along the Green Mountains in Vermont to, as one newspaper put it, “awaken the people of Vermont to the neglected beauties of their mountains.” He created the Green Mountain Club in 1910 with the specific intent of designing a trail that would eventually stretch across the state and “make the Vermont mountains play a larger part in the life of the people.” Chronicling America’s historic newspaper pages illustrate the progress of the construction of the oldest long-distance trail in the United States from its very inception through 1922. Continue reading “Would you mountaineer this summer?” Vermont’s Long Trail →

Recap: Bicycle Tour and Exhibit Opening

June 17, 2015 VTDNP

Wheels in hand, cyclists prepared to depart for the tour from Bailey/Howe Library.

It was a lovely day for a bicycle history tour last Saturday, June 13th, with warm temperatures and blue skies! Luis Vivanco, University of Vermont professor of anthropology and author of Reconsidering the Bicycle: An Anthropological Perspective on a New (Old) Thing, led thirteen adventurous wheelmen and wheelwomen on a cycling tour of Burlington’s rich bicycling past, with stops all over the city.

Luis, in costume, introducing bicyclists to the tour and the history of bicycling.

The tour was offered in conjunction with the opening of our new summer exhibit in the main lobby of Bailey/Howe Library on the main campus of the University of Vermont: Cycling Through the News: The Rise of Bicycling in Vermont and the Nation.

A sincere thank you to Luis Vivanco for donating his time and expertise to lead the tour around town on Saturday!

*****

We’ll end this post with a short article from the Burlington Weekly Free Press from August 21, 1885, page 3, concerning Burlington’s many attractions for cyclists:

burlingtonattractionsforwheelmen_bfp_8211885 — Burlington Weekly Free Press, August 21, 1885, p. 3.

(For more Burlington, Vermont, and American bicycle history tidbits, check out the exhibit! Another great place to see actual historic bicycles in Burlington is at the Old Spokes Home bicycle museum!)

The exhibit is on display until August 26th, 2015.