Happy holidays, everyone, from the Vermont Digital Newspaper Project! May you have a warm (emphasis on warm!!), happy, and safe holiday in whatever form that may take.
An advertisement for a radio from the Caledonian-Record in 1922.
Here’s to a fantastic 2014 and an even better 2015. In honor of the holiday season, we put together a small album of assorted holiday newspaper clippings from Vermont (all found on Chronicling America).
The Equinox Resort & Spa, home to the conference this year, boosts a 200 year history, 6 different architectural styles, and 17 structures–it’s quite the complex!
The Vermont Digital Newspaper Project (VTDNP) was invited to give a workshop to teachers at this year’s Vermont Alliance for the Social Studies Conference in Manchester, Vermont, at the Equinox Resort & Spa, on Friday, December 5, 2014.
Another 10,000 pages added to Chronicling America this week from Phase II of the Vermont Digital Newspaper Project! New content from Orleans and Orange County are now online.
Click on the title of the newspaper to view the newspaper on Chronicling America.
The United Opinion, published in Bradford, Orange County, Vermont. Years added: 1892-1922
Tunbridge is one of those quintessential Vermont towns, nestled amongst our state’s undulating green hills. Old barns, fields, cows, and historic homes along a winding narrow road lead to the relatively unchanged historic downtown of Tunbridge, where, in the valley below the town, the Tunbridge World’s Fairgrounds were home to the 2014 Vermont History Expo on June 21 and 22. Amid idyllic scenery and esteemed fellow exhibitors (all 160 of them!), we hosted an exhibit in Floral Hall.
Over the course of two days, we had the opportunity to meet hundreds of people from Vermont and beyond–many of whom had not yet heard of the project and what we had to offer. It was therefore a weekend full of discoveries!
Erenst Anip, Project Librarian, with our exhibit.
Particularly helpful was our laptop with Chronicling America set up. Visitors tested out keywords with the guidance of VTDNP team members. There were some amazing newspaper finds, particularly in regard to genealogy. One family discovered an obituary with some confirming information on a relative who moved from Vermont to Kansas in the time of John Brown and Bleeding Kansas. Stay tuned for more stories! (Read our post on genealogy search strategies.)
With maple creemee in hand, Karyn Norwood, our newsgirl, helps a visitor navigate Chronicling America in search of an ancestor. Seems she had some success!
Our booth featured an exhibit entitled, Expressions: The Newspaper Masthead in Vermont Newspapers between 1836-1922, which took a particular look at the Cronaca Sovverisiva’s masthead artist, Carlos Abate, and displayed other interesting masthead designs from Vermont newspapers. View mastheads on our Flickr account.
Click to enlarge the exhibit panel.Click to enlarge the exhibit panel.
In addition to the main exhibit, we challenged visitors with a guessing game featuring mystery toy advertisements from the turn of the twentieth century. It was a lot of fun, and every participant received some candy and a bookmark! Think you’d like to give it a try? Try our online version!
Finally, thanks to our volunteers who helped with manning the booth: Tom McMurdo and Mary VanBuren Swasey. We couldn’t have done it without you!! Many thanks to the Vermont Historical Society for organizing such an impressive History Expo. Additional thanks to Karen Lane of the Aldrich Public Library and Paul Heller, local historian and author, for their help with the Cronaca Sovversiva research and images.
Karyn Norwood, Digital Support Specialist, was a newsgirl for the weekend, delivering the headlines from the 1800s and early 1900s to the public!
It was an incredible weekend of Vermont history; we are so happy to have been a part of it. We can’t wait for the 2016 History Expo!
A view of Floral Hall (where VTDNP had our exhibit) and the gazebo, where musicians played music from the past and present.
Extra! Extra! Read, watch, and view more about VTDNP at the Expo:
More photos from the weekend are available on our Flickr account.
This past month the Library of Congress added four batches of newspaper pages from Vermont including the much-anticipated Italian language newspaper, Cronaca Sovversiva.
Cronaca Sovversiva masthead from Saturday, 14 January 1905
Here are links to new content and new titles available as of today, May 7, 2014:
Congratulations and thanks to our fabulous production team: Karyn Norwood, Mary VanBuren-Swasey, Michael Breiner, and Jake Barickman – with special acknowledgement to Fanny Mion-Mouton (former visiting graduate student from France).
For the complete listing of Vermont’s historical newspaper offerings on Chronicling America, click here.
