NARA: Confederate Slave Payrolls Shed Light on Lives of 19th Century African American Families. “They are single lines, often with no last name, on paper yellowed but legible after 155 years, among thousands scrawled in loping letters that make up nearly 6,000 Confederate Slave Payroll records, a trove of Civil War documents digitized for the first time by National Archives staff in a multiyear project that concluded in January. For years, the Confederate Army required owners to loan their slaves to the military. From Virginia to Florida, the enslaved conscripts were forced to dig trenches and work at ordnance factories and arsenals, mine potassium nitrate to create gunpowder, or shore up forts.”
Civil War
Digital Library of Georgia: Georgia Civil War and Reconstruction newspapers now freely available online
Digital Library of Georgia: Georgia Civil War and Reconstruction newspapers now freely available online . “As part of a $27,405.00 grant from the R. J. Taylor, Jr. Foundation, the Digital Library of Georgia has digitized over 100,000 pages of Georgia newspaper titles published from 1861 to 1877 from microfilm held by the Georgia Newspaper Project.”
Digital Library of Georgia: Confederate naval ledger now freely available online
Digital Library of Georgia: Confederate naval ledger now freely available online. “The Confederate States Naval Iron Works operated from 1862-1865. The ledger also includes entries as late as 1866 as Warner worked with the United States Navy in turning over naval equipment to the United States government. Records surviving the Civil War that document the Confederate Navy is limited. This ledger provides information about Columbus, Georgia, ironclad construction, steam engines, and the daily operation and industrial reach of the Confederate States Naval Iron Works.”
Villanova University: Now Digitized!
Villanova University: Now Digitized!. “Over ten years ago, Distinctive Collections posted a blog post, “THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY…,” about the many materials that are too difficult to digitize. Michael Foight, Director of Distinctive Collections and Digital Engagement, described how the unique Special Collections materials sometimes are too fragile or too tightly bound to be properly scanned. Another complication brought to light is how complex materials once digitized can lose its context with each other. For example, digitizing scrapbooks with many components are digitized individually may lose the interrelationships between each other and the scrapbook as a whole. These obstacles highlight how the argument for ‘digitize everything’ is not so simple or easy. But with the years of upgrades to the Villanova Digital Library we are able to revisit the scrapbooks that could not originally be digitized!”
Library of Congress: Newly Digitized Collections Now Online Include History of Women’s Suffrage, Civil War, Landscape Architecture and Monetary Policy
Library of Congress: Newly Digitized Collections Now Online Include History of Women’s Suffrage, Civil War, Landscape Architecture and Monetary Policy. “Researchers and students have gained access to seven newly digitized collections of manuscript materials from the Library of Congress, including records of one of the most important women’s suffrage organizations, the papers of President Abraham Lincoln’s personal secretary and collections on the history of federal monetary policy. The availability of these collections added more than 465,000 images to the Library’s already vast online resources.”
State Archives of North Carolina: New Additions to Civil War Digital Collection
State Archives of North Carolina: New Additions to Civil War Digital Collection. “A selection of 12 volumes from the Soldiers’ Home Association have been added to the Civil War digital collection. These volumes document the history of medical care for veterans and the elderly around the turn of the 19th century.”
University of North Carolina Libraries: How Carolina’s Archivists Preserve and Share the History of UNC’s Confederate Monument
University of North Carolina Libraries: How Carolina’s Archivists Preserve and Share the History of UNC’s Confederate Monument. “Protestors toppled the monument on August 20, 2018, and officials swiftly removed it. Five months later, Chancellor Carol Folt punctuated her resignation announcement with an order to dismantle and remove the statue’s remaining pedestal and plaques. The protracted conflict—with its protests, counter-protests, petitions, news cameras and rallies—has played out dramatically and very much in the public eye. Meanwhile, just a quad away, librarians and archivists at the Wilson Special Collections Library have taken on a different kind of monumental task: helping people make sense of the statue’s controversial past and the role that it continues to play on campus, even in its absence.”
