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Three More Ameritech Grant Winner Collections
Now Part of American Memory

It is with pleasure that the Library announces the most recent
collections to be released as a part of the LC/Ameritech National
Digital Library Competition: “First-Person Narratives of the
American South, 1860-1920", by the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, “Small-Town America: Stereoscopic Views from
the Dennis Collection, 1850-1920", by The New York Public
Library, and  “The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920",
by the Ohio Historical Society.  With a gift from the Ameritech
Corporation, the Library of Congress sponsored a three-year
competition to enable public, research, and academic libraries,
museums, historical societies, and archival institutions (except
federal institutions) to create digital collections of primary resources.
These digital collections complement and enhance the collections
of the National Digital Library Program at the Library of Congress.

“First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920" is a
compilation of printed texts from the libraries at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill which documents the culture of the
nineteenth-century American South from the viewpoint of
Southerners. It includes the diaries, autobiographies, memoirs,
travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives of not only prominent
individuals, but also of relatively inaccessible populations: women,
African Americans, enlisted men, laborers, and Native Americans.
The award from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital
Library Competition supported the digitization of 101 titles; the
university supplemented these with another 40. The presentation
through American Memory links to the digital texts mounted at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where they form part of
a larger digital collection titled Documenting the American South
<http://metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/index.html>.  The larger collection
has four other components: Southern Literature, North American
Slave Narratives, the Southern Home Front, 1861-1865, and, most
recently, the Church in the Southern Black Community. Conversion
has recently begun for texts in this last collection, which earned the
university a second LC/Ameritech award in 1998/99. (Information on
that award can be found at the following url:
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award/99award/unc99.html >.
“First-Person Narratives of the American outh, 1860-1920" can be
found at the following url:
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ncuhtml/>.
Information about the 1997 award can be found at
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award/97award/unc.html>.

“Small-Town America: Stereoscopic Views from the Robert Dennis
Collection, 1850-1920" contains 12,000 photographs of New York,
New Jersey, and Connecticut from the 1850s to the 1910s from the
collections of the New York Public Library. The views show buildings
and street scenes in cities, towns, and villages as well as natural
landscapes. They also depict agriculture, industry, transportation,
homes, businesses, local celebrations, natural disasters, people,
and costumes.  In general, stereoviews are more journalistic than is
formal photography, and they feature subjects and interpretations
not readily available in other formats (local history, for instance).
Stereoviews were most popular between the 1850s and the 1910s
as they were a principal form of home entertainment, perhaps second
only to reading as a personal leisure activity. Small-Town America
can be found at <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/nyplhtml/>.
The announcement of The New York Public Library award can be
found at <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award/97award/nypl.html>.

The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920 is a selection of
manuscript, printed texts and images drawn from the collections of the
Ohio Historical Society.  The digital reproductions document the
history of black Ohio from 1850 to 1920, illuminating the story of
slavery and freedom, segregation and integration, religion and politics,
migrations and restrictions, harmony and discord, and struggles and
successes.  The manuscript materials include the personal papers of
prominent individuals, association records, a plantation account book,
ex-slave narratives, and documents relating to the freeing of individual
slaves. Photographs depict ex-slaves and African Americans serving in
the army, the police force, and the Ohio House of Representatives. In
addition, roughly 15,000 articles relating to African Americans have been
scanned from Ohio newspapers. The African-American Experience in
Ohio can be found at <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ohshtml/>.
The announcement of the Ohio Historical Society Award can be found at
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award/97award/ohio.html>.

Information about the Ameritech competition can be found at the
competition home page which is located at
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award/index.html>.

Questions about the collections should be directed to
<[log in to unmask]>.

 _________________________________________________________

   Elizabeth L. Brown
   Automated Reference Services Librarian
   National Digital Library Program, LIBN/NDL/LC(1330)
   Library of Congress, Washington, DC  20540-1330
   [log in to unmask]                telephone: 202/707-2235

   Library of Congress American Memory Home Page:
   http://memory.loc.gov/
_________________________________________________________