The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) is pleased to announce the availability of the Teacher’s Monthly Reports Collection at https://dlg.usg.edu/collection/zhe_tmr. The collection, which belongs to the Oconee Regional Library System, is available online thanks in part to the DLG’s 2018 Competitive Digitization grant program, a funding opportunity intended to broaden DLG partner participation for statewide historic digitization projects.
The Teacher’s Monthly Reports collection includes monthly teacher reports from African American rural and city schools operating from 1930 to 1939 in Laurens County, Georgia. These monthly reports were created by individual teachers to be submitted to the Laurens County Superintendent. The reports list student names, age, grade and attendance for the month. Many of these records also show teacher salaries, addresses, and other information. The DLG has digitized 126 folders with reports for 58 schools.
Cristina Hernández Trotter, Head of the Reference Department and the Heritage Center of the Oconee Regional Library System describes the impact this new collection will have for researchers and genealogists: “Family and local historians will be thrilled to have online access to this information. Genealogists will eagerly pore over these pages in search of relatives. Local historians can use these records to paint a more detailed picture of our county’s educational system during the 1930s. Because these records contain the home address of some teachers and principals, any scholars interested in the history of the micropolitan nature of Dublin, Georgia will find these primary source documents of interest.”
“We are so excited to be able to partner with DLG to make these documents discoverable online,” Trotter continues, “This collection will have such a great impact on our community. Scholars interested in the history of education and civil rights in Georgia will be pleased to discover the rich historical information this collection contains.”
About the Oconee Regional Library System
The Oconee Regional Library System (OCRL) is a public library system that serves the Georgia counties of Glascock, Laurens, Johnson, Treutlen, and Washington. The headquarters for the library system is in Dublin, Georgia and the system serves a population of over 83,000 people across 2,011 square miles. Visit OCRL at http://www.ocrl.org/.
About the Digital Library of Georgia
Based at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Digital Library of Georgia https://dlg.usg.edu is a GALILEO initiative that collaborates with Georgia’s libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions of education and culture to provide access to key information resources on Georgia history, culture, and life. This primary mission is accomplished through the ongoing development, maintenance, and preservation of digital collections and online digital library resources. DLG also serves as Georgia’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America and as the home of the Georgia Newspaper Project, the state’s historic newspaper microfilming project.
Over the summer, the Digital Library of Georgia released several new grant-funded newspaper titles to the