New Partners – Page 6

Historical records detailing the growth of one of the world’s largest airlines are available to the public online through the Digital Library of Georgia, thanks to a partnership between the Delta Flight Museum, the University of Georgia Libraries, and GALILEO.

The collection contains Delta Air Lines’ digitized timetables, flight maps, and annual reports for the past century through its expansions, moves, and mergers with other airlines to become the aviation industry leader in the United States.

“Sharing our collection of digitized annual reports and timetables of Delta and family member airlines provides wider access to this rich resource of materials documenting the nearly 100 years of Delta’s history and the development of commercial aviation both locally and globally,” said John Boatright, president of Delta Flight Museum, a non-profit museum housed in the original 1940s hangars at Delta’s Atlanta headquarters.

“This partnership with DLG allows us to enhance our engagement with educators, researchers, and aviation enthusiasts.”

Delta Air Lines traces its history to the world’s first crop-dusting company in Macon in 1925, and the company has been headquartered in Atlanta since 1941.

For Toby Graham, university librarian and associate provost at UGA, those connections to the state align the digital archive with the mission of the Digital Library of Georgia, a GALILEO initiative based at UGA’s Main Library dedicated to the digital preservation and open access of historic materials that reflect the state’s history and culture.

“As one of Atlanta’s largest employers, Delta and its business history are fully integrated with the story of our state. We are proud to partner with the Delta Flight Museum to preserve and share these historical documents with the community and with researchers interested in aviation, business, travel, and other fields,” said Graham.

In addition to historical items directly related to the airline, the Delta Flight Museum’s online archive contains business publications from many of the more than 40 affiliated airlines that make up the “Delta family tree.”

These include:

Chicago and Southern Air Lines, which brought Delta’s first international routes to the Caribbean and Venezuela in 1953;

Boston-based Northeast Airlines, which extended Delta’s East Coast services from Canada to Florida and Bermuda in 1972;

Los Angeles-based Western Airlines, the oldest continuously operating airline in the United States before Delta acquired it in 1987;

and Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines, which carried the most passengers across the Pacific Ocean and was a top domestic cargo carrier until its merger with Delta in 2008.

[View the collections online]

About Delta Flight Museum

The Delta Flight Museum is a premier international destination located in the heart of Delta Air Lines’ worldwide headquarters in Atlanta, where visitors explore aviation history, celebrate the story and people of Delta, and discover the future of flight.

Housed in Delta’s historic 1940s aircraft hangars, the not-for-profit Delta Flight Museum offers an unmatched experience for aviation enthusiasts of all ages. A fleet of rare vintage aircraft and artifacts from more than 40 airlines related to Delta enhance our interactive experiences and unique event and education spaces. Visit online at deltamuseum.org

Selected images from the collection:

This brochure documenting Delta's entry to passenger service describes air transportation for businessmen as reliable, cost-saving, and efficient. The expansion was significant for Delta, which began in 1925 as a crop-dusting company based out of Macon, Georgia, and then Monroe, Louisiana. — Image courtesy of Delta Flight Museum

Title: Fly for business and why [Fall/Winter 1929]

Description: This brochure documenting Delta’s entry to passenger service describes air transportation for businessmen as reliable, cost-saving, and efficient. The expansion was significant for Delta, which began in 1925 as a crop-dusting company based out of Macon, Georgia, and then Monroe, Louisiana.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/delta_das_das-brochure-fly-1929

Printed pamphlet for Delta customers with flight schedules, fares, and contact information for customers, with service to 10 locations in the Southern U.S. — Image courtesy of Delta Flight Museum

Title: Delta Air Lines Schedules and Fares 1934 November 1

Description: Printed pamphlet for Delta customers with flight schedules, fares, and contact information for customers, with service to 10 locations in the Southern U.S.

Cover page from a yearly financial and performance report published by Delta, highlighting aircraft fleets, corporate mergers and alliances, personnel, facilities, routes, major investments and initiatives, board of directors, and officers. — Image courtesy of Delta Flight Museum

Title: Delta Air Lines annual report 1948

Description: Cover page from a yearly financial and performance report published by Delta, highlighting aircraft fleets, corporate mergers and alliances, personnel, facilities, routes, major investments and initiatives, board of directors, and officers.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/delta_dal-ar_dal-ar-1948

A photo printed in a yearly financial and performance report published by Delta, highlighting aircraft fleets, corporate mergers and alliances, personnel, facilities, routes, major investments and initiatives, board of directors, and officers. — Image courtesy of Delta Flight Museum

Title: Delta Air Lines annual report 1948

Description: A photo printed in a yearly financial and performance report published by Delta, highlighting aircraft fleets, corporate mergers and alliances, personnel, facilities, routes, major investments and initiatives, board of directors, and officers.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/delta_dal-ar_dal-ar-1948

The oldest annual report in the collection dates to 1939, when the company was known as Delta Air Corporation, based out of Monroe. Delta later moved its headquarters to Atlanta in 1941 and would officially become Delta Air Lines four years later in 1945. — Image courtesy of Delta Flight Museum

Title: Delta Air Corporation annual report 1939

Description: The oldest annual report in the collection dates to 1939, when the company was known as Delta Air Corporation, based out of Monroe. Delta later moved its headquarters to Atlanta in 1941 and would officially become Delta Air Lines four years later in 1945.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/delta_dal-ar_dal-ar-1939

Title: Delta Air Lines annual report 1950

Description: Image of a Delta Air Lines flight crew in front of a plane, shown in a 1950 Delta Air Lines printed annual report from 1950.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/delta_dal-ar_dal-ar-1950

Delta Air Lines' first international routes to the Caribbean and Venezuela grew out of its first airline merger with Memphis, Tennessee-based C&S, in 1953. The collection above houses annual reports for C&S from 1940-1953, before the merger with Delta. — Image courtesy of Delta Flight Museum

Title: Chicago and Southern Air Lines Annual Report 1940

Description: Delta Air Lines’ first international routes to the Caribbean and Venezuela grew out of its first airline merger with Memphis, Tennessee-based C&S, in 1953. The collection above houses annual reports for C&S from 1940-1953, before the merger with Delta.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/delta_csa-ar_csa-ar-1940

Printed, multi-page booklet for Delta customers with flight schedules, contact information, airline route maps, aircraft types, meal service, and advertisements. — Image courtesy of Delta Flight Museum

Title: Delta Air Lines System Timetable 1968 October 1

Description: Printed, multi-page booklet for Delta customers with flight schedules, contact information, airline route maps, aircraft types, meal service, and advertisements.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/delta_dal-tt_dal-tt-19681001

A modern Delta Air Lines flight timetable (August 2019). Today, nearly 5,000 Delta flights take off every day, connecting people across more than 265 destinations on six continents. — Image courtesy of Delta Flight Museum

[dal-tt-201908]

Image courtesy of Delta Flight Museum

Title: Delta Worldwide Timetable August 2019

Description: A modern Delta Air Lines flight timetable (August 2019). Today, nearly 5,000 Delta flights take off every day, connecting people across more than 265 destinations on six continents.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/delta_dal-e-tt_dal-tt-201908

The Friends of the Rylander Theatre, winners of a 2021 Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council (GHRAC) grant, have partnered with the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) to make materials documenting the Americus, Georgia theater’s history from 1921 to 1957 available freely online.

Rylander Theatre Special Collections was digitized and described as part of the DLG’s competitive digitization subgrant program, broadening partner participation amongst nonprofit cultural heritage institutions across the state.

The items in this collection show the “first life” (1921- c. 1951) of the Rylander Theatre and the various types of entertainment the establishment hosted, including live musicals, vaudeville shows, and movies (both silent and “talkies”). In addition, a 1929 school club card and a 1930 theater coupon book show a detailed picture of Depression-era Americus, the popular tastes of this South Georgia town, and details of how local businesses sought to incentivize commerce in their communities during dire times.

Other materials, like photographs, programs, and fliers, provide factual information like names and dates on programs, visual and aesthetic information such as the design of movie advertisement floats in the lobby of the Rylander. The interior design and decoration of the soda shop owned by local businessman George Saliba attached to the Rylander Theatre (and identified in the 1937 Americus city directory as “George’s Place”) are essential to researchers who wish to fill in details related to life in south Georgia. There are also key examples of rural southern movie theater culture within the Jim Crow era, where establishments like the Rylander accommodated segregated audiences and the impact of the Hays Code (the motion picture industry’s self-imposed production code implemented between 1934 and 1968).

Researchers interested in the early life of young Jimmy Carter (the Rylander Theatre’s most famous local patron) would also find the materials in this collection enlightening. Those researchers can dig even deeper into advertisements for Rylander Theatre programming that appear in issues of the Americus Times-Recorder digitized for presentation in Georgia Historic Newspapers. And Carter researchers will be able to connect his lifelong enthusiasm in movies to his presidential daily diary.

Jacob A. Ross, Park Ranger at the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park in Plains, Georgia, describes the importance of this collection:

“As a park ranger for the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park, I consider the Rylander Theatre’s history of being part of President Carter’s history, as the young Carter would often attend shows at the Theatre during the same era these items were created. As a historian interested in southern American culture, this collection has been an enlightening and revealing addition to the unique entertainment and racial histories of theater venues in southwest Georgia…These items also appeal to communities looking to perform a similar restoration of their local theater.”

[View the entire collection online]

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About the Friends of the Rylander Theatre (Americus, Ga.)

The Rylander Theater in Americus, Georgia, provides community and area visitors a theater and meeting hall for dramatic and musical stage performances, motion pictures, and lectures, with its unique architecture, artistic legacy, and social history to be interpreted through tours and other educational presentations. Read more at rylander.org

Selected images from the collection:

A black-and-white photo of the facade of the Rylander Theatre in Americus, Georgia. The marquee reads "Mon Tue Bette Davis Edw[ard] G. Robinson in Kid Galahad." A young man sits on top of a motorcycle as he looks back at the theater, and pedestrians walk along the sidewalk in front of the theater. — **Title:** Mon Tue Bette Davis Rylander Theatre street view. **Credit:** Image courtesy of the Rylander Theatre. **Description:** A photo of the front of the Rylander Theatre when it was owned by the Martin Theatre Company, a chain of more than sixty-five theaters owned by R. E. Martin of Columbus, Georgia. The marquee reads “Mon Tue Bette Davis Edw[ard] G. Robinson in Kid Galahad.”

Black-and-white photograph of man standing in front of a theatre placard. The movies on display include The Thin Man (1934), starring William Powell and Myrna Loy; and The Plainsman (1936), starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. The display also announces that the "Imperial Hawaiians," a group of male musicians, were scheduled to perform onstage. The "R" at the top of the display as well as the architectural details at the top of the photograph point to the location of this photo as the Rylander Theatre, in Americus Georgia. — **Title:** Parade of spring attractions. **Credit:** Image courtesy of the Rylander Theatre. **Description:** Original photo of movie display in the entryway of the Rylander Theatre when it was under Martin Theatre management. The Martin Theatre chain was comprised of more than sixty-five theaters in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida owned by R. E. Martin of Columbus, Georgia. The movies on display include After The Thin Man (1936), starring William Powell and Myrna Loy; and The Plainsman (1936), starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. The display also announces that the “Imperial Hawaiians,” a group of male musicians, were scheduled to perform onstage. The “R” at the top of the display as well as the architectural details at the top of the photograph point to the location of this photo as the Rylander Theatre, as opposed to the Martin Theatre that opened up across town in 1957.

Category: New Partners

Delta Air Lines Documents Are Available Online Through the Digital Library of Georgia

Historic Materials from the Rylander Theatre, President Jimmy Carter’s Childhood Theatre in Rural Americus, Georgia, Now Available Online