DPLA – Page 2 – the DLG B

From DPLA’s original press release, available here.

In concert with the American Library Association national conference in Orlando, Florida, this week, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and FamilySearch International, the largest genealogy organization in the world, have signed an agreement that will expand access to FamilySearch.org’s growing free digital historical book collection to DPLA’s broad audience of users including genealogists, researchers, family historians, students, and more.

Family history/genealogy continues to be a popular and growing hobby. And FamilySearch is a leader in the use of technology to digitally preserve the world’s historic records and books of genealogical relevance for easy search and access online. With this new partnership, DPLA will incorporate metadata from FamilySearch.org’s online digital book collection that will make more than 200,000 family history books discoverable through DPLA’s search portal later this year. From DPLA, users will be able to access the free, fully viewable digital books on FamilySearch.org.

The digitized historical book collection at FamilySearch.org includes genealogy and family history publications from the archives of some of the most important family history libraries in the world. The collection includes family histories, county and local histories, genealogy magazines and how-to books, gazetteers, and medieval histories and pedigrees. Tens of thousands of new publications are added yearly.

“We’re excited to see information about FamilySearch’s vast holdings more broadly circulated to those trained to collect, catalog, and distribute useful information. Joint initiatives like this with DPLA help us to further expand access to the rich historic records hidden in libraries and archives worldwide to more curious online patrons,” said David Rencher, FamilySearch’s Chief Genealogy Officer.

Dan Cohen, Executive Director of DPLA, sees the addition of FamilySearch’s digital book collection as part of DPLA’s ongoing mission to be an essential site for family history researchers: “At DPLA, we aspire to collect and share cultural heritage materials that represent individuals, families, and communities from all walks of life across the country, past and present. The FamilySearch collection and our continued engagement with genealogists and family researchers is critical to help bring the stories represented in these treasured resources to life in powerful and exciting ways.”

FamilySearch is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to the discovery and preservation of personal and family histories and stories, introducing individuals to their ancestors through the widespread access to records, and collaborating with others who share this vision. Within DPLA, FamilySearch’s book collection will be discoverable alongside over 13 million cultural heritage materials contributed by DPLA’s growing network of over 2,000 libraries, archives, and museums across the country, opening up all new possibilities for discovery for users and researchers worldwide.

Find more about FamilySearch or search its resources online at FamilySearch.org. Learn more about Digital Public Library of America at https://dp.la.

About FamilySearch

FamilySearch is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources for free at FamilySearch.org or through more than 4,921 family history centers in 129 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

About the Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. Since launching in April 2013, it has aggregated more than 13 million items from 2,000 institutions. The DPLA is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit.

Media Contacts

DPLA: info@dp.la
FamilySearch: news@familysearch.org

Leo Frank and his wife Lucille in the court room for his murder trial, Georgia, 1913. Local identification number: AJCP402-102e, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archives. Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. — Leo Frank and his wife Lucille in the court room for his murder trial, Georgia, 1913.
Local identification number: AJCP402-102e, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archives. Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.

The Digital Library of Georgia is pleased to announce a new online exhibition titled Tragedy in the New South: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank that is now available through the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).

The link to the exhibit is http://dp.la/exhibitions/exhibits/show/leo-frank.

On April 26, 1913, Confederate Memorial Day, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan was murdered at the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Leo Frank, the Jewish, New York-raised superintendent of the National Pencil Company, was charged with the crime.

At the same time, Atlanta’s economy was transforming from rural and agrarian to urban and industrial. Resources for investing in new industry came from Northern states, as did most industrial leaders, like Leo Frank. Many of the workers in these new industrial facilities were children, like Mary Phagan.

Over the next two years, Leo Frank’s legal case became a national story with a highly publicized, controversial trial and lengthy appeal process that profoundly affected Jewish communities in Georgia and the South, and impacted the careers of lawyers, politicians, and publishers.

By the early twentieth century, Jewish communities had become well-established in most major Southern cities, continuing a path of migration that began during colonial times. The Leo Frank case and its aftermath revealed lingering regional hostilities from the Civil War and Reconstruction, intensified existing racial and cultural inequalities (particularly anti-Semitism), embodied socioeconomic problems (such as child labor), and exposed the brutality of lynching in the South.

This exhibit is a collaboration between DLG and DPLA staff. DPLA exhibitions cover major themes and events in American history and culture, and are widely used in education. Exhibits are comprised of items curated from collections made available by DPLA content partners. The incorporation of these shared materials ensures broader discoverability of these resources.

Tragedy in the New South: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank makes use of photographs, newspaper articles, broadsides, illustrations, letters, and other unique items to illustrate key themes, which include the setting of Atlanta in 1913, the murder of Mary Phagan, Leo Frank’s legal battle, Frank’s lynching, regional and national reactions to the lynching, and the legacy of the Frank case.

We hope that you take the time to look through this new exhibition.

Category: DPLA

DPLA and FamilySearch Partner to Expand Access to Digitized Historical Books Online

New online exhibit “Tragedy in the New South: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank”