The Digital Library of Georgia has made its 3 millionth digitized and full-text-searchable historic newspaper page available freely online. 

The title page of the first edition of the May 22, 1917, issue of the Atlanta Georgian reports on the destruction caused by the Great Atlanta Fire of 1917 and the city’s effort to control the damage.

This issue marks the 3 millionth page digitized by the Digital Library of Georgia.

The newspaper circulated daily from 1906 to 1939, was the first Hearst-owned newspaper in the South, and is the most prominent example of sensationalist yellow journalism in Georgia. In its first year of publication, the paper infamously printed stories intended to inflame racial tensions that contributed to the start of the Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906.

Famed newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst purchased the Atlanta Georgian in 1912. Under his ownership, the paper printed increasingly scandalous headlines and illustrations that dramatized local crimes, including its coverage of the Leo Frank case in Atlanta.

The digitization of this title was funded through a grant from an anonymous donor as part of their mission to provide resources that promote a greater understanding of Georgia’s history during this important period.

We have developed an online press kit, available at bit.ly/dlg3million which includes:

  • An image, description, and link out to our 3 millionth page;
  • A link to our press release;

Since 2007, the DLG has provided access to the state’s historic newspapers, with the majority having been digitized from microfilm produced by the Georgia Newspaper Project (GNP).

With the launch of the Georgia Historic Newspapers (GHN) site in July 2017, the DLG has maintained that tradition by bringing together new and existing resources into a single, consolidated website where newspapers dating from 1763-2023 are full-text searchable and can be browsed by city, title, date, keyword, or region.

Annually, DLG digitizes over 400,000 historic newspaper pages with funding from GALILEOthe University of Georgia LibrariesGeorgia Public Library Servicethe National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the R. J. Taylor, Jr. Foundation, and dozens of cultural heritage institutions across the state. The DLG also microfilms more than 200 current newspapers. Historic newspaper pages are consistently the most visited of any DLG site.

Researching newspaper content is critical to understanding a location’s local history, priorities, and interests. It can be an engaging way to teach younger students the value of primary sources.

The GHN includes some of the state’s earliest newspapers; important African American, Roman Catholic, and Cherokee newspapers; and issues from Georgia’s largest cities and towns, as well as an increasing number of underrepresented communities and regions.

“I’m happy to see that more of the Georgian will soon be digitized,” said Dr. Janice Hume, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications.

“Students in my media history class at UGA dig into it to learn about Atlanta in the early 20th century, the Leo Frank trial, and journalism history. They are amazed at the sheer  volume of stories, the extras, and the sensationalism.”

Our 3 millionth page:

The title page of the first edition of the May 22, 1917, issue of the Atlanta Georgian reports on the destruction caused by the Great Atlanta Fire of 1917 and the city’s effort to control the damage.

 

 

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Standard Telephone Company Records documenting Standard Telephone Company’s provision of services to rural northeast Georgians for the past century are now available online.

Selected by statewide cultural heritage stakeholders and funded by the DLG’s competitive digitization grant program, this collection is the Habersham County Historical Society’s first collaboration with the DLG and is available here:

Standard Telephone Company Records

The collection contains historical materials dating from 1904 to 1999 that come from the archives of the independently-owned Standard Telephone Company. Headquartered in Cornelia, it provided telephone service to rural northeast Georgians. Among the materials are items recognizing fifty years of service from the Standard Telephone Company’s longtime employee, Henry Davis, an African-American telephone engineer, the first in Georgia and possibly the nation.

Dean C. Swanson, former president of STC Holdings, and Jim Johnson, former president of Standard Telephone Company, jointly establish the importance of making this work accessible freely online.

“The Independent Telephone Companies in Georgia had the most difficult economic and physical deployments due to the nature of the rural areas; these pioneers persevered with great risks. Digitization would be a great tribute to them.  Additionally, the circumstances and conditions under which the Standard Telephone Company was developed are highly generalizable. They can serve to glean similar processes in other rural areas for which this kind of history is not available. While the Habersham County Historical Society has a museum of Standard Telephone’s history and phone apparatus, we know too well that the younger generation will often turn to online digitized history to learn about the history of this industry. Given that, we feel digitizing this information is of great value to future generations.”

About the Habersham County Historical Society 

The Habersham County Historical Society was formed on February 22, 1973, by twelve citizens from Clarkesville, Cornelia, and Demorest on the campus of Piedmont College. In 2018, the society compiled the county’s history in a bicentennial publication: A Brief History 1818 – 2018, Habersham200: New Thoughts of Old Things. To celebrate the society’s 50th Year Golden Jubilee – a commemorative edition was published and is available on Amazon. The celebration was hosted by Piedmont University on March 11, 2023, and celebrated the entire county.

Visit https://www.habershamcountyhistorical50.com/ for highlights of the celebration.

You can find Habersham County Historical Society online at: https://habershamhistoricalsociety.org/.

 

About the Digital Library of Georgia

The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) serves as Georgia’s statewide cultural heritage digitization initiative. It is a joint project between the University of Georgia Libraries and GALILEO. The DLG collaborates with Georgia’s cultural heritage and educational institutions to provide free online access to historic resources in Georgia. The DLG not only develops, maintains, and preserves digital collections and online resources but also partners to build digitization capacity and technical infrastructure. It acts as Georgia’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and facilitates cooperative digitization initiatives. The DLG serves as the home of the Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia’s print journalism preservation project.

 

Selected images from the collection:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Telephone Directory 1945

URL: https://dlg.usg.edu/record/hchsi_stcr_stc-pd1945

Collection: Standard Telephone Company records

Courtesy of the Habersham County Historical Society (Ga.)

Description: 1945 telephone directory for the Standard Telephone Company of Cornelia, Georgia, which served Habersham County in northeast Georgia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Original company charter STC

URL: https://dlg.usg.edu/record/hchsi_stcr_stc-charter 

Collection: Standard Telephone Company records

Courtesy of the Habersham County Historical Society (Ga.)

Description: Original company charter for the Standard Telephone Company of Cornelia, Georgia.

 

Title: DEDICATION Henry Davis Building June 21, 1986

URL: https://dlg.usg.edu/record/hchsi_stcr_stc-dedication

Collection: Standard Telephone Company records

Courtesy of the Habersham County Historical Society (Ga.)

Description: Page 2 of a pamphlet celebrating the dedication of the Henry Davis Building, recognizing fifty years of service from the Standard Telephone Company’s longtime employee, Henry Davis. Davis was an African American telephone engineer, the first in Georgia and possibly the nation.

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