Digital Library of Georgia Hits 1 Million Newspaper Pages

October 23, 2017

WRITER: Jean Cleveland, jclevela@uga.edu, 706-542-8079

CONTACT: Sheila McAlister, mcalists@uga.edu, 706-542-5418

Digital Library Hits 1 Million Newspaper Pages

ATHENS, Ga — The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) is celebrating its 1 millionth digitized historic newspaper page. The premier issue of the Georgia Gazette, Georgia’s first newspaper, published from 1763-1776 in Savannah, will become the 1 millionth page of historic newspapers to be made freely available online through the Georgia Historic Newspapers (GHN): https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn83016182/1763-04-07/ed-1/seq-1/. James Johnston, the first printer in Georgia, published the state’s first newspaper issue on April 7, 1763.

Public libraries around the state are being provided with printed materials, including  bookmarks, rack cards, and temporary tattoos, as well as a freely downloadable digital press kit to encourage local celebrations of the milestone.

The online press kit, available at https://sites.google.com/view/ghn-presskits,  will include:

  • A curriculum guide for educational/ library programming with GHN;
  • A PowerPoint slide deck template for creating presentations on how to use the GHN web site;
  • A DLG “Quick Facts” document with information about the DLG, its public library partners, communication channels, and our historic newspaper milestones;
  • A selection of prepared GHN-related posts that can be shared on social media; and
  • A Millionth Page badge graphic to share within posts on social media

The DLG will promote its millionth page with weekly social media posts that feature items from our digitized newspapers, and will conduct a contest with Facebook users who share our millionth page social media posts and tag us. Two winners will be drawn at random, and awarded a copy of UGA Press’ book For Free Press and Equal Rights by Richard H. Abbott.

Sheila McAlister, director of the DLG, remarks: “Making Georgia’s first newspaper freely available online is the perfect way for us to celebrate this important milestone. Historic newspapers reflect the social and cultural values of the time that they were created and are invaluable to scholars and the general public. With the help of our partners, we will continue add more of this sought-after content.”

Since 2007, the DLG has been providing access to the state’s historic newspapers through multiple online city and regional newspaper archives. With the launch of the GHN in July 2017, the DLG continues that tradition by bringing together new and existing resources into a single, consolidated website.

The GHN includes some of the state’s earliest newspapers; important African-American, Roman Catholic, and Cherokee newspapers; and issues from Atlanta, Augusta, Butler, Columbus, Dublin, Fayetteville, Houston county, Louisville, Sandersville, Thomson, Walker county, Waycross, and Waynesboro. All previously digitized newspapers are scheduled to be incorporated into the new GHN platform. Until that time, users may continue to access the existing regional and city sites (North, South, West Georgia, Athens, Macon, and Savannah). Historic newspaper pages are consistently the most visited of any DLG sites, and the GHN provides newspaper issues that are full-text searchable and able to be browsed by date and title.

Most recently, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded the Digital Library of Georgia a National Digital Newspaper Program grant to digitize 100,000 additional pages of Georgia historic newspapers over the next two years. Annually, DLG digitizes over 100,000 historic newspaper pages with funding from GALILEO, Georgia Public Library Service, and its partners and microfilms more than 200 current newspapers.

Based at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Digital Library of Georgia http://dlg.galileo.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.

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Moore’s Ford lynchings and anti-lynching movement resources in the DLG

Stetson Kennedy's handwritten notes on the Moore's Ford lynching in Monroe.
Stetson Kennedy’s handwritten notes on the Moore’s Ford lynching in Monroe. Lynching, 1936-1949; undated. Local identification number: L1979-37_1514_40. Stetson Kennedy papers, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.

July 25 is the seventieth anniversary of the Moore’s Ford lynchings, where George W. Dorsey, Mae Murray Dorsey, Roger Malcom and Dorothy Malcom, all Walton County sharecroppers, were killed by a white mob near Moore’s Ford Bridge in Monroe, Georgia. The lynching was reported in the national press, and was investigated by both the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the FBI. Despite these efforts to seek justice, no one was ever indicted for the crime.

On July 25, the Moore’s Ford Movement is hosting the 12th annual reenactment of the lynchings that begins at 10 a.m. at First African Baptist Church in Monroe, and travels to the Moore’s Ford bridge.

There are numerous resources in the DLG, the New Georgia Encyclopedia, and the Civil Rights Digital Library about people who worked for the anti-lynching movement.

Here are a few:

Lynching, 1936-1949; undated

Clippings and notes regarding lynching collected and written by investigative reporter and labor activist Stetson Kennedy.  Page 30 of the PDF includes Kennedy’s handwritten notes on the Moore’s Ford lynching in Monroe.

 

Commission on Interracial Cooperation

New Georgia Encyclopedia article about the Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC), founded in Atlanta in 1919, which worked until its merger with the Southern Regional Council in 1944 to oppose lynching, mob violence, and peonage and to educate white southerners concerning the worst aspects of racial abuse.

 

Oral history interview with Willie Snow Ethridge, December 15, 1975

During the 1920s and 1930s, Ethridge was actively involved in the anti-lynching movement. Working primarily within the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, Ethridge both wrote and spoke about lynching and its implications for African Americans and poor whites.

Here is an excerpt from her oral history interview where she discusses working for the anti-lynching movement in the 1920s and 1930s.

 

Oral history interview with Clark Foreman, November 16, 1974

This interview covers three separate conversations with Clark Foreman regarding his career in race relations, public service, and politics. His childhood in Georgia and his travels in Europe led to his work for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation in Atlanta. Foreman witnessed a lynching while he attended University of Georgia. The event seemed horrific and barbaric to him and to his family members. Here is an excerpt from his oral history interview where he discusses witnessing the lynching.

 

Oral History Interview with Broadus Mitchell, August 14 and 15, 1977

This interview with economic historian John Broadus Mitchell , who, while teaching at Johns Hopkins University in the 1930s came under the administration’s scrutiny when he publicly spoke out about a lynching in Salisbury, Maryland. Here is an excerpt about that experience.

 

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