Category: Announcements

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Digital Library of Georgia collaborates with Georgia Humanities on a National History Day Georgia resource and awards

The Digital Library of Georgia has partnered with Georgia Humanities to create a National History Day Georgia resource and state contest special awards designed to engage middle school and high school students in historical research using DLG resources, and recognize the best examples of student work. These include:

  • National History Day Georgia Theme Topic Explorer
  • Source Recognition Digital Certificates
  • Outstanding Use of the Digital Library of Georgia Resources Special Award

National History Day Georgia Theme Topic Explorer

The DLG worked with Georgia Humanities on its National History Day Georgia Theme Topic Explorer. The Topic Explorer provides an interactive list of descriptions and sample resources connected to topics related to National History Day Georgia research themes. Breaking Barriers in History is the 2020 theme for National History Day.

The Topic Explorer includes the theme book for National History Day 2020, theme information, featured resources, a link to the NHD Georgia website, contextual information from the New Georgia Encyclopedia, and links to sample primary sources and introductions related to a group of suggested 2020 theme topics. 

The National History Day Georgia Theme Topic Explorer is available at georgiahumanities.org/2019/09/25/nhd-topic-explorer/

Source Recognition Digital Certificates and Outstanding Use of the Digital Library of Georgia Resources Special Award

The DLG will award Source Recognition digital certificates to NHD GA state contest participants who incorporate primary sources found in DLG’s portals in their project. DLG staff will confer the “Outstanding Use of the Digital Library of Georgia Resources” special award on exceptional junior individual, junior group, senior individual, and senior group projects.

The certificates will be distributed via email after the state contest held at LaGrange College on April 18, 2020. More information on applying for the digital certificate and the special awards will be available before the state contest.

About National History Day Georgia

National History Day (NHD) Georgia is a program of Georgia Humanities and LaGrange College. NHD encourages middle and high school students to engage more deeply in the historical process.

Over the course of the school year, students select a topic related to the year’s theme and develop their projects through extensive primary and secondary source research. The NHD theme for 2020 is Breaking Barriers in History.

Under the guidance of a sponsoring teacher, students choose both their subject matter and a vehicle to present their research within the following categories: documentary, exhibition, paper, performance, or website. NHD attracts thousands of participants each year.

Competitions occur at the regional, state, and national levels. The NHD Georgia State Contest host for 2020 is LaGrange College.

About Georgia Humanities

Founded in 1971, Georgia Humanities is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. We collaborate with others to preserve and promote the rich cultural stories, treasures, and values of our state and its people. Our work nurtures Georgians’ understanding of ourselves and of our state’s place in history and in the world, and it fosters thoughtful and engaged citizenship. Visit Georgia Humanities at georgiahumanities.org.

About the Digital Library of Georgia

Based at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Digital Library of Georgia 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. Visit the DLG at dlg.usg.edu.

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Bartow History Museum vertical file records from 1850 to 1929 now freely available online

The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) is pleased to announce the availability of the Bartow History Museum vertical file record collection at dlg.usg.edu/collection/barhm_bhmvf. The collection, which belongs to the Bartow History Museum, is available online thanks in part to the DLG’s Competitive Digitization grant program, a funding opportunity intended to broaden DLG partner participation for statewide historic digitization projects.

The digital collection consists of a portion of a compilation of county documents that include topics such as guardianship (1850‐1929), indentures (1860‐1929), lunacy (1866‐1929), pauperism (1866‐1879), land grants/deeds (1866‐1929), and other records. The records were created by court officials to document legal proceedings and transactions.

Trey Gaines, the director of the Bartow History Museum, says: “The digitization of these items provides documentation of under‐represented subjects, particularly citizens of lower economic standing, from the Civil War through the Great Depression. The movement and financial status of families and individuals that lived and moved in and out of Bartow County are demonstrated through the collection’s land, indenture, and guardianship papers. Family dynamics and cultural or social values can be studied through the lunacy and guardianship records that contain information on how people were diagnosed and labeled, as well as how children were legally handled in cases of custody or guardianship. Some of the indenture records show the plight of children after the Civil War, and some further contain information that speaks to matters of race relations.”

Genealogist Yvonne Mashburn Schmidt notes “This area’s rural, agricultural and yeoman families generally were unconcerned with creating records themselves…This record collection held by the Archives contains uncommon records such as mercantile and miscellaneous receipts, voter lists, smallpox lists, pauper lists, indentures, and estray records. These county records generally are not available to researchers. Ancestral names in these records might be found when no other record for the ancestor exists…Historical migration routes and early land grants make Georgia’s records especially important. Ancestors from northern and mid-Atlantic states often settled in or passed through Georgia. Some of these and their descendants who settled or stayed for a time participated in Georgia land lotteries. Cass (now Bartow County) was one of the original counties created after Cherokee County’s division, and this county’s land was part of the 1832 Georgia land lottery. Many of this collection’s loose records were created between 1850-1880 and include land grants and deeds that may not exist in any other local or state repository. These grants and deeds are original records.”

About the Bartow History Museum (Cartersville, Ga.)

The Bartow History Museum, located at 4 East Church Street in downtown Cartersville, Georgia, documents the history of northwest Georgia’s Bartow County. Visit bartowhistorymuseum.org/. 

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