UT has received another boost to its efforts to preserve state history. The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded $345,000 to the UT Libraries for phase three of the Tennessee Newspaper Digitization Project.
The TNDP will digitize another 100,000 pages of Tennessee’s microfilmed newspapers dating from the late 19th century to 1922. Since the project began in 2010, the UT Libraries, working in partnership with the Tennessee State Library and Archives, has digitized 200,000 pages from Tennessee newspapers dating back to 1849.
The project is part of the National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership between NEH and the Library of Congress, which is creating an online digital archive of historically significant newspapers published in the United States between 1836 and 1922.
The papers are freely available on the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America website. Visitors to the website can search the full text and view digitized pages of newspapers contributed by the state projects.
“This online collection of historic newspapers offers something for everyone,” said JoAnne Deeken, head of research and grants for the UT Libraries. “Schoolchildren will be enthralled—or appalled—by advertisements from an earlier time. Genealogists can search for ancestors in the news. And scholars have easy access to an invaluable primary source that lends real voices to pivotal events in Tennessee’s history.”
Earlier phases of the project digitized newspaper titles published from the Civil War through the Gilded Age. This third award will bring Tennessee’s history forward into the Progressive Era. Readers will be able to eavesdrop on debates about prohibition or extending the vote to women.
A panel of historians, genealogists, educators, librarians, and journalism scholars from across the state will select newspapers for the project. Phase three of the TNDP will begin in September and continue for two years. With this award, UT has received $999,165 in support of the project.
The NEH is an independent federal agency that supports learning in history, literature, philosophy and other areas of the humanities. For more information, visit the NEH website.
See more advertisements from Tennessee newspapers on the Historical Tennessee Newspapers Pinterest and on the TNDP blog.
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C O N T A C T :
Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)
JoAnne Deeken (865-974-4702, jdeeken@utk.edu)