Dennis Brearley « News & Announcements

End the debt! Decolonize! Liberate Puerto Rico! Scroll from AgitArte’s Collaborations

This month we welcome AgitArte, an organization of working class artists and cultural organizers, who added the scroll, one of their community art projects, at left. Almost unbelievably, the Medford Historical Society & Museum has added several hundred more Civil War photos and the Chicopee Public Library has allowed the harvest of two more collections.

As last month, I want to highlight one of Digital Commonwealth’s mainstays, the Boston Public Library. The Press Photography from the Brearley Collection has grown exponentially. The 1,222 items added this month nearly double the size of the collection. The BPL also added a new collection of 394 items, the Edmund Blampied (1886-1966) Prints and Drawings collection, which includes the exquisite crayon drawing, Beach Scene (10) below.

Agitating for the community or a virtual beach visit may warm you up this December. Happy holidays to all!

Beach scene (10) from BPL’s Edmund Blampied (1886-1966). Prints and Drawings

AgitArte
Collaborations – 1 item

Boston Public Library
Edmund Blampied (1886-1966). Prints and Drawings – 394 items
Press Photography from the Brearley Collection – 1,222 items added to an existing collection

Chicopee Public Library
2 new collections, 710 new items harvested

The Medford Historical Society & Museum
The Medford Historical Society Civil War Photograph Collection – 851 items added to an existing collection

This month’s total items added is 6,077. That includes a couple of substantial collections: The Boston Public Library’s Press Photography from the Brearley Collection at 1,138 items and the Historical Society of Old Newbury’s Snow Historical Photograph Collection at 1,279 items.

Dennis Brearley collected the works of Boston photojournalists from the 1920s-1970s. A representative photo is the Cocoanut Grove entrance photo. (Left) What’s been added from the Snow Historical Photograph Collection is only a fraction of what the Historical Society holds. The Moulton Castle photo (Below right) is one to whet our appetite for more.

Digital Commonwealth also has re-harvested over 1,700 items from the City of Boston Archives, but sometimes the smaller collections contain gems, too. The Thayer Memorial Library added a history of Lancaster and the Milford Town Library added 200 photos from the Paul E. Curran Historical Collection, including one of the largest piece of granite ever quarried in Milford. (Below center)) That’s a big rock.

Boston Public Library