New Collections Added to Digital Commonwealth in November
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.…
New Collections Added to Digital Commonwealth in October
Sometimes when I write these blog entries, I mention in passing that, ho-hum, the Boston Public Library or UMass/Amherst have added – again – to their extensive holdings. I like to shine the spotlight on the little guy, like Northfield Mount Hermon or the Sandwich Town Archives. Then I see this month’s addition by UMass/Amherst…
Spotlight on…19th Century American Trade Cards
Written by Anne Berard, Reference& Outreach Librarian, Milford Town Library While the earliest advertising cards first circulated in London, Lyon and Paris in the late 17th century, advances in color lithography and printing in the 19th century made them easier to produce and more ubiquitous. Everything from soap, thread, perfume, hats, shoes, coffee, candy and more were marketed…
New Collections Added to Digital Commonwealth in September
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…
A Closer Look: Pageant at Glendale, 150th anniversary of Wilbraham
by Mary Bell, Assistant Director Wilbraham Public Library This unassuming photograph of a couple in a horse-drawn carriage and two men standing outside is the best proof I have of Wilbraham’s involvement in the Underground Railroad. Handwriting on the photograph describes this scene as part of a pageant during Wilbraham’s 150th anniversary in 1913, and…
Spotlight on…The Glendale Collection at the Wilbraham Public Library
by Mary Bell, Assistant Director Wilbraham Public Library The Glendale Collection is a treasure-trove of local history and genealogy, and is the newest in the Wilbraham Public Library’s collections in the Digital Commonwealth. The collection was in an unlabeled box of miscellaneous photographs found among our uncatalogued collections. We gave it the name Glendale Collection…