In two years, students, historians, and anyone else curious about nearly a century of history should have 100,000 pages of Tennessee newspapers at their fingertips. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize local newspapers from 1836 to 1922.
“This is telling what the people of the time experienced at the time they experienced it,” says JoAnne Deeken, head of technical services and digital access at the university system’s libraries. “We can relive it through their eyes.”
The state’s history during the period covered by the project includes the forced relocation of American Indians, known as the Trail of Tears, which began in Tennessee; the Battle of Shiloh, during the Civil War; and the state’s ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women’s suffrage the two-thirds majority it needed to pass. Tennessee is “a very important state during this time period,” Ms. Deeken says.
Read the full article at the June 18, 2010 Chronicle.com.
