Women employees having a snow fight in front of the Georgia Building, New York World’s Fair, ca.1940; Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1935 – 1945. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5e66b3e8-b820-d471-e040-e00a180654d7

The holidays are here and as the year comes to a close, if there is time for any research, it better be fun! Here are a few things that I have come across in the last month or so.

Updates to Researching Photographers Working in the South

As you pursue biographical information or images related to those elusive photographers and others,  one of the following may well be of use.

• Two new large collections of materials from Florida and Oklahoma are now available via the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). From Florida State University, University of Miami, and Florida International University over 74,000 new materials have been added from the Sunshine State Digital Network. From the state of Oklahoma (which I thought about covering in my series on Photographers Working in the South, but did not), has been added over 100,000 records from the Oklahoma Hub Collections. The records come from the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, as well as from Oklahoma Historical Society and Oklahoma Department of Libraries.

• Savannah’s Department of Cemeteries maintains five existing cemeteries which the City of Savannah owns and operates: Colonial Park, Laurel Grove North, Laurel Grove South, Bonaventure, and Greenwich. On their Savannah Cemeteries website you may search the menu at left to get to each of the Municipal Cemeteries I’ve listed above. Maps of each cemetery and every section can be found for each. Under “Burial Records” you will find a search box at the bottom of the page with which you can search all five cemeteries at once for one full or partial name.

J. N. Wilson, Gen. Clinch’s Tomb, Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah GA, stereo view ca.1870; The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints & Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-5778-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.

Speaking of Savannah cemeteries, take a look at some stereo views of Georgia cemeteries found in the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections (the above is one example; most are of Bonaventure, but some are of Laurel Grove). Their entire site has been updated this year (2017) and it is a pleasure to use.

The NYPL revised site includes the one for their images made by Lewis W. Hine. Because Hine made photographs in thirteen Georgia cities and towns, I am always interested in being able to access images he made.

Good News:

A FREE TRIAL for the wonderful Luminous Lint website is available! Just send an email to alan@luminous-lint.comwith your name and reasons for wanting to take a look at it; the webmaster will set up a password for you. If you try it, you’ll like it. 

On 19 November, Kenneth Marks announced his Big Georgia Newspapers Update – 102 more, added that are accessible Free Online, via his blog The Ancestor Hunt. Included are the newspaper updates from the Georgia Historic Newspapers site, which is being added to regularly. Also added are those from various Georgia county libraries and archives, and twentieth- century newspapers from various Georgia towns and cities, and colleges and universities.

For more fun, and to learn something, too!

We are finally seeing The Twilight of the Analog Photo Booth . Have you thought about it? Do you remember them? Did you ever have your photos made in one? It all started with a man who had learned to take photos with a Brownie camera, then immigrated to this country. I have a delightful set of photo booth pictures my cousin had made of himself about 1980. I will have to scan and share them with him because I would bet he has forgotten he ever did that! You will really enjoy this article that appeared on Atlas Obscura.

There is a very funny photography-related book called The Photygraft Album, or in full “The fotygraft album” shown to the new neighbor by Rebecca Sparks Peters, aged eleven. It was written by Francis Marion Wing and was published in 1915. It looks just like a carte-de-visite or tintype album, but these photographs are drawn. Look at this copy available on Internet Archive — don’t you feel as if you know these people?

You will not see another post on Hunting & Gathering until February, meanwhile have a wonderful start, and finish, to your 2018!

© E. Lee Eltzroth and Hunting & Gathering, 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without written permission from this blog’s author is prohibited. The piece can be re-blogged, and excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to E. Lee Eltzroth and Hunting & Gathering, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.