Contact: Melissa Cox Norris, Director of Library Communications, (513) 556-1558 or melissa.norris@uc.edu
February 3, 2004 - Historical collections from the University of Cincinnati’s German-Americana Collection have been added to the Ohio Memory Online Scrapbook. Available at www.ohiomemory.org, the online scrapbook brings together primary source materials from more than 320 archives, historical societies, libraries, and museums around the state. Included in the scrapbook are letters, diaries, government records, artwork, clothing, furniture, natural history specimens, and prehistoric artifacts. The scrapbook provides convenient access to historical collections that document state and local history. It contains more than 4,100 collections, which total more than 24,000 images.
Items submitted to the scrapbook from the German-Americana Collection include a history of the 9th Ohio Regiment, information about a Cincinnati German Civil War unit, a 1917 guide to the German-American community of the area, as well as a selection of other items including tickets, programs, and a poster. These collections join those the University of Cincinnati submitted previously. From the Medical Center are materials from the Daniel Drake Collection, founder of the UC College of Medicine. Also included are drawings of Civil War wounds done by Daniel S. Young, a physician during the war. University Archives contributed materials from the John Day Caldwell Collection. Caldwell was active in the Cincinnati Pioneer Association, an organization whose goal was to gather and preserve the history of the city.
“I was extremely pleased to submit materials from our collection to the Ohio Memory Online Scrapbook,” said Don Heinrich Tolzmann, curator of the German-Americana Collection. “Our collection’s strength in Ohio materials helps to tell the story of the German-American influence on this region’s culture and history. The online scrapbook allows people from around the world to enjoy the treasures of not only the German-Americana Collection, but of collections and resources from around the state.”
The Ohio Memory Project, which is administered by the Ohio Historical Society, was begun in June 2000. In July 2003, the American Association for State and Local History honored the project with its Award of Merit, the most prestigious recognition for achievement in the preservation and interpretation of local, state, and regional history. The Ohio Memory Project is a cooperative effort supported by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the State Library of Ohio, the Ohio Bicentennial Commission, OhioLINK, the Ohio Public Library Information Network, INFOhio, the Ohio Library Council, and the Ohio Historical Records Advisory Board.
Located in University Libraries’ Archives and Rare Books Department, the German-Americana Collection is one of the country’s largest holdings of books, pamphlets, documents, journals, newspapers, and manuscripts pertaining to German-American history, literature, and culture. The collection contains a wealth of information on the German heritage of the Ohio Valley in particular. For more information on the German-Americana collection, visit their Web site at www.archives.uc.edu/german/index.asp.
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