Grant Helps Expand, Preserve the Ozarks' Online, Pictorial History
A new $10,000 grant will allow the Springfield-Greene County Library to expand and share an online digital collection of photographs vividly documenting a period of rapid change in Springfield and the Ozarks.
Library staff will add 5,000 more digital images from the Springfield News-Leader’s print and negative collection to the digital collection “From the Darkroom,” available at www.thelibrary.org/fromthedarkroom. Through a 2016 partnership, Library staff have already placed online nearly 29,000 images of the News-Leader’s estimated 2.7 million photographs and negatives from 1945 to 2011.
This latest addition is possible through an American Rescue Plan: Humanities Grants for Libraries award. It is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and in partnership with the American Library Association. Brian Grubbs, Local History & Genealogy Manager, will serve as the project director.
“We are extremely excited to work with the News-Leader to preserve and digitize this collection,” said Grubbs. “It is one of the most extensive photographic collections from the Ozarks.”
The News-Leader’s Editor-in-Chief Amos Bridges has been involved in the project. "Library staff have been wonderful stewards of the News-Leader's photographic legacy, and we jumped at the chance to extend our partnership to preserve these images and make them available to a wide audience. We know these photographs will be well cared for and can't wait to see 'From the Darkroom' grow."
The collection already online depicts the period of rapid growth in Springfield and the Ozarks. It includes images of Route 66, the Frisco Railroad, O’Reilly General Army Hospital, Lily-Tulip Cup Corporation, Mercy Hospital, women in the workforce, economic and urban growth, agricultural developments, political movements, cultural changes, and daily life.
The Springfield News-Leader and its predecessor newspapers have documented life in the Ozarks for 155 years. The paper can trace its origins to the Springfield Leader, which debuted April 4, 1867. Unfortunately, a fire on March 26, 1947, destroyed the Springfield Newspaper, Inc. building and the company’s extensive photograph library. Only seven images taken before 1947 survive: The Aug. 15, 1945, celebration of Victory over Japan Day on the Springfield Square.
In 2021, the Library and News-Leader expanded their partnering and commitment to preserve this historic collection. The photographs and negative images were relocated to the library district’s Local History & Genealogy archives. Library staff then began working to organize the massive collection of images, placing them in date order, identifying any undated images, and rehousing the entire collection into archival boxes.
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