Digitalized photo collection to document the history of Gary, IndianaBy Eric Bartheld | |
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The Indiana University Digital Library Program has received a $19,000 grant to digitize and offer on the Web a photograph collection that documents the history of the city of Gary. The images illustrate the creation of the Gary Works, the world’s largest
steel mill during the height of America’s industrial revolution. From 1906 to 1941, U.S. Steel photographers documented the building and growth of both the U.S. Steel Gary Works and the company town of Gary. Images depict all aspects of life and work in a
nd around the steel mill, from the company-sponsored baseball team to mammoth industrial furnaces. In the mid-1970s, the United States Steel Corp. donated these photographs to the Calumet Regional Archives at IU Northwest. “The U.S. Steel photographs are
among our most important collections,” said Stephen McShane, archivist and curator at the Calumet Regional Archives at IU Northwest. The images show the swift growth of this northern Indiana community. Constructed among the dunes by Lake Michigan, the mil
l was operational just two years after groundbreaking. “You can see the city almost rising from the sand,” McShane said. Digitizing the 1,900 images, now available only as glass negatives and prints, will make them more widely available to scholars and sc
hoolchildren who otherwise could view them only if they visited the Calumet Regional Archives, said Kristine Brancolini, who was recently named director of the IU Digital Library Program.
Read more about the program at: http://www.iuinfo.indiana.edu/ocm/releases/diggary.htm View some images at: http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/steel/steel.html | |
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Publication date: September 29, 2000
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