This e-version of the Graff Collection of Western Americana contains over 300 original manuscripts; 120 zoomable maps; ephemera (trade cards, wanted posters, photos, claim certificates, and newssheets); printed sources (ranging from extra-illustrated volumes and association copies to city directories, pamphlets, and leaflets); papers of early pioneers, explorers, and hunters (e.g., the original manuscript journal and papers of James Audubon); accounts of the gold rush; prospectuses and city directories; records of key railroad companies; emigrant guides; manuscript travel journals; store catalogs; illustrations; and firsthand accounts of the lives of vigilantes and outlaws. The file also documents Native American history and culture. Most of the material in the collection is unique and spans the years 1722 to 1939; the heaviest concentration of material dates from 1830 to 1939.
How does it work? The opening screen features as backdrop a "typical" mid-to-late-19th-century Western town: loggers fell trees, Conestoga wagons head for the outskirts of town, children play outside the one-room schoolhouse, townspeople bid friends and relatives goodbye aboard the railroad running through the town, and Native Americans sit astride ponies behind the train, with the vast, unspoiled plains and mountains beyond them. There's a search box in the upper right-hand corner and a tool bar with links to Introduction, Documents, Essays, Searching, Maps, Further Resources, and Help.
The Introduction includes a Nature and Scope section and related material, as well as a description of the Thematic Areas covered by the collection: Native Americans; Pioneers, Hunters, and Explorers; Mining and the Gold Rush; The Mormon Exodus; Homesteaders, Overland Travel, and Early Settlements; Cattle Ranchers; The Railroads, Transportation, and Urban History; Outlaws, Vigilantes, and the Law; Agricultural Development and the Environment; The Imagined West: Wild West Shows and Fiction; and Borderlands. The Documents link lists all the documents in the collection and is browsable Alphabetically or by Theme, Region, and Document Type. There are five Essays: "Building an Urban West" by Carl Abbott; "Native Americans in the American West: An Introduction to the Everett D Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry Library" by Ned Blackhawk; "Gunmen, Outlaws and Vigilantes of the Old West" by Richard Slatta; "An Historian Views the Everett D Graff Collection" by Ray Allen Billington, from the Newberry Library Bulletin, December 1960; and "The Everett D Graff Collection in the Newberry Library" by Colton Storm, from the Newberry Library Bulletin, December 1960.
The Searching link lets you do simple and advanced searches, using word stemming and proximity, as well as date limits and limiting by Theme, Region, or Document Type. The Maps link lets you browse through two sections of Maps: Original and Data Maps, filtered by Region, Date, or Theme. The Further Resources link includes a Slideshow Gallery, a Chronology of the American West from 1528 (when "Captain Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and eighty Spaniards are shipwrecked on the Texas coast and enslaved by Indians") to 1946 (when the Bureau of Land Management was created).
Can you use it? I'm a librarian first and foremost, so I went right to the Documents link, where I got a 27-page list of documents, arranged alphabetically by author, ranging from James Abbey's "California. A trip across the plains, in the spring of 1850, being a daily record of incidents...sketches of the country, distances from camp to camp. Etc....New Albany, Ind.: Kent and Norman, and J R Nunemacher, 1850" to "A Catalogue of The Everett D Graff Collection of Western Americana at The Newberry Library, compiled by Colton Storm." When I clicked on an individual record, I got full documents details (Subjects, Themes, Regions, Places, Chapters in the Book, Visual Material, etc.) and the options to View the original image, go Back to List, see the Next Document Details Page, See the Previous Documents Details Page, or Export the citation to RefWorks/Endnote. Very nice.
Next I skimmed through the Essays - I had to see what was in "Gunmen, Outlaws and Vigilantes of the Old West"! In that essay, I was pleased to find (in addition to scholarly yet accessible historical writings) active hyperlinks to documents in the Graff collection embedded throughout the essay. So I (innocently) clicked on the link, "George Doud Freeman, Midnight and noonday; or, dark deeds unraveled. Giving 20 years experience on the frontier; also the murder of Pat. Hennesey, and the hanging of Tom. Smith, at Ryland's Ford, and facts concerning the Talbert Raid on Caldwell. Also the death dealing career of McCarty and incidents happening in and around Caldwell, Kansas, from 1871 until 1890. (Caldwell, Kansas, 1890), pp. 275-77. Graff 1411." Several hours later, I clicked another link, "Calamity Jane (pseud. Marthy Cannary Burk) Life and adventures of Calamity Jane. By herself. (1896), p. 1. Graff 484.
"If you're a Map person, the Maps section may keep you in thrall for years. Even Search got me into trouble: a search for "Bat Masterson" took me into The Life and Adventures of Deadwood Dick, and there went another few hours. Make no mistake - when I say I spent hours in this file, it was because it was so downright fascinating. Reading within the Essays led to Searching, and Browsing, and I could easily have spent several days just within the "Gunmen, Outlaws and Vigilantes of the Old West" essay. It is remarkably easy to move around in the original documents, and the quality of the digital images is excellent.
How good is it? The content is a ten. The design is a ten. The delivery is, you guessed it, a ten.
Bottom line: Highly recommended for academic, public, and special libraries serving American history researchers, as well as American cultural researchers. Now let me get back to The Life and Adventures of Deadwood Dick! |
