UA Archives awarded grant to digitize historic images of Akron's Black community

The Council on Library & Information Resources (CLIR) has awarded the University of Akron (UA) Archives and Special Collections, a division of University Libraries, a “Digitizing Hidden Collections: Amplifying Unheard Voices” grant for $190,517 to digitize thousands of historic images that visually document the history of the Black community in Akron. The grant program is made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation, and UA’s project is one of 18 that was selected from proposals received from throughout the U.S. and Canada.

The purpose of this two-year project is to digitize and make available online for research and discovery the photographs of Horace and Evelyn Stewart from the University of Akron Archives and Special Collections. The Stewarts were a husband-and-wife team of professional Black photographers who owned and operated Stewart’s Photo Studio on Howard St. in Akron. Their photographs visually document the rich history of the Black community in Akron, northeast Ohio and beyond, from 1897 to 1978. The collection consists of more than 46,000 original historic black and white and color photographic prints and negatives that capture Black personalities and families; religious, political, social and cultural organizations and civil rights.

The grant will allow the department to hire a vendor to digitize the original negatives, a part-time temporary staff member to manage the project and student assistants to create metadata for the images and upload them to the department’s digital repository, where they can be made more readily available to the public online.

“This collection was chosen because it is a ‘hidden’ collection that visually chronicles the rich history of one of our most important marginalized communities, especially during a critical time in our nation’s history, and clearly warrants digital preservation and improved access,” said S. Victor Fleischer, University archivist, head of Archives and Special Collections and professor of bibliography. “The images have already proven their worth to various University and community projects, as well as their pedagogical value, and it is critical to digitally preserve them now due to their age and current state of degradation before this part of our community history is lost forever.”

About the Council on Library & Information Resources

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning. To learn more, visit www.clir.org and follow CLIR on Facebook and Twitter/X.

About The University of Akron Archives and Special Collections

UA’s Archives and Special Collections, which is part of University Libraries, collects, preserves and provides access to historic resources that primarily document the history of The University of Akron and the region. The department, which is located in Room LL10 of the Polsky Building in downtown Akron, is open to students, faculty, staff and the general public, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. by appointment.  To learn more, visit hf3.39680a.com/libraries/archives.  

Media Contact: Cristine Boyd; cboyd@39680a.com; 330-972-6476