Bloomington, IL – The McLean County Museum of History will digitize approximately 30,000 previously inaccessible photographic negatives thanks to support from a Congressionally-Directed grant through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).
The grant calls for digitizing, adding metadata, and uploading thousands of Pantagraph photo negatives from 1957 through 1963 to the Illinois Digital Archives (IDA). Doing so will provide researchers, historians, cultural organizations, and everyday enthusiasts all over the world access to the collection.
Pictured Above – Downtown Bloomington in 1984 (1960)
On February 24, 1960, community leaders got their first look at an admittedly fanciful model of downtown Bloomington as it might look in 1984. This project was the work of a University of Illinois graduate architecture class under Professor A. Richard Williams. One of this plan’s wilder ideas was a small lake or pond taking up the block immediately north of the Courthouse Square.
“The Pantagraph Negatives Collection represents one of the finest visual records of Midwestern life available anywhere, covering the years from the Great Depression through the end of the 20th century,” notes Museum Librarian Bill Kemp. “Whether the topic is the mechanization of the Corn Belt or the rise of the automobile and urban sprawl, this collection offers students, community residents, scholars, and others an invaluable primary source record covering nearly seven decades of American life.”
The Museum received approximately 3 million negatives from the Pantagraph in the summer of 2012. Upon obtaining the collection, the Museum invested in additional shelving, a walk-in freezer unit, and an upgraded HVAC system to control humidity at professional preservation standards. With the support of private donations and grants from the Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS), the Illinois State Library, and the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board, the Museum has digitized 130,000 negatives from 1930 through 1956.
Pictured Above – Halloween at Metcalf (1969)
Metcalf School students pose for a photo during a dress rehearsal for their upcoming Halloween Day party.
Senator Dick Durbin championed the allocation of this Congressionally-Directed grant from the NHPRC. This initiative wouldn’t be possible without his support. In 2023, the Museum launched a campaign to offset digitization costs, which raised $43,776.45. The grant from NHPRC covers $550,000. The Museum will contribute an additional $184,047 for a total of $734,077 to complete the project.
“Digitization is more complex than scanning an image on a copy machine. It is a time consuming, expensive process,” says Museum Director of Development Norris Porter. The Museum sends each negative to Picturae, an established digitization service provider, headquartered in New Jersey, that works with both public and private institutions to make cultural heritage and natural history collections digitally accessible for scientific research and public access.
Picturae carefully takes high-resolution scans using state-of-the-art technology and then sends the images back to the Museum via cloud-based infrastructure. Once the Museum receives the digital files from Picturae, Museum staff organize the photos and conduct extensive research to inform the creation of metadata before uploading the images to IDA. To explore the images currently available from the Museum’s collections, please visit bit.ly/MCMHIDA. Visit www.archives.gov to explore the National Archives.
The McLean County Museum of History is an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to preserving, educating, and collaborating to share the diverse stories of the people of McLean County. Located in the heart of historic Downtown Bloomington, Illinois, the Museum is nationally accredited and welcomes visitors from around the world six days a week. For more information, please visit mchistory.org.
