There’s a great new resource available for anyone interested in local history. The Lackawanna Valley Digital Archives, hosted by the Scranton Public Library and funded by a grant from the Willary Foundation, contains digitized photographs, manuscripts, maps, paintings, letters, and videos related to the history of the Valley and its surrounding areas.
While the Digital Archives will continue to grow, there are already three great collections available to the public:
- Out of the Wilderness: The Industrialization and Development of the Scranton Area 1850-1865,
- The History of the Scranton Public Library, and the timely
- Scranton Christmas Windows
We’re partial to the Out of the Wilderness collection since it contains Civil War era materials found, described, digitized, and transcribed last spring by University of Scranton history students in Dr. Kathryn Shively Meier’s Civil War class.
The Lackawanna Valley Digital Archives is a collaborative effort involving many of our local cultural heritage institutions, including the Scranton Public Library, the Lackawanna Historical Society, the Steamtown National Historic Site, the Scranton Times-Tribune newspaper library, the Anthracite Heritage Museum, and our own Weinberg Memorial Library. In addition to the Willary Foundation, other funding partners include the Lackawanna Heritage Valley Authority and the Scranton Area Foundation. We’re looking forward to working together with all of our colleagues on more digital projects in the future!
For more information, see About LVDA or take a look at Go Lackawanna‘s 500 Vine column from November 20th, “New Digital Service Preserves History.” You can also subscribe to the Digital Archives’ Facebook page for updates.