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Dickinson College and Millersville University awarded additional $34,000

Millersville University’s library collaborated on a project with Dickinson College that resulted in the creation of the website Slavery and Abolition in the U.S.: Select Publications of the 1800s. This website is a digital collection of books and pamphlets that demonstrate the varying ideas and beliefs about slavery in the U.S., as expressed by Americans throughout the nineteenth century. It was awarded an additional $34,000 in grant funding to continue digitizing relevant materials and adding them to the website.

“The Slavery and Abolition Digital Collection is a valuable teaching tool that brings important and sometimes forgotten texts to a general audience. Readers should be grateful for this collaborative project and the rich resources it makes available,” said Dr. Dennis Downey, history professor and director of the University Honors College.

The works in this collection reflect arguments on both sides of the slavery debate and include first-person narratives, legal proceedings and decisions, anti-slavery tracts, religious sermons and early secondary works. In the past 18 months, more than 8,250 individuals from 101 different countries have accessed the collection.

“As a future English teacher, I could see using the Slavery & Abolition Digital Collection for many projects with my students,” said Elizabeth Harkinson, English secondary education student. “The many voices and viewpoints give students a broad view of the topic for research papers. Students can also use these texts to analyze arguments and as the basis for creative writing.”

The grant allowed more than 10,000 additional pages of text to be added to the collection. The collection represents work published between 1787 and 1911. The publications are all drawn from the holdings of Millersville University Library and the Dickinson College Library, as well as each of their respective Special Collections Departments.

The Slavery & Abolition digital collection was initially launched in fall of 2008. The completion of that project, as well as the extension of the collection with new materials, was supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in association with Millersville University and Dickinson College. This online resource is made freely available to the public, with the hope that providing these rare and important research materials will enhance teaching and learning about this complex issue at all levels of instruction.

Any questions about this project may be directed to Marilyn Parrish, library, at Marilyn.Parrish@millersville.edu.

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