The newest additions to DPLA continue to surprise and move us, like this remarkable piece of correspondence: On Oct. 12, 1948, members of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority penned a letter to Gladys Noel Bates — a Black school teacher and active officer of the Jackson NAACP — to encourage her in her landmark legal fight.
That year, Bates had filed Gladys Noel Bates vs. the State of Mississippi, to demand equal pay for Black teachers. It was the first civil rights lawsuit in Mississippi history and a forerunner to the school desegregation cases of the 1950s. This letter is a testament to the solidarity that sustained that work.
🔗 https://dp.la/item/007340d6279a8c6c65730b62f82b999c
From the Tougaloo College Bates (Gladys Noel) Papers and protected by copyright and/or related rights. Thank you to our partner @mslibrarycomm , and to contributor Mississippi Department of Archives and History, for sharing this item.
Discover more items from our newest partners: https://dp.la/news/were-welcoming-two-new-hubs-to-the-network
#DPLA #NewPartner #MississippiHistory #BlackHistory #civilrightshistory
Photo of Gladys Noel Bates retrieved from @mstodaynews .
Alt text: Handwritten letter on Tougaloo College stationery from members of Gamma Psi chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority to Gladys Noel Bates, dated October 12, 1948, expressing support for her equal pay legal challenge on behalf of Black teachers in Mississippi.
May 1 is celebrated as International Workers' Day or May Day, honoring labor rights. We'd like to point you to this exhibition from the @lawrence_history_center , which showcases the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912. A new Massachusetts law had reduced the maximum number of hours of work per week for women and children from 56 to 54, effective January 1, 1912. On January 11, workers discovered their employers had reduced their weekly pay to match the reduction in their hours. That difference in wages amounted to several loaves of bread a week.
Learn more about the strike that changed labor history: https://dp.la/exhibitions/breadandroses/workerslife
Photo: A group of women who work together in the Ayer Mill Mending Room, Lawrence, Mass., 1909.
Lawrence History Center,@uofmass Lowell History Department. Bread and Roses Strike of 1912: Two Months in Lawrence, Massachusetts, that Changed Labor History. Digital Public Library of America. April 2013. https://dp.la/exhibitions/breadandroses.
Our new partners are bringing incredible history to DPLA collections. Check out this image from the @mslibrarycomm : Librarians Mary Proucis and Linda Poy Gates, photographed beside a Natchez-Adams County Public Library bookmobile during "Operation Chlorine" in 1962, when seven chlorine tanks were found in the Mississippi River amid the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Civil Defense ordered citizens in the area to wear gas masks — and local librarians helped distribute and demonstrate them. A striking reminder that librarians rise to the moment, whatever that moment demands.
Thank you @msdiglib for the contribution!
🔗 https://dp.la/item/9fb0e17966e75f1561a24a92f091e083
This is just one of the new local history items now discoverable through DPLA from our newest partners. Head to our blog to meet them: https://dp.la/news/were-welcoming-two-new-hubs-to-the-network
#DPLA #NewPartner #MississippiHistory #MSLibraries
Alt text: Historic photo of two women wearing gas masks standing beside a Natchez-Adams County Public Library bookmobile during a public safety response in Natchez, Mississippi, 1962.
It's National Library Week. We're incredibly grateful for libraries and librarians and archivists within them for maximizing access to our shared history, culture, and knowledge. Pictured here: Mildred L. Terry at Georgia's first African American library, opened in 1953.
Photo from Digital Library of Georgia; Chattahoochee Valley Libraries.
We’re excited to share that we’re rebuilding the DPLA Analytics Dashboard, and we're holding a demo session over Zoom on Thursday, April 23 to show you more. Read more and RSVP through the link in our stories.
Although the origins of blues music are difficult to trace completely, the blues movement is said to have grown from African American song and culture throughout the South. Women were an influential part of the movement.
March is Women’s History Month, so it’s a great time to dive into the primary source set that explores women and the blues at our website, dp.la.
Today we're announcing a partnership to chart a new vision for the national digital collection, which comprises over 50 million books, photos, maps, videos and more that document America’s cultural heritage. In July, @clevelandpubliclibrary will lead the project. Find the press release through our stories.
March is Women’s History Month, and we’re highlighting items from our partners. Seen here is a button addressing the gender pay gap. This button was worn at the 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston, Texas.
This item is provided by the National Museum of American History and the @smithsonian_librariesarchives .
In honor of Black History Month, we’d like to point you to this image (and many more) from our digital collection. This one comes from the @diglibga archives. It features the resolution ratifying the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. constitution.
“The Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed citizens the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude … The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified and became a part of the United States Constitution on February 3, 1870.”
You’re invited to Wikipedia for Librarians and Information Professionals, a two day workshop in Indianapolis, IN this May. If you’re traveling from the greater region, limited travel stipends are offered. Make sure to apply by March 1.
Here's where to register: /e/wikipedia-for-librarians-and-information-professionals-2-day-workshop-tickets-1980915040210
Our thanks to Indiana Memory and @iuindianapolis for this event!
Activist and legendary salsa musician Willie Colón has passed away at the age of 75. This photo from our digital archives shows Colón playing the trombone at a fundraising event in 1990 at the Jorge Hernández Cultural Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
Image courtesy of @northeasternlib and Digital Commonwealth.
In 1978, @time magazine donated about eight hundred works of original cover art to the @nationalportraitgallery . The museum is dedicated to telling the stories of individuals who have shaped the United States, such as civil rights activist Jesse Jackson (October 8, 1941 - February 17, 2026).
We invite you to see more imagery in our archive on dp.la.
Artwork by Jacob A. Lawrence.
