Barbados Ephemera Collection
This project digitized material consisting of published ephemera that span 1930s-2010s (the bulk from the 1950s to 1995), housed at the Barbados Department of Archives. The materials cover defining decades for the history of Barbados as it became an independent state in 1966, and that helped shape the Barbadian national identity. The ephemera collection contains material that cover politics, business and industry, race and gender, religion, education, social and cultural life, legislature, health, agriculture, and sports both in Barbados as well as the Caribbean.
Funding for this project is provided by the UCLA Modern Endangered Archives Program that aims to preserve important, at-risk material around the world. See material from this project here.
The “Barbados Runaway Slaves Digital Collection”
In collaboration with the Barbados Archives and the Early Caribbean Digital Archive, HeritEdge is involved in creating a “Barbados Runaway Slaves Digital Collection” based on runaway advertisements in colonial-era newspapers held in the Archives collections. The first group of ads to be included in this digital collection will be from the recently digitized newspaper, The Barbados Mercury Gazette.
The first step in creating this collection is to locate, extract, and transcribe the ads. Future plans include enriching these ads with contextual information, as well as creating a database. We have started working on extracting and transcribing the ads through a series of monthly workshops to engage the public. Follow us on Twitter with the hashtag #BarbadosRunaways for updates. Read more about the public workshops in this blogpost and visit the website for the workshops where you will find more information and resources.
Digitization of “The Barbadian” newspaper
In partnership with the Barbados Archives, we have received a new grant from the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library to digitize “The Barbadian” newspaper (1822-1863). The newspaper covers the transition from the colonial, pre-modern to the modern era, including the Emancipation (1834), and the end of the apprenticeship system (1838). It is an important resource for understanding Barbados’ early 19th century history, and by extension, British colonial history that will enable scholars to trace the transition from the “news” being told from the perspective of the minority white-colonial enslavers to that of the black majority struggling to define freedom out of the tragedy of their colonial history. Please follow us on Twitter with the hashtag #TheBarbadian for updates.
Processing and documenting the Sidney Martin Library Art Collection
The aim of this project is to fully process and document the art collection of the Sidney Martin Library at the University of West Indies, Cave Hill campus, in Barbados. The collection consists of approximately 120 artworks, mainly paintings and some sculptures, and associated records. At its conclusion, the project will give the Library full intellectual and physical control over the artworks. It will also promote the visibility and use of the collection by making it available as an online exhibit. The project has been funded through a grant of the Peter Moores (Barbados) Trust. Read more about this project here.
Digitization of “The Barbados Mercury Gazette”
In partnership with the Barbados Department of Archives, our director, Amalia S. Levi, has been awarded a British Library Endangered Archives Programme Grant for the digitization of “The Barbados Mercury Gazette,” an important primary source that sheds light to the history of the island in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This project was launched in July 2018. Read more about the beginning of this project here.
Digitization of the Mercury was completed on November 30, 2018. Lear about the project on Twitter through the hashtag #BarbadosMercury. You can read more about this project in this series of blog posts.