ArchiveInABox helps historical society

In the 1940s, printing photos in the weekly newspaper was expensive and difficult.

So, the publisher of the Sumner newspaper came up with a quick and inexpensive way to include photographic images.

With a Graflex Speed 4x5 camera and a small offset press, a pictorial collage of photos related to stories in that week’s issue was printed and manually inserted into the paper.

The Sumner Historical Society has been working with ArchiveInABox to digitize issues from the nine titles that documented the town’s history over 100 years, including the weekly photo collage inserts. But recently, something really interesting happened. The local historical society received 1400 envelopes which had the power to significantly elevate the town’s archive.

The envelopes contained thousands of negatives of the photos that went into those pictorial inserts. Sumner suddenly had the ability to create exceptional, high-quality, individual photos. Volunteers mobilized to screen, convert and index the negatives which were then matched to their respective articles.

While the pictorial collage pages have been added to Sumner’s online archive site, volunteers aided by a heritage grant are now working to create and incorporate the high-quality photography collection which will enhance the history they have already preserved.

ArchiveInABox helps organizations across North America affordably complete scanning projects so archive materials are digitally preserved. To learn more contact them at archiveinabox.com.