OurDigitalWorld’s recently released Abolitionist newspaper collection provides new digital images of the only existing copies of The Voice Of The Fugitive, Henry Bibb’s newspaper from 1851 to 1852.
Along with digitized microfilm of the Provincial Freeman and the True Royalist, for the first time, low-quality microfilm of the Voice of The Fugitive has been replaced with high-quality, full-colour digital images of each page still available.
Original copies of the Voice of the Fugitive are held at the Detroit Public Library and they were microfilmed decades ago. These microfilm copies were then distributed around the world, including the Archives of Ontario and several libraries in the United States.
When members of the OurDigitalWorld team first digitized these microfilm reels, they found that the microfilm was full of scratches, dirt, and contrast errors.
To digitize the original print volumes held by the public library two team members travelled to Detroit.
Because the quality of the new digital images is so much better, the Optical Character Recognition is much more accurate, improving text searches. OurDigitalWorld said in its announcement, “All of the new colour photographs have been processed and added to OurDigitalWorld’s Abolitionist newspaper collection.”
In the 1800s, southwestern Ontario, which is located close to the US border, became a hotbed of anti-slavery sentiment as Britain moved to abolish slavery. It also became a key terminus on the Underground Railroad, the network that spirited escaped American slaves to freedom in the north, including across the border to Canada.
In the 1850s about 25,000 enslaved and free people of colour made their way to Ontario.
According to OurDigitalWorld, “The Abolitionist newspaper collection is invaluable not just for its ongoing coverage of American slavery and Canadian responses, but for the window it provides into everyday life for black Ontarians – advertisements for businesses that would serve black people in the face of ongoing prejudice, philosophical articles about where people should move and how they should conduct themselves politically, advice on agriculture and gardening, and calls for coordinated actions towards a real home for black people in North America.”
OurDigitalWorld is a non-profit organization that supports digital stewardship of community cultural heritage. It collaborates with libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and community groups to create sustainable digital collections. It is the successor to OurOntario.
More information on abolitionists, a virtual exhibit about black history in Ontario, and curriculum resources can be found in OurDigitalWorld’s announcement.
