Several museums and historical sites had to temporarily close their doors to the public as a result of the pandemic. One of them was LancasterHistory, 230 N. President Ave., Lancaster. Within the past year, the organization used the closure as an opportunity to begin tackling several digitization projects it had wanted to complete for decades. In 2020, LancasterHistory went through the process of digitizing its entire James Buchanan collection, which consists of about 9,000 individual documents.

"That process helped us figure out how to individualize projects and seek funding for digitizing pockets of our collection," explained Robin Sarratt, vice president of LancasterHistory.

Recently, LancasterHistory was awarded a Historical & Archival Records Care grant from the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission to digitize its collections pertaining to the history of 19th-century congressman Thaddeus Stevens, black residents of Lancaster, and indigenous people since the 18th century. LancasterHistory will use the $4,669 grant to provide online access to 138 items from the Thaddeus Stevens collection as well as 425 documents and manuscripts from 24 different historic collections pertaining to people of color in Lancaster County.

The project will begin in August and is expected to be completed by May 2022. LancasterHistory will work with the Backstage Library Works of Bethlehem to digitize the materials, which will then be uploaded to LancasterHistory's collections database at https://collections.lancasterhistory.org. The database is free for public use.

"There are a lot of underrepresented populations in our collection and collections in general across the United States, and although these records have been accessible to the public, we want to make them more widely accessible and bring them into light," said Heather Tennies, director of archival services at LancasterHistory.

Tennies explained that there is a burden on the researcher to locate these materials because they are difficult to find. Although these documents were accessible to the public before LancasterHistory closed, people had to know where to look and whom to ask in order to access them. As a courtesy to the public and to underrepresented populations, LancasterHistory wants to bring these records to the forefront.

"I'm excited for researchers across the globe to have access to these documents," added Sarratt. "For people interested in researching their family history, community history, neighborhood history, this project will be impactful."

Anyone who has material related to black residents of Lancaster and or indigenous people may contact archives@lancasterhistory.org. LancasterHistory will reopen to the public on Wednesday, May 26. For more information, visit http://www.lancasterhistory.org.