Augustana to digitize Hauberg materials

Augustana's Special Collections in the Thomas Tredway Library recently received a $3,094 grant to digitize materials from the papers of John Henry Hauberg (1869-1955).

Hauberg was a researcher and photographer active in the Quad-City area in the early 20th century. He spent nearly all of his spare time researching and photographing topics of historical interest to the Quad Cities and Illinois, and he compiled some 150 unpublished volumes of Illinois history over the course of his life. The hallmark of Hauberg's collection is his photography, which includes approximately 8,000 glass plate images.

This project will target 1,500 of the most historically significant glass plate images related to Native American culture and landscapes (primarily focusing on local Sauk/Fox/Meskwaki tribes), Quad-Cities scenes, the Rock Island Arsenal, Black Hawk State Historic Site, and the Denkmann-Hauberg West End Settlement in Rock Island. Many of these photographs are unprecedented in the historical record.

This grant was awarded by the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board, through funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), National Archives and Records Administration.

Images will be made available in a searchable database on the Special Collections website (www.augustana.edu/specialcollections) and in the Digital Public Library of America (dp.la).

For information on project developments, accessing the materials, or any other questions, please contact Samantha Crisp, Special Collections librarian, at 309-794-7317 or specialcollections@augustana.edu.