Ohioana collection

One hundred and fifty years ago today, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most famous speeches in U.S. history. In honor of this we’re highlighting a new book in Ohioana’s collection: Writing the Gettysburg Address by Martin P. Johnson.

Johnson, an assistant professor of history at Miami University, conducted extensive research using numerous primary sources and contemporary accounts of the speech. His book traces the creation of the Gettysburg Address from the first draft through revisions the morning of the ceremony and Lincoln’s delivery of the address itself. Along the way Johnson sheds light on many of the myths surrounding the speech, and also shows how the speech’s evolution mirrors Lincoln’s intellectual and emotional journey from Washington to the battlefield.

For more information, including images of two handwritten drafts of the Gettysburg Address and a photograph of Lincoln on the podium, you can visit the Library of Congress “Gettysburg Address” online exhibit here.

This page documents the 1943 Annual Meeting and Book Awards. The place card in the upper left corner was handmade.

The Ohioana Library is pleased to announce the completion of its first major collection digitization project! Seven publicity scrapbooks that document the library’s activities from its founding in 1929 through the 1970s have been scanned and are now available for viewing on the Ohio Memory website as the Ohioana Scrapbooks collection.

This project marks the first step in making some of our unique collection items more easily accessible to the public and in further sharing Ohioana’s mission and history. The scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings, photographs, ephemera, correspondence, and administrative documents that describe Ohioana’s founding and accomplishments. The majority of these scrapbooks focus on the 1940s and early 1950s; topics include author teas, day trips, county literary news, and extensive coverage of the Ohioana annual meetings and award banquets.

Florence Roberts Head helped Martha Kinney Cooper establish the Ohioana Library and served as its director for more than two decades.

Digitization of the scrapbooks was a joint project between Ohioana and the Ohio Historical Society, with support from the State Library of Ohio and a grant from the Library Services and Technology Act program. We’ll be digitizing additional scrapbooks and other collection items as resources allow!

The Gettysburg Address

Ohioana on Ohio Memory!