Thousands of Doc Helm’s photographic negatives from his long career as state photographer are housed at the Illinois State Archives’ Margaret Cross Norton Building in Springfield. To make these remarkable images spanning half a century more accessible to the public, the Illinois State Archives applied for and received a $60,178 “Access to Historical Records: Archival Projects” grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, which is part of the National Archives. The State Archives provided an in-kind match to preserve, digitize and provide online access to 21,000 of Helm’s images.
Now anyone can view these photos through the Illinois Digital Archives at http://www.idaillinois.org/digital/collection/DocHelm/search/ (scheduled to be live April 1).Users can search the database by name of the person in the photo, date (or general date), location where the photo was taken and the subject matter or topic.
Cathy Popovitch served as grant administrator for the project. She said grant funds were used to purchase a scanner and acid-free envelopes and hire contractual workers. They partnered with University of Illinois Springfield to recruit current and recently graduated students in the public history graduate program. The students rehoused the negatives, entered descriptive metadata into a spreadsheet and digitized the negatives. The project revealed that there are actually more than 40,000 negatives in the archives. The intent is to include all of the images in the online database.
The Illinois State Archives is under the umbrella of the Secretary of State. Founded in 1921, it is the official depository for permanent state government records. The Margaret Cross Norton Building opened in 1938 and is located in the Capitol Complex immediately north of the Illinois State Museum.
The archives staff welcomes questions about accessing the Doc Helm collection via the Illinois Digital Archives as well as additional information and names of unidentified people in the photographs. Contact them at 217/782-4866.Â
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Fifty years of Doc Helm’s photos
This article appears in Fifty years of Doc Helm’s photos.
