If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the Carnegie History Center’s historic photograph collection will leave you speechless.
As pointed out by Joleen O’Dell, a history clerk at the Carnegie, today’s freshmen at Texas A&M University wouldn’t recognize University Drive 75 years ago. To preserve our community's storied history, The Carnegie Library collects old photographs featuring local buildings, cars, and people.
“Sharing these photos gives people who have a sense of pride and love for the area a way to share with others who do, too,” O’Dell says.
The Carnegie is currently looking for photos taken locally before 1935. Photos of historic buildings such as schools, businesses, and homes may contain just the building or people, too. The library asks that photos of people with nothing in the background have names of people in the image attached or printed on the back.
All images brought to the Carnegie are digitized and added the library’s digital collection. Once images are digitized, the person who brought them can either pick them up or donate the physical photos to the library. A digital CD of the scanned images is given to the person who brought them to the library.
While researching family or local history, O’Dell says these historic photos become very important. For example, images of people that have been labeled may provide the first and only image someone finds of their ancestor during research.
Local history has a tendency to disappear before our eyes, O’Dell says. This may be due to fire, flooding, new buildings being built where older ones once stood, or simply the passage of time. The digital historic photograph collection at the Carnegie provides the opportunity to preserve local history for generations to come regardless of what mother nature sends to the Brazos Valley.
For more information about how to add your old photos to the library’s digital historic photograph collection call Joleen O’Dell at (979) 209-5630; email the library’s branch manager, Rachael Medders, rmedders@bryantx.gov; or visit www.bcslibrary.org/carnegie.
