Habersham County’s history is being preserved a little at a time or, in this case, 20,000 newspaper pages at a time.
Recently, Habersham Education & Research President and Founder Peter Madruga officially launched “Digitize Habersham”, the project that already has digitized pages from four local newspapers.
Madruga has a passion for history, specifically Habersham County history, and he is doing his best to share that love with anyone who will listen.
"Our mission at Habersham Education & Research is to preserve the rich history of Habersham County and we do that through a number of programs that we put together,” Madruga said. “And we're all digital and we do that because we want people to be able to learn about our county's history any time they want to, not just when there are procurement hours.”
Madruga explained more about the project.
“We have 20,000 newspaper pages going all the way back to the 1850s in a database where you can search and find information about events, people and places and Habersham County,” Madruga said. “It's not just one newspaper. It's four newspapers currently: Tri-County Advertiser, The Northeast Georgian, Demorest Times, and The Clarkesville Advertiser, so it's a good mix of different newspapers ranging from 1857 through 1957.”
That date range is 30 years more current than the nonprofit organization normally could digitize.
“Copyright law allows us to digitize anything from 1927 and before,” Madruga said. “95 years is the limit and we approached Alan Nesmith at Community Newspapers Inc. and we asked them to consider allowing us to go past 1927. And they deliberated for a while, but got back to us and said, ‘It's Ok. We support you and we’ll allow you to go through 1957’ – an additional 30 years.”
Madruga said newspapers, especially early community newspapers, were the Facebook of that time period, providing social news about those who lived in and visited Habersham County and its cities and towns.
“People who've lived here a long time, they'll find that the newspaper was pretty good at writing about people living in the town and what they were doing where they went, and you can basically find out about your family members back in history through this tool,” Madruga said.
To learn more about Digitize Habersham, the Hey Habersham Podcast, the Virtual Veterans Wall of Honor, or the Historic Figures project, Madruga said the organization’s website is a good place to start.
“We have our website, HabershamHistory.org,” Madruga said. “We are on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, so there are videos to watch there. And on Facebook it's very interactive. People can read what we write and also add to it if they have information they want to offer to us. That's one of the ways people can help us.”
One thing Madruga stressed is the importance of preserving old photos, whether family photos, landscapes, or those taken in the county’s businesses or during community events over the years – even if those pictured are not identified.
“Now that we have Digitize Habersham it’s not only a way for us to be able to archive them and preserve that history but also share it with everybody,” he said.
Madruga said those who want to support the organization can do so in a couple of ways.
“We are a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and people can support us by if they have time and the volition to volunteer and help us preserve history and be a part of it, as well as we always need donations for making these programs continue,” Madruga said.
