Historic Hudson Valley is proud to announce the launch of its digital library and collections portal. The extensive collections management platform contains over 20,000 items and is completely free to use, making centuries of regional history accessible to researchers, students, educators, genealogists, and history enthusiasts worldwide. This institutional milestone was made possible through major grant awards, including a $238,810 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and a $137,735 grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources, a program funded by the Mellon Foundation.
“It is fitting that Historic Hudson Valley should be launching the Digital Collections Portal during our seventy-fifth year,” said Waddell Stillman, President of Historic Hudson Valley. “The thousands of books, manuscripts, and objects to be discovered through the portal represent the commitment of our founder, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to safeguard and interpret the history of the Hudson Valley in all its facets. We are thrilled to make these collections freely available to students, scholars, and the general public in perpetuity.”
During the multi-year digitization process, library and archival staff stabilized, digitized, and prepared metadata for approximately 4,300 manuscripts, while curatorial staff inventoried and photographed over 7,000 objects. The new portal helps share vital historical narratives from the region, including personal records from Revolutionary War soldiers, insights into the lived realities of slavery and resistance in the colonial North, the records of early free Black landowners, and the experiences of regional women operating as business owners, suffragists, and domestic workers.
“Historic Hudson Valley’s unique collections span the centuries and many continents,” noted Elizabeth L. Bradley, Ph.D., Vice President of Programs and Engagement, “but they all connect back to the rich and varied history of our region. It is exciting to bring our holdings online during the United States’ semiquincentennial year, when so many Americans are rediscovering their history, and to introduce Historic Hudson Valley’s curatorial and archival treasures to a digital audience during the celebration of our founding.”
The newly launched portal helps integrate Historic Hudson Valley’s physical holdings into a unified digital resource. The archival collections feature over 6,000 manuscripts, maps, and graphics spanning the 17th through the 20th centuries. The curatorial collections contain nearly 8,000 original and family objects from individuals who lived and worked at Philipsburg Manor, Washington Irving’s Sunnyside, and Van Cortlandt Manor. Finally, library collections have approximately 20,000 monographs, rare books, and subject files dating from 1529 to the present.
To begin exploring the digital library and collections portal, visit https://hudsonvalley.org/resources/library-and-collections/
Historic Hudson Valley’s physical archives, library, and research collections, are located at 639 Bedford Road in Pocantico Hills, are accessible to researchers and the public by appointment.
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Grant Number MA-253041-OMS-23. It was also supported by a Digitizing Hidden Collections grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The CLIR grant program is made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation.
