The Utah State Historical Records Advisory Board’s (USHRAB) Spring 2020 grant funding round has wrapped up and we are happy to announce awards to four institutions preserving and providing access to Utah’s history.
Southern Utah Museum of Art, Cedar City, UT
The Southern Utah Museum of Art will be receiving $3,143.47 to process, preserve, and digitize the archival records of Jimmie F. Jones and Julius Moessel.
Moessel was a German artist who mostly painted decorative art. After the First World War, he moved to the United States and eventually transitioned to panel paintings featuring surrealist and magical-realism images.
Famed local landscape painter, Jimmie Jones, provided the foundation for SUMA’s permanent collection, donated his last fifteen paintings, his home/art studio, and the copyright to his paintings. Considered a master of Utah and Southwest landscape painting, Jones was a Cedar City native who intended his gift to be the catalyst for the creation of an art museum at Southern Utah University.
SUMA’s project will preserve and digitize photographs and notes from the Moessel collection as well as a scrapbook from Jimmie Jones containing unpublished sketches, school assignments from early elementary through high school, letters, and more.
Cache Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum, Logan, UT
The Cache Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum was awarded $1,700 to digitize Cache Valley pioneer histories. These histories, the bulk of which date from 1930-1970, document the lives of early Cache Valley settlers through their own words and the stories of their descendents. This project is part of a phased approach that the Museum is taking to digitizing and preserving its collection. The digitized collection will be hosted by Utah State University and available on the Mountain West Digital Library.
Moab Museum, Moab, UT
The Moab Museum is receiving $5,344 to digitize images from the Fran and Terby Barnes Photograph Archives. Fran Barnes was an avid traveler and photographer who spent nearly forty years documenting the desert southwest surrounding Moab, UT. He was also an accomplished writer, with work published in outdoor magazines, notable newspapers, and the Canyon Country series of 46 books about the desert landscape and history of the Moab area. Fran was also involved in civic affairs, serving on the Grand County Travel Council and the Bureau of Land Management Advisory Board. Terby Barnes was integral in managing Canyon Country Publications and served on the Board of the Moab Museum in its early days.
The Museum will be taking a phased approach to the collection, which contains nearly 50,000 images in total. They will be using their grant award to work with Southern Utah University to digitize a carefully selected first batch of about 10,000 images.
Uintah County Library Regional History Center, Vernal, UT
The Uintah County Library Regional History Center (RHC) has been awarded $1,731.85 to process and preserve its collection of local civic clubs scrapbooks. These scrapbooks were created by clubs such as the Vernal Historical Society, Uintah Historical Society, Merry Miss Club, Vernal/Uintah County Progressive Business Women, Dinosaur Gardens Service Club, Current Topics Club, and others. They date from the 1950s-1990s and contain items such as newspaper clippings, club rosters, correspondence, photographs, and other memoranda that document the clubs and their work. The RHC will be using its award to purchase archival supplies and will house these scrapbooks in archival boxes, protecting them from dust, light, and other environmental factors. Library staff will also create finding aids, or research guides documenting the contents of the scrapbooks made available for researchers through the Library catalog.
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The USHRAB’s grant program is funded by a State Board Programming Grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives. The USHRAB assists public and private non-profits, as well as non-Federal government entities throughout the State of Utah in the preservation and use of historical records.