[snca-list] Hugh Morton photo essay project underway at UNC-CH

[Elizabeth Hull]

We'd like to draw your attention to a unique online publishing project
entitled “*Worth 1,000 Words:  Essays on the Photographs of Hugh Morton*”
currently being conducted by the library of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. The Hugh Morton Collection is held by the North Carolina
Collection Photographic Archives in Wilson Library, and is currently
partially accessible via a digital collection (
http://www.lib.unc.edu/dc/morton/index.html), an online finding aid (
http://www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/pcoll/P0081/P0081.html), and a blog, "A View to
Hugh" (http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/morton/).

A press release about the library's grant from the North Carolina Humanities
Council is available here: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3215/107/

*Project Details*
Funded in part by the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide
nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the
"Worth 1,000 Words" project involves the production of 13 essays by a
variety of authors that provide insight into Morton’s work, based around
diverse themes including North Carolina political history, travel and
tourism, native plants, and UNC-Chapel Hill history and sports.

The library has already begun posting essays on the blog “A View to Hugh”:
http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/morton/index.php/essays/

Additional essays will be published approximately every two weeks for a
six-month period, through July 2010.
For a complete list of authors and essays, visit:
http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/morton/index.php/2009/12/morton-project-awarded-nchc-grant/

The goals of the "Worth 1,000 Words" project are not only to provide
interpretation and context for Hugh Morton's photographs, but also to
demonstrate the value of visual resources for humanities research and
education. While photographs are often overlooked as primary sources, they
are rich documents full of historical detail, and as visual records, offer
immediacy not available through text -- a direct visual link to the past.
Photography can also be an art, one of which Hugh Morton was a master. The
beautiful and communicative images he created hold enormous possibility for
study, research, and exhibition. They also contain great potential for
educational use. The essays from "Worth 1,000 Words" draw out this potential
and provide self-contained and easily accessible products (available for
download as PDFs), suitable and adaptable for classroom use.

Publishing the essays online and within the framework of the popular blog "A
View to Hugh" makes them not only instantly available, but also allows for
reader interaction via the blog's commenting feature. We hope that this
interactive spirit will allow the essays to serve as jumping-off points for
conversation, reflection, and exploration of our state’s culture and
history.

For more information about the project, contact Hugh Morton Collection
Archivist Elizabeth Hull, eahull at email.unc.edu, (919) 962-7992.

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Elizabeth Hull
Hugh Morton Collection Archivist
Special Collections, Wilson Library
UNC-Chapel Hill
(919) 962-7992
"A View to Hugh": http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/morton
Morton digital collection: http://www.lib.unc.edu/dc/morton/index.html
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