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Four, two-day digitization workshops to collect local history materials from the Hispanic, German, Finnish, and Jewish communities of Butte, Montana.  The city has invested in the Butte-Silver Bow (BSB) Public Archives, since the public voted in favor of a $7.5 million bond issue to improve, expand, and modernize its archives in 2007.  The archives hosts a series of “All Nations” exhibits to honor the ethnic communities that have shaped the city’s history since its founding as a mining camp in the 1860s.  In partnership with the Montana Preservation Alliance, the workshops would combine digitization of cultural heritage materials with oral history collection and public programming, to include presentations by a local author and faculty from the University of Montana, Rocky Mountain College, and Montana State University.  The “All Nations” digital collection would be made available for research on the BSB Public Archives website.

All Nations: Preserving the Ethnic Heritage of Butte, Montana is a project to preserve and celebrate the heritage of ethnic communities that are important within the culture of the city's rich history. This grant will support staff of the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives and the Montana Preservation Alliance to conduct outreach with the last four communities to join the project -- the Hispanic, German, Finnish and Jewish communities of the city. The Archives and MPA will lead a digitization workshop with each community to capture and preserve significant elements of their material culture. Work with all communities will result in digitized files of documents, artifacts, artwork, recordings and historic places materials that will be added to the widely accessible collections of Butte Silver Bow Public Archives, and serve as the basis for a 10-week exhibit on each community that draws people of the community together, and celebrates and promotes broader understandings of their heritage.