PRESS RELEASE

AN UPDATE ON DIGITIZING THE BOWNE HOUSE ARCHIVES FROM ARCHIVIST CHARLOTTE JACKSON

In September 2022 Bowne House received a $44,000 "Crown Jewels" grant from the New York Preservation Archive Project, through an initiative with the Leon Levy Foundation, to Digitize and Preserve the Museum's Extensive Collection of Manuscripts, Maps, Books, Photographs, and Ephemera. The Generous Grant reflects the uniqueness and historic importance of the 350 years' worth of documents in our care. As the Bowne House Archivist, I'd like to offer an update on the progress of the digitization project, which is now underway at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Massachusetts.

The work is progressing in phases. In February, we delivered the Colonial-era Bowne Family Papers to NEDCC. These documents date back as far as 1652, before the erection of the Bowne House itself. Due to their age and fragility, we also elected to perform conservation work on a select group of the historically important manuscripts. The treatment will remove centuries of dirt and discoloration, stabilize the paper, and perform near-invisible mends on tears. Items selected include 17th-century documents relating to John Bowne's imprisonment and subsequent exile in the Netherlands and to the religious journeys of his wife Hannah.

A second batch of documents is undergoing preparation for delivery to the NEDCC. This phase of the project will preserve the predominantly 19th and early 20th-century Parsons and Bowne Family Papers; selected early records, photographs and memorabilia of the Bowne House Historical Society from the post-War period; and items from the Bowne House Map and Real Estate Collection, Documenting the growth and development of Queens in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

During the final phase, we will upload the images of digitized manuscripts, with their catalog records and transcriptions, to a searchable online database accessible from the Bowne House website www.bownehouse.org/archives. We anticipate that most of the digitized documents will be available online to the general public by the end of 2023 allowing the museum to share the rich documentary history of our landmarked site, and the legacy of the Bowne and Parsons family, with the world.

• Charlotte Jackson, Archivist

• Bowne House Historical Society

• bownehousearchives@gmail.com