A Brown Bag Lecture, From Rags to Pixels: East Tennessee’s Newspapers from the 19th Century to Digitization, presented by Louisa Trott will be held at noon on Wednesday, October 29, 2014 at the East Tennessee History Center.

Historical newspaper records once available only through long hours of research can now be accessed within seconds. The Tennessee Digitization Project to digitize a series of newspaper records and make them available online is a partnership between the University of Tennessee and the Tennessee State Library and Archives. The first phase of the project concentrates on the Civil War and Reconstruction era, the second on the period of 1870-1900. The project recently received a third grant for another series of papers.

Louisa Trott will talk about the scope of the project, its value to researchers, how it can be accessed, and will give examples of the many types of information to be found in newspapers from the period.

The program is sponsored by 21st Mortgage and is free and open to the public. The East Tennessee History Center is located at 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville. Guests are invited to bring a “Brown Bag” lunch and enjoy the lecture. Soft drinks will be available. For more information on the lecture, exhibitions, or museum hours, call 865-215-8824 or visit the website at www.EastTNHistory.org.