The Maritime History Archive has recently been awarded two grants that, according to archivist Heather Wareham, will be of substantial assistance in the mounting of two major projects.

The Canadian Memory Fund, which is operated through the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Canadian Culture Online Program, has committed $38,220 towards a virtual exhibit portraying the historical role women played in the coastal communities of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Titled Coastal Women in Newfoundland and Labrador prior to Confederation, the web-based exhibit will interweave explanatory text with archival photographs, selected historical documents, audio clips and transcripts of oral histories and a comprehensive directory of related sources. 

The exhibit will focus on the time period 1890-1949 and will include the experiences of women from the French Shore, Labrador, as well as the roles of aboriginal women. 

Themes that will be covered include: women in the coastal fisheries; women in the family; women in the community; women in occupations outside the fisheries (non-traditional roles).

The Marine History Archive has partnered with the Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Archives on this project.

According to Ms. Wareham, the exhibit should be up and running by spring 2009.

“With the funds provided by these grants, we will be able to expand our website and offer researchers access to new collections in our holdings,” she said.

In addition, six more volumes of the diaries of the merchant James Ryan Limited of Bonavista will be digitized as a result of a $12,000 grant from the Canadian Council of Archives under their National Archives Development Program.

These additional volumes will include all of the existing volumes up to 1900. On the site they will be available in their original format side by side with a transcribed version and can be searched by keyword. 

A number of volumes from this collection have already been digitized and are included on Memorial’s Digital Archives Initiative.

For further information on these projects, contact Heather Wareham at 709-737-8203 or mha@mun.ca.