As we prepare to make a fresh start of new projects in 2009, we’re featuring a few New Year’s-related items from past collections in Iowa Digital Library, ranging from a Jan. 1 diary entry in 1864 to a presidential campaign video captured 144 years later.  

Thank you to all of the Libraries staff who have helped us make so much progress in 2008, and to everyone reading this blog for giving us a reason to do so.

Happy New Year!

–DLS staff

 

“A fresh start,” Jan. 1, 1941
Editorial Cartoons of Ding Darling Digital Collection

 

 “…Spent New Years Day in camp. Weather very cold. Ice sufficiently strong to bear a man’s weight. We have good reason to believe that the present year will wind up the Rebellion.”
George M. Shearer diary, 1864
Civil War Diaries Digital Collection

 

“The New Year of 1968 offers NAACP Branches another chance to tie national items into programs on the local and state levels which will deal with the problems faced by the people. The civil rights movement is by no means over…”
NAACP newsletters, Fort Madison Branch, Fort Madison, Iowa, 1968
African American Women in Iowa Digital Collection

 

Barack Obama: New Year’s Day in Des Moines
Presidential Campaign Videos Digital Collection

 

“To the best of Len’s recollection, he met Charis on New Year’s morning…”
Fruit of the Month, 1988
University of Iowa Press Digital Collection

 

“A happy new year,” 1912
Noble Photographs Digital Collection