The Henry County Library 123 E. Green Clinton MO 64735 660-885-2612 or 866-CALLHCL 105 W. Benton Windsor MO 65360 660-647-2298

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Local History on the Internet
(http://tacnet.missouri.org/hcl/history.html)

Things to Think About:

Finding information about the history and development of a county, a town, an industry or a local company can often be difficult and frustrating. Records weren't kept, or were disposed of as soon as they were no longer needed, or were destroyed in a earthquake, fire, flood or other catastrophe, or by the more gentle but equally destructive ravages of time and termites. The newspapers that described events mostly went to the landfill or, in the old days, were used as tinder to get the stove or the furnace going. If the newspaper's publisher survived long enough their own collection of back issues may now be available on microfilm, but the back issues of failed papers often followed the subscribers' copies into the landfill or the stove. A fire in the newspaper office or the local library or historical society can consume decades of history in a few minutes. (Here in Clinton, a fire on Sunday, February 13, 1944, destroyed the Women's Civic Club Building, including both the Henry County Library and Museum, with the loss of many priceless records and artifacts. Another fire, in May of 1959 at the office of the Clinton Daily Democrat destroyed almost 50 years of back issues of that paper.) And some information was never written down and was lost when those who took part in the events died.

Even when records have survived, they may often be difficult to access. Computers and the Internet are relatively recent developments in the long histories of towns and regions even in the United States, and much material is still in paper form. It may be safely stored at a courthouse, museum or library, or it may be sitting in someone's attic or storeroom. Its owner may understand its value, or may not ever realize what they have or that it might be of any significant historic interest.

Transcribing and placing on the Internet all the historical information that is presently known to be available in books, maps, periodicals, and manuscript records will take a very long time, and depends heavily on the work of individual volunteers interested in a particular place, time period or industry. Copyright restrictions may keep the more recent books and periodicals from being placed directly on the Internet in the near future and the sheer volume of available material inevitably means that much material will never find its way to the Internet.

As a result, frequently the Internet can only serve as a pointer to the vast mass of material that still remains in non-electronic form. Getting down to the details often requires accessing material via inter library loan or even by actual visit to the nearest courthouse, library or archive that holds the material. That being said, there is still a vast amount of material on the Internet and the volume grows steadily every day.

Important Sources of Local History Information:

US GenWeb and other Genealogy pages:

The US GenWeb project has a page for every county in the United States. Although the overall focus of the project is on genealogy, there is often a great deal of historical material included in the pages. Usually the county page also has information about local historical societies, libraries, and museum. Other genealogy sites may also provide useful historical information.

Local Historical Society pages:

Many local historical societies have their own web pages. Even if the information being sought is not there, they may have descriptions of books and other material not directly on the Internet.

Local Library pages:

Many libraries have their own web pages, and some of them include historical information concerning their service area. They also usually have links to other sites such as historical and genealogical societies.

Most libraries that are online have their catalog online. This will have information about any printed materials available - history books, family histories, and other such material. Some of this material may be available online. It may be possible to access some of the material via Interlibrary Loan. If not, a visit to the library itself may be necessary to to access it.

Local Government pages:

The web pages of the local government (city or county) may have some historical material. It will probably have links to local genealogical or historical societies, and the local library or may have links to other local sources.

State Government pages:

The state government's web page will have links to the state historical society and libraries throughout the state. It may have some historical material on its own website as well, particularly in which ever department handles the archives for the state.

In many states information on names of incorporated companies has been computerized and made available on the Internet.

Some states  have a State Handbook or Almanac available online, which may have lots of historical information about counties, towns, railways, and historical personages. (Texas is one, with the Handbook of Texas Online)

University web pages:

University web pages often have historical information about their local area, especially if they are a state university.

The university library may also have material online, either on their own or in conjunction with the state or local historical society. Even if they don't, university library catalogs are a good source for locating books, pamphlets and other material about the state, its counties and towns, industries and people.

The Library of Congress:

The Library of Congress has made a vast amount of historical data available online. The American Memory online collection includes a vast amount of books, maps, photographs and other data. The Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, part of the American Memory collection, includes a number of structures from the Henry/Benton/St. Clair county area.

Books online:

There are a number of projects that are transcribing older books and magazine articles to the Internet. Oldest and best known of these is Project Gutenberg which has over 27,000 boooks online. A joint project of Cornell University and the University of Michigan called the Making of America (Cornell site/ Michigan site) has concentrated heavily on material of historical interest from the period 1850-1877. The State of Missouri has its own program, Missouri Digital Heritage, which has placed online many county and city histories and other important material. Google Books has a massive project underway to digitize millions of volumes, with the older, out of copyright, books available in full text and newer books, those still in copyright, available in "snippet" or "sample page" view. Google's project is far from complete, and a book that wasn't available yesterday may be available today.

Search Engines:

Search engines may help dig out historical stuff on personal web pages. The various search engines all look at the Internet a little bit differently, so if you can't find anything on one search site, try another one. It may take some experimenting with the search terms and the various options the search engines to get to what you are looking for. The library's Search Resources on the Internet contains link to a number of directories and search engines.

Library Catalog Searches:

Library Catalog searches won't get you information directly, but they can greatly simplify obtaining printed material via Inter Library Loan or direct visit, by giving you a chance to find out in advance what material is available where.

Some Links to Local History Material on the Internet

[Henry County] [Missouri] [United States] [Other] [Odds and Ends]

Henry County

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Missouri

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United States

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Other

[Top of page] [Henry County] [Missouri] [United States] [Other] [Odds and Ends]

Odds and Ends

[Top of page] [Henry County] [Missouri] [United States] [Other] [Odds and Ends]