American and Catholic History at a Crossroads: Digitizing Catholic Newspapers from the Vatican II Era (1958-1972)
The CRRA will digitize significant Catholic newspapers from Vatican II years, 1958-1972 and make them publicly available in the Catholic News Archive. Local papers include diocesan newspapers from Chicago, Hartford, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and St. Louis; the national perspective represented by the Catholic News Service newsfeeds (the Catholic equivalent of Reuters) and the National Catholic Reporter. This project will digitize the papers and implement the publicly available Archive on the Veridian platform. Scholars note the importance of primary Catholic sources as the Church and the laity have shaped national policies, legislation and activities on major issues including civil rights,nuclear disarmament, the Vietnam War and subsequent anti-war movement, other world conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli Wars, and immigration. The significance of this project to scholars of American social, economic, and religious history is the ability to access and fully exploit these rich primary resources.