The Columbus-Lowndes Public Library System has completed processing and digitizing the Lowndes County World War II collection, covering 1942 to 1978.
Now open to researchers, the collection includes 19 black-and-white photographs of local soldiers, two scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings, three war ration booklets and one World War II Blue Star flag.
The two scrapbooks consist of newspaper clippings largely documenting the lives of Lowndes County soldiers, both men and women, in training, their military service, awards, visits home and casualties. The articles also detail life on the home front, including local fundraising efforts, the birth of children, business activity, family visits with soldiers and more. The local articles were published in the 1940s as well as in the 1970s, with later articles appearing in a column titled “Columbus News 32 Years Ago Today.”
Archival staff indexed both scrapbooks to assist patrons researching local names and organizations. Staff also uploaded identified photographs of soldiers from the collection to their entries on the Find a Grave database.
In addition, the scrapbooks, their indexes and the 19 photographs have been digitized and are available on the Mississippi Digital Library. The CLPLS works with the Mississippi Digital Library through the University of Southern Mississippi to make collections housed in library archives available online to researchers worldwide.
To view the digitized Lowndes County World War II collection, visit msdiglib.org/columbus. For more information, call (662) 329-5304 or email [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
