This month, the City of Livingston celebrates the centennial of its incorporation. As a result of cooperative efforts between UC Merced Library, campus partners, and Livingston partners, two online resources are now available for the public to learn more about Livingston’s history.
Issues of the local newspaper, The Livingston Chronicle, dating from May 1911 through 1966, are now available in the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC). The UC Merced Library secured permission from The McClatchy Company, which owns the newspaper, and partnered with UC Riverside’s Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research, which manages and hosts the CDNC, to digitize The Chronicle. With funding from the Livingston Historical Society and UC Merced’s Office of the Chancellor, the first set of master negative microfilm reels of the newspaper—a total of 2,424 issues—was fully digitized and processed over the course of a year. The issues are indexed and full-text searchable on the CDNC. Plans are to continue digitization so the remaining reels of The Chronicle and Delhi Bulletin will be also be available online.
The Livingston Chronicle May 27, 1911 "Promotion Issue" marks the opening of the new Idan-ha hotel and other community highlights.
With support from a Luce Foundation Fellowship in Community-Engaged Research and research funding from the UC Merced Office of the Provost, Interdisciplinary Humanities Ph.D. student Shiloh Green Soto authored the Livingston Centennial: A Guide to the History of Livingston, CA 1922-2022. Last summer, she supervised two undergraduate students, Margaret Garcia and Minh Tuyet Nguyen, who conducted research on the community's history as an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center Humanities project.
The publication is available for public download from the UC eScholarship repository. Sourced from materials collected by the Livingston Historical Society, UC Merced, and by libraries and repositories across the state, the guidebook is intended to introduce students and community members to the diverse and complex history of Livingston’s settlement, incorporation, and development, and of the multi-ethnic communities that have constituted Livingston.
We thank our partners in both endeavors for their support and are pleased to make available these resources to enrich public understanding of the region’s history.
