The Year 1968

In 2013, the Internet Archive selected a number of people who would each serve as a sort of digital resident to the Archive for a week in the following year. Each creator would put together a blog based on content in the Archive, and it would be hosted for a week at the Archive’s Tumblr: internetarchive.tumblr.com.

I was proud to be picked, and my term ran the week of March 17th. Its permanent URL is theyear1968.tumblr.com.

For my project, I wanted to see how much of the story of 1968 in America – what people might have seen, heard and experienced – I could tell using just content found in the Internet Archive. There are some posts where I give a bit of back story, but for the most part, I tried to present it as-is, kind of like a 1968 digital scrapbook. I feel like the yearbooks I found were especially helpful in giving at least a glimpse of what life was like then for young people. 1968 was such a tumultuous and tragic year, but there was inspiration, creativity, fun and hope for the future at the same time.

And mostly I wanted to highlight the breadth of material in the Archive. I think it’s so important to support the work they’re doing, along with all the librarians and archivists around the world who are scanning, digitizing, collecting, cataloging and preserving our history for us.

You can view all the posts here! Below are some of my favorites and some very kind Tweets people sent about the project.