Springfield Art & Historical Society 

The collection:  Bill Lashua delivered seven boxes of negatives to us (about 14,000).  They are primarily photographs his father, Bernie Lashua, took of machines, etc. at J &L.  John Hunter, who is a J&L retiree, has agreed to review the archive to see what it actually contains.  We really appreciate John’s willingness to take on this project.

In 2019, we received an additional donation from Bill and John Lashua - thousands of their father's negatives.  The sorting, cleaning, and proper storage of these is a huge project and will take months and lots of money.   We are grateful to Mascoma Bank and the Windham Foundation, in addition to the Bryant Foundation, for their donations to support the purchase of needed archival materials.  We also received several donations from citizens to support this effort.  Thanks!

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We are appreciative of our newest volunteer and Board Member, Carol Hansen.  She has spent many hours organizing the Lashua negatives and storing them in archival boxes.  She is now working hard to digitize them.  

 

In 2018,to help facilitate viewing negatives, with the funds from a grant from Vermont Telephone, we purchased a new 14 x 18 inch “light table.”  This is a vast improvement over holding the negatives up to the ceiling light. 

 

Also, as the result of a grant from the Bryant Foundation in 2018, we purchased a professional grade photo and negative scanner.  In addition to the recent Lashua donation, we have 1000s of other negatives, both film and glass slides, some as large as 8” x10”, which we will now be able to view and document; some are over 100 years old!  Due to their age some of them are dirty, so we plan to contact the glass slide archivist at the Vermont Historical Society to see if we can or should clean them.