We have entered into a sizable new collaboration for The Media Ecology Project: the digitization of an extensive collection of silent era lobby cards from Dwight Cleveland (“Cinema on Paper”) and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum!  The first iteration of the project entailed over 13,000 lobby cards that provide invaluable visual culture regarding a mostly lost era of cinema history.  These materials will ultimately serve as a supplement to the forthcoming NEH-sponsored Early Cinema Compendium as a key resource for MEP.  The agreement has recently been amended to include additional lobby cards and glass slides that Cleveland has donated to The Library of Congress, plus additional lobby card materials already at The Library of Congress.

News of the initial agreement has been covered by local and national news services, and was also extended to publications from The Smithsonian and The National Endowment for the Humanities:

Dartmouth News: Dartmouth to Digitize Rare “Lobby Card” Collection (August 2022)

https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2022/08/dartmouth-digitize-rare-lobby-card-collection

Associated Press coverage (October 2022)

https://apnews.com/article/silent-movies-lobby-cards-f5e267501f7de367b530f530279b28f5

Smithsonian Magazine coverage of the MEP lobby card digitization project (October 2022)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/tons-of-silent-movies-have-been-lost-to-time-lobby-cards-help-some-survive-180980943/

Coverage of the MEP lobby card digitization project in Humanities: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities (Winter 2023)

https://www.neh.gov/article/movie-previews-there-were-lobby-cards