Digitaliziation of the Fond "Mannheimer Altertumsverein von 1859"

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ulrich Nieß
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 442900435

The Digitalization of the historical files of the Mannheimer Altertumsverein (= the club) is the aim of the project. This club is one of the oldest communal clubs with historical focus in Germany. It was founded in 1859 by tradesmen, architects and merchants to collect and preserve historical objects with the purpose of educating people about the past. Therefore the club built up a collection with an extent of about 25 meters of documents.The fonds consists of historical documents of different forms. There are parchment records of the period of Emperor Charles IVth as well as of the Hofkanzlei in Vienna. There are also privilege documents, original patents of nobility, heraldic letters, private letters and also files. The most documents are from the 18th and 19th century. But there are exceptions with parchment records from the time before the year 1500.The variety of the fonds shows the engagement of the club who wants to perserve historical documents. The most of them were donations. This shows the success of the club which played a crucial role in the society of Mannheim. Furthermore, the collection of the club is a valueable complement to the public collections in Mannheim because great parts of the City Archives werde destroyed in World War II. For example, the current knowledge about the former guilds and craftsmen clubs is based on the collection of the Mannheimer Altertumsverein. After the digitalization and the publication of the files in the Internet we expect a lot of accesses of scientists.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Participating Institution: Mannheimer Altertumsverein von 1859; c/o Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen Mannheim; Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen