Can You Help with Any of These Projects?

I don't know if it's something about the time of year, but recently several messages looking for contributions to projects have come through my inbox.  In the spirit of spreading the word, look through these and see if there's anything you can help with.

The Red Star Line Museum will open in Antwerp, Belgium, on September 28, 1913.  The Red Star Line, which brought more than 2 million immigrants to the United States between 1873 and 1934, was a joint operation between the United States and Belgium.  It had ports in Antwerp, Philadelphia, New York City, Liverpool, and Southampton.  The museum's main exhibit will simulate the immigration experience.  Currently the museum is seeking photographs of passengers who traveled on Red Star Line ships to the U.S.

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The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is conducting a survey to assess user experiences at institutions that hold Holocaust-related material, with the goal being to improve access for all users.  The assessment is the first of five phases of the Multi-Year Work Plan on Archival Access, which will look at access conditions for Holocaust materials held in archives.  The survey is available in English, French, German, and Russian.  If you have researched Holocaust-related material, please complete the survey.  The goal is to receive a minimum of 1,000 responses.

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In an interesting but very sad story, a woman who died in Texas in 2010 was discovered to have created a false identity for herself about 20 years earlier in the Pacific Northwest.  She left few clues behind, and they tell only a small part of the story.  The Social Security Administration investigator who started the research and the reporter who wrote about the woman for the Seattle Times are pretty much stuck and are looking for any clues to who "Jane Doe" really was.  They even had a live chat (transcribed online) recently about the case.  It looks like all the documents they have found are online with the stories.

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If you have expertise in German research, the German Historical Institute is looking for authors for biographical essays on 18th- and 19th-century German-American entrepreneurs for its Immigrant Entrepreneurship Project.  It is paying honoraria to authors for completed and edited articles of up to 8,000 words on the following individuals:
• Claude Boettcher, manufacturing, Boettcher & Company, Denver, Colorado
• Lewis Gerstle, shipping, Alaska Commerce Company, San Francisco
• Solomon Gump, musical instruments, S&G Gump, San Francisco
• Emil Horst, agriculture, E. Clemens Horst Company/Horst Hop Ranch, Sacramento
• Charles Ilfeld, retail, Charles Ilfeld Company, Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Charles Kohler, wine, Kohler & Frohling, Sonoma, California
• Augustus Kountze, finance, Colorado National Bank, Denver, Colorado
• Michael (Henry) Rengstorff, land development, Mountain View, California
• Abraham Rosenberg, fruit, Rosenberg Brothers & Company, San Francisco
• Ludwig Sloss, food, Louis Sloss & Company, San Francisco
• Adolph Sutro, metals, Sutro Metallurgical Works, San Francisco
• Anthony Zellerbach, paper, Zellerbach Paper Company, San Francisco

For more information about the essays and the candidates, and to learn which essays are still needed, contact Benjamin Schwantes at the German Historical Institute.

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Lewis Hine was a photographer hired in 1908 by the National Child Labor Committee to photograph child workers as part of the committee's efforts to end child labor.  The aim of the photography project was to bring the plight of the children to the attention of influential people.  Over the next ten years Hine photographed more than 5,000 children.

Historian Joe Manning is now researching the children in the photos and telling their stories, often to family members who had no idea their ancestors worked in such conditions.  Hine identified most of the children he photographed, but eight individuals have remained elusive.  Manning's Mystery Photos page has photos of the unidentified or inadequately identified people.  Anyone with information is invited to contact Manning.