Digital Library puts Juliette Gordon Low letters online

SAVANNAH — To read Juliette Gordon Low’s century-old letters from the comfort of a home computer explains the Digital Library of Georgia’s work as it builds an archive of historical works important to Georgia.

On Feb. 9, 1908, Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts, wrote about her visit to Princess Bamba Dhuleep Singh in Lahore, India (now Pakistan), whose great-grandfather “conquered the entire Punjab from the Indians,” Low wrote.

“She looks about 25 but is probably older. Her features are exquisite. She was white in England but since she has been exposed to the sun of India, she has got about as dark as Sophie’s child Mary .... Her home was the size and looked a little like old Habersham house at home. She had her white... horse tied to the tree in the tennis court. There was a shady nice garden with grass and shrubs and trees, no flowers. Everything was dried up as there is famine in this land because of a drought.”

The India diary, available in a 63-page PDF, was added to the Digital Library of Georgia’s Galileo collection in May after the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace applied for and received a Competitive Digitization grant. The next grant deadline for nonprofit cultural heritage museums is Oct. 15. Information is available on dlg.usg. edu under “participate” and “subgranting program.”

Juliette Gordon Low’s India diaries are part of a broad historical collection the Digital Library of Georgia is compiling for the public to use. The Digital Library, which is part of GALILEO, includes access to a historical newspaper collection with more than 1 million pages, said Sheila McAlister, director of the Digital Library of Georgia.