Butte Archives: Time to highlight German, Jewish, Finnish, Hispanic        

It’s final four time for the Butte-Silver Bow Archives and its partners at the Montana Preservation Alliance.  Now they’re down to the last four of the 17 groups – the Germans, Finns, Jews, and Hispanics — and they need help with the collecting.

“We don’t have a lot of documents on these people, and they made significant contributions to the culture of this place,” said Archives Director Ellen Crain. “We’re asking people to share with us their oral histories and documents on their families and their coming to this country and to Butte.  “Our goal is to highlight each nationality,” she said.

For its project, the Archives has been awarded a $12,000 federal grant from a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage program. Butte-Silver Bow commissioners must formally accept the grant, but no local cash match is required.

The money will be used to pay the Montana Preservation Alliance to conduct research and workshops and gather collections on the Germans, Jews, Finns, and Hispanics and their cultural contributions to Butte.