Research at home

Digital Collection

USE PERMISSIONS: CCHM holds or manages copyright for items in our digital collection. Online images are provided for personal viewing only. Formal permission is required for most other uses. Other uses include, but are not limited to, publication, broadcast, products, commercial display, websites, etc. Use of materials in the CCHM Digital Collection may be subject to a use fee. 

For a current list of fees, please see our Photograph Collection One-Time Usage Fee Schedule

To request permission to use an image, please submit a Digital Image Request Form

CCHM PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION

Browse over 17,093 digital images taken from the vast array of photographic prints, film negatives, glass slides and negatives, tintypes, cyanotypes and other medium from the museum’s photograph collection at the Clark County Historical Museum.

This project is an ongoing collaboration between the Clark County Historical Museum (CCHM), the Washington State University Vancouver Library and the Washington State University Libraries Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections (MASC). Funding for this project was provided by Clark County’s Historical Promotion Grants Program.

Wooden wheel with spokes, small boat and steering wheel in background, Clark County Historic Museum

Clark County Historical Newspaper Archive

This online archive is part of an ongoing digitization project that aims to make the Clark County Historical Museum’s collection of local newspapers accessible through a keyword-searchable database.

Currently, six years’ worth of the Vancouver Independent (1876-1888) is available online, with digitization efforts ongoing.

This project is possible thanks to partnership between CCHM and the Washington State University Vancouver Library Archive and through partial funding from the Joanne Galloway Charitable Lead Trust.

CCHM ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

This digital collection contains transcripts and sound recordings selected from over 200 interviews in the oral history collections of the Clark County Historical Museum (CCHM) in Vancouver, Washington.

The oral history collection at CCHM contains interviews with a wide variety of individuals from as far back as the 1950’s. Interviews with POWs, railroad workers, business owners like George Propstra, local historian Margaret Colf-Hepola and many others create a fascinating look at the history of County County.

The digitization of these interviews was made possibile through the generous funding of Clark County’s Historical Promotions Grant.

League of Women Voters membership meeting

CCHM DIGITAL ARCHIVE

View materials selected and digitized from Clark County Historical Museum’s general collection. Archive materials are characterized by a need for special care and preservation due to age, scarcity, association value, or other factors.

The Collection document three decades of the League of Women Voters of Clark County from the 1950s through the 1970s. It includes information on campaign events to get out the vote, voter registration, civic involvement including the 1960s civil rights movement, candidate debates and other voter related events in Clark County. 

The digitization of the Clark County League of Women Voters Collection was a collaborative effort between the Clark County Historical Museum and the WSU Vancouver Library, Archives and Special Collections. The project was made possible through funding from the Clark County Historical Promotions Grant.

Wooden wheel with spokes, small boat and steering wheel in background, Clark County Historic Museum

Vancouver Branch of the NAACP Digital Collection

The Vancouver Branch of the NAACP collection featured in the Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archive (CREBHA) contains over 120 selected items from the collection including manuscripts, photographs, publications, newspaper clippings and ephemera that documents the history of the organization and its presence in Vancouver, Washington over the past 50 years.

The collection highlights the organizations participation in racial equality, its tradition of community service in education, employment, health and housing and its ongoing relationship.

Mapping Clark County

The Mapping Clark County Collection includes selections from the Clark County Historical Museum’s maps collection, aerial photographs collection and general photograph collection. Images include subject sections involving geography, aerial views, street scenes and transportation. The collection is intended to show examples of Clark County’s transforming landscape over time.

Mapping Clark County is a collaborative effort between the CCHM, the WSU Vancouver Library and WSU Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections (MASC).

Wooden wheel with spokes, small boat and steering wheel in background, Clark County Historic Museum
Wooden wheel with spokes, small boat and steering wheel in background, Clark County Historic Museum

The Landerholm Chronicles

The Vancouver Area Chronology is an index of local and regional newspaper articles from the years 1784 to 1958. The chronology was compiled by Carl Landerholm in the 1950s and then updated to electronic format in 2002.

The volume includes an extensive subject list pertaining to local historical events and notes of interest. Each entry gives a brief abstract of the article.