Yes they did, to help digitize Google Books and archives of NYT -- (from wikipedia) "The system helped to digitize the archives of The New York Times, and was subsequently used by Google Books for similar purposes" [0][1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReCAPTCHA

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/science/29recaptcha.html