N is for Newspapers - 2017 A to Z Challenge

Old newspapers give us a glimpse into the everyday lives of our ancestors.  Not to mention that it’s a lot of fun to browse through them.

In years past, newspapers printed the same kinds of news that we find in today’s papers. The volume of information was, as today, dependent on the location and size of the paper’s circulation base.  They covered local, national and international politics, business, events, and sports. There were legal notices and accounts of court proceedings.

Social events were described in flowery language.

There were commercial ads and classified ads.

There were human interest articles and stories.

What were the local issues of the day?  What was happening that affected your ancestors?  Were streets being paved?  Street car tracks being laid? Land being annexed to the city?  What kinds of entertainment were available?

History books tell of significant events, but newspapers tell us about everyday life.

Here are some online sources for historic newspapers

Chronicling America  - FREE

This is a collaboration between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for  the Humanities.

Newspapers.com – Subscription

Genealogy Bank - Subscription

Told in a Line – January 23, 1884

The St. Paul and Minneapolis Pioneer newspaper of January 23, 1884 included a feature called “Told in a Line”.  It was simply a list of one-line news items. 

 Some are very straightforward:

West Point has another negro cadet.

The Greely relief bill passed the house.

St. Louis has 8,000 idle iron mill men.

But a few of them are quite curious:

Mrs. Colton has more letters in reserve.

Was she the Vanna White of 1884?

Senator Allison is practically re-ellected

Almost re-elected? Re-elected in a practical manner?

Steubenville, Ohio has caught a wild man.

Jim Nutt was not too insane – just insane enough.

Mrs. Nicholson is feeling for the major’s property.

How insane is “just insane enough”?

And I think this one line tells me more than I want to know about Mrs. Nicholson. Whatever does that one line mean?

The More Things Change.....

The more they stay the same.   Two very brief newspaper clippings:

Politics:

Terrorism:

Either of these could likely appear in one of today's newspapers. But they appeared 132 years ago in the St. Paul, Minnesota Daily Globe edition dated April 20, 1884.

!!!!!

Runaway Horses, Dateline Constantinople, and Dog Skin Gloves

I am on a quest to try to understand what life was like for my ancestors. My research includes looking at old newspapers.

My great grandfather Michael Schipp arrived in the US in April, 1884 and settled in St. Paul, Minnesota. Looking online at ChroniclingAmerica I found no digitized papers for April of that year, so I took a look at the St. Paul Globe for January 31, 1884.

 Although it was only 8 pages, it had 7 columns per page that included local, national and international news. Of particular interest in St. Paul was news about agricultural markets and railroads.  Farm products from Minnesota and the Dakotas came through St. Paul for shipment farther east.  St Paul was a hub of the expanding railroad industry.  Passenger train schedules were published daily.

Page 2 of this issue had a story about a  “Terriffic Runaway” (sic).  Four children of James J. Hill (railroad baron) and their nurse were riding in a sleigh when their horses were spooked by shingles falling from a scaffolding. The driver was unable to regain control and the sleigh eventually overturned. Must have been truly “terriffying”. (There were only minor injuries.)

A column titled “The Old World” had short items from around the globe.

Local news included listing court cases.

And individual comings and goings that were sent in to the editor.

There were blurbs about statewide happenings. Oyster and ice cream??? Eaten separately, I hope.  

There weren’t many ads, but a couple of them caught my eye. 

And a clothing retailer that advertised dog skin gloves.  In case you cannot read it, here's the text:

"A Valuable Dog Lost!

And large reward offered for his recovery; but he never came back, as he was made into a pair of beautiful Dog-Skin Gloves, which we are selling at One Dollar a Pair. They are worth more money."

You can't make this stuff up!

Chronicling America: Newspapers – Part two

Chronicling America is FREE and easy to use. I’m not an expert user, but if you haven’t visited this site, you may find this post helpful.

Chronicling America website is the result of the NationalDigital Newspaper Project sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Library of Congress. More information is available on the site.

The home screen has three tabs on the left of the screen and on the right is the button to see the entire 1690 to present directory of newspapers.

Search Pages

This tab allows you to search papers from a specific state or from all states. Select the range of years desired. Type in the name or word to search for. 

 The image below shows some of the results of my search in Minnesota papers for the surname Muccio from the years 1890 – 1922.

Red highlights the occurrences of the name. Clicking on a page enlarges it and provides tools for zooming in and out; and viewing other pages of the same issue.

Advanced Search

Gives many options for making your search more specific as shown below.

All Digitized Newspapers 1836-1922

Allows you to select papers from a specific state, those aimed at a specific ethnicity, and/or printed in a specific language.

NOTE:   The above searches look only at those papers that have been digitized.  There are more than 11 million searchable pages at this time.  More are being added as the digitizing process goes on.

Search U.S. Newspaper Directory, 1690 – Present

The directory lists all papers from 1690 including those that have not yet been digitized.  You can browse by newspaper title or select state, county and city and years of publication.

 The image below shows a partial list of papers published in Cincinnati, Ohio. Clicking on the title will give more information about it.

One note of caution: It is easy to get completely wrapped up in reading these old newspapers.  They’re a snapshot of our ancestors’ lives.

History of the Rest of Us: Newspapers – Part One

Volumes are written about individuals who had significant impact on our world. It is easy to learn about kings and conquerors and prominent scientists, inventors, politicians and business leaders.   But what about the rest of us?

What about the laborers, tradesmen, merchants, farmers, homemakers?  What were the local implications of historic events? How was everyday life affected by political realignments or troop movements, or inventions or even weather?

Newspapers.  That’s the best answer I’ve found so far.  Many of us scour newspapers for obituaries, birth and wedding announcement, etc. But don’t neglect to look at the entire paper.  You’ll find the entire spectrum of life.  More than just the hard news, there are cultural events, ads showing styles of clothing and home furnishings, opinion pages and even comics in some papers.

Our ancestors were more quickly affected by local events than by national events. The newspaper is where you’ll find the things that were shaping their everyday lives.  And don’t forget foreign language papers. I recently wrote about finding obituaries in Chicago’s Czech language paper.

Local historical societies generally retain newspaper archives.  If they’ve been microfilmed, you may be able to borrow them via inter-library loan to avoid travel expenses.

Chronicling America is a wonderful online resource for digitized newspapers from 1836 through 1922. (Copyright laws prohibit later issues.)  There is also a directory of US newspapers dating from 1690 to the present.

The best part is that these digitized papers are searchable!  Select the state and the range of years; then type in the surname that you’re looking for, and press the search button.  If that name appears, you’ll see it and the entire page on which it is mentioned.

My next post will be some detail about using Chronicling America.