Oregon Digital Newspaper Program Menu

This month, for Women’s History Month, we would like to highlight some of the history that can be found in the newspapers available on the Historic Oregon Newspapers website. There is plenty of news to be found, both related to individual historical figures as well as larger movements or events related to women in Oregon. Perhaps one of the more fascinating things to read about is the history of women’s suffrage in Oregon. Before women had the right to vote on a national level, Oregon allowed women to vote in state elections starting in 1912. You can read more about this part of our past in this previous blog post: Oregon Women’s Suffrage Centennial.

One particular figure from this movement crops up quite a bit: Abigail Scott Duniway. She was an early advocate for women’s rights, as well as publisher for the newspaper The New Northwest. From 1871 to 1887, this newspaper was dedicated to women’s rights and issues, particularly the right to vote. It was an early proponent for women’s suffrage and one of the movement’s most vocal supporters. Looking through issues of the newspaper allows for a glimpse of the evolution of this movement during that time period.

Other newspapers also provide a peek at the lives of women in Oregon and across the country in the 1800s and early 1900s. For example, The Oregon Scout from Union occasionally featured a column called “Woman’s World,” which highlighted various areas of women’s life during that era. Some would focus on domestic life, giving an idea of what life was like at home for many women. Others would discuss the growing career opportunities available to women. Some of these stories were pulled from newspapers elsewhere, providing a glimpse at life not just in Oregon, but in the rest of the United States as well.

For those interested in using some of these newspaper materials in K-12 classroom lessons, check out our lesson plan on Abigail Scott Duniway and Women’s Suffrage, which is tailored to Oregon Common Core state standards. All of our historic newspapers on the website can also be browsed and searched by keyword thanks to optical character recognition (OCR), allowing for easy research for those who want to learn more about women’s history in Oregon. In addition, content can be downloaded as a PDF or JPEG file and saved for future reference or research purposes. All of these services are free and open to the public, so don’t wait and take a look at Oregon’s historic newspapers today!

In honor of Black History Month, the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program would like to highlight some of the African American newspapers available in our digital collections! These newspapers range from historic titles such as The New Age (1896-1905), to contemporary papers such as The Skanner and the Portland Observer.

The New Age (1896-1905), an African American owned paper published by A.D. Griffin, highlights the active Black community in Portland’s history. A.D. Griffin was an avid Republican during his period as publisher of The New Age, and many of his editorial pieces discuss the political involvement of Portland’s Black community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oregon Historic Newspapers is seeking to digitize additional Black-owned and operated newspapers in Oregon’s history. The titles we are currently hoping to digitize are The Advocate (1923-1933), The Times (1911-1912), the Portland Inquirer (1944-46), the Oregon Mirror (1962), and the Portland Challenger (1952-1953). If digitized, these titles, as with all newspapers digitized by ODNP, would be freely accessible to the public and could be browsed and searched by keyword online. In addition, all content could be downloaded as a PDF or JPEG file and saved for future reference or research purposes. If you are interested in the digitization of any of these titles, please contact us here!

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We had a lot of changes in 2017!  

• The Historic Oregon Newspapers website underwent a system migration and design update. New features include an “On This Day in History” homepage showcase, an updated map and locations list, a calendar that allows users to browse by date, and an improved look-and-feel to the website. For more information on making the best of these new features, check out the new guide for using the updated website. 
• We created a fundraising guide to assist users who want to fund digitization of newspapers. The guide has resources, strategies, and grant writing best practices. 
• Over 71,000 pages were added this year! 
• We’ve featured stories on our blog from users of the website and shared their research and publications that feature ODNP newspapers. Recently, we added research from UO graduate student Jessica Sokolowski about her use of the newspapers for understanding the public reception of tax reform.  

2018 will bring more exciting additions for Historic Oregon Newspapers! Some things to look forward to include a genealogy research guide and continued improvement to the interface and usability of the website.  

Please let us know if you have any suggestions for content you would like to see this year! 

Thank you for supporting the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program! 

– Carolina and Sarah 

Bert Dunn, an avid Oregon Digital Newspaper Program supporter and contributor, will soon publish a book on Coquille, Oregon that uses ODNP newspapers for source material. It will be published by Arcadia Publishing as part of their “Images of America” series, and it will feature about 200 pictures and captions, as well as chapter narratives.

Bert described his searches on Historic Oregon Newspapers and how he used the website:

“I have been using the UO site to search for information on early sawmills, creameries and other businesses and individuals related to Coquille’s past.”

“As I work to write for a book about my hometown of Coquille, I have found the UO Digital Newspaper website to be an essential tool. I am consistently finding new information that fills gaps in our stories. Not only am I able to search my hometown papers for historic content but many other papers in the state in the same search. The search tools are flexible and powerful. With the papers fully digitized, even ads are preserved offering additional information about business products and services.”

“I really appreciate this UO service.  [Above] is one example of an ad from the Coquille City Herald, June 17, 1884.”

Thank you, Bert, and we look forward to reading your book!

Do you have a publication or project that uses newspaper content from ODNP? Let us know and we will feature it!

 

Yesterday, the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program launched the new website for Historic Oregon Newspapers. Developed from the Open-ONI initiative, the new site has an updated look-and-feel that’s easier to navigate and more consistent with web presence of UO Libraries. It also has a “This Day in History” feature that showcases a different newspaper every day that corresponds with that day’s date. New functions include browsing by date with the Calendar and an improved Advanced Search. An updated Map, along with a Location list, allows for simplified title access by city. Along with the updated site, we have developed a fundraising how-to guide to assist the public with funding their newspaper digitization. Several digitization projects are underway. We are frequently adding new stories and updates to the blog, so check back regularly!

Today, we are featured on the Digital Library Federation website as part of their Contribute Series!

Thank you to Jeremy Echols, Linda Sato, Duncan Barth, Azle Malinao-Alvarez, Tyler Stewart, and Holli Kubly for their hard work and contributions to the website!

If you have any questions or feedback, please contact us.

-Carolina and Sarah

If you think direct-to-consumer prescription medication advertising is bad today, take a look at the historic newspapers we have digitized on the Oregon Historic Newspapers website! Likely, if you have taken the time to peruse just a few issues, you will have noticed an overabundance of strange medication advertisements.

In the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, a lack of adequate medical care in combination with few government regulations resulted in a flurry of business called the patent medicine industry. These questionable concoctions promised lofty claims, and in large part helped fund Oregon’s early newspapers through their advertisements.

 

 

Merchants had little obligation to truthfully describe the contents and effectiveness of their products, creating tonics, pills, and syrups that often contained dangerous substances such as opium, morphine, cocaine, and alcohol. While consumers might have found temporary relief from these ingredients, patent medicines were an unfortunate cause of accidental overdose, intoxication and addiction.

 

 

Next time you are on the Oregon Historic Newspapers website reading your favorite historic papers, take notice of the patent medicine advertisements on the side of the page; I’m sure you’ll find something that surprises you!

 

This fiscal year we added 87,606 pages of historic and currently published newspapers to the ODNP site!

We made improvements to the system and workflow for handling currently published e-editions of newspapers, and we are looking forward to adding more content this next year. There are several digitization projects underway!

Also, we have a few exciting additions to the goals of ODNP for next year:

To assist the public with fundraising for historic newspaper digitization, we will be creating a fundraising how-to guide with resources, strategies, and grant writing best practices for users of ODNP around the state to fund newspaper digitization.

We are also looking forward to updating the website with better usability, features, and search functionalities. The new blog header, designed by Azle Malinao-Alvarez, provides a small preview of the upcoming updates to the look and feel.

Please be sure to check the blog frequently for new posts. This year, we will be focusing on finding connections between the ODNP collections and other UO Library collections in our Special Collections and University Archives and Oregon Digital. See our most recent blog post by our student Jane Conway, which features Colonel John “Watermelon” Redington (1851-1935), an Oregon scout turned newspaper editor.

Thanks to the ODNP team for their hard work and agility this year as we have been refining the digital and born-digital processes and workflows. A special thank you to our programmer, Jeremy, and our production manager, Randy, who have worked the hardest on this project to create better systems for quality assurance.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please let us know!

-Sarah and Carolina

The Oregon Free Press, published for only a year in 1848 by George L. Curry, is the second oldest newspaper in the state. Originally an employee of Oregon’s first published newspaper, the Oregon Spectator, Curry began the Free Press after a falling out with the editor. However, the periodicals curious amount of inconsistencies with the letter “w” is perhaps one of the more interesting nuances of this early Oregonian newspaper.

Starting up a newspaper during the early pioneering days of the Oregon territory was no easy feat, and Curry struggled with acquiring the supplies he needed. As a consequence of the difficulty of acquiring goods and services, the letter “w” in the Oregon Free Press has a variety of forms.

Pictured in the clippings below, the letter ‘w’ has either been formed by a normal piece of type, two ‘v’s’, or whittled out of wood by Curry himself.

 

The press in which Curry printed with was at one point owned by Catholic Missionaries operating in the Oregon Territory. The variations in the letter “w” can be attributed to its seldom use in French, the common language the missionaries printed in. Thus Curry, forced to accommodate for the lack of “w’s” used a combination of the above methods in his newspaper editions.

The Oregon Free Press offers fascinating insight into the struggles pioneers faced in the early years of Oregon. To read more about this newspaper title, check out ODNP’s essay on the paper here You can also read full issues of the title on our site here.

Written in reference to:

Turnbull, George S. History of Oregon Newspapers. Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1939.

It’s been an exciting and eventful year for ODNP! We have added more historical newspaper content to the site. For current newspaper submissions, we have refined the process and workflow, and we are looking forward to adding more titles this upcoming year. We also won the Oregon Heritage Excellence Award!

We have had staffing changes. Sheila Rabun left the University of Oregon in August 2016 to become the Community and Communications Officer for IIIF, the International Image Interoperability Framework. Her years of service and the advancement of ODNP have been invaluable- thank you for everything, Sheila!

To fill her shoes, Carolina Hernandez, Journalism and Communication Librarian, and Sarah Seymore, Digital Collections Metadata Librarian, are now the primary contacts for ODNP. Carolina’s roles will be in research, outreach, collection development, and instruction for the ODNP content. Sarah is the primary contact for technical questions for submissions, digitization, ingest, and other back-end management and concerns. Please email us with any questions at cahernan@uoregon.edu and sseymore@uoregon.edu.

Our goals for 2017 are those of increasing our impact with greater access, promotion, and use of our collections. We call on your help to do this by spreading the word about the program and the importance of digitizing and preserving this content. Do you have stories about the impact of ODNP at your institution and for your patrons? Please let us know as we will be featuring user stories on our blog throughout the year! Moreover, we want to know: what do you want to see from ODNP this year? Let us know and share your stories!

Promotion of the services of ODNP is vital, and offering free, open access to content of historical record is important and necessary. ODNP would not be possible without the support of our subscribers and submitters. Thank you for helping us preserve Oregon history and stay tuned to the blog for more in the year ahead!

Greetings from the University of Oregon Libraries’ Oregon Digital Newspaper Program (ODNP)! We have been so busy lately, that we are just now announcing the exciting news – the ODNP has been awarded a 2016 Oregon Heritage Excellence Award from the Oregon Heritage Commission! Recognition, praise, and a beautiful ceramic plaque featuring the Oregon state capital building were presented to ODNP representatives on May 5, 2016 at the historic Reed Opera House in Salem as part of the 2016 Oregon Heritage Conference.

We are thrilled to receive this award and recognition! Special thanks to all of the ODNP Advisory Board members who have helped us determine priority content for digitization over the years, all of the partners that we have worked with to add content to the Historic Oregon Newspapers site, all of the staff involved in the ODNP since its inception in 2009.