Over the course of the ODNP project, I have been collecting historical quotes about newspapers and the newspaper business. I thought this would be a good time to share some of my favorites with readers of the blog… Enjoy!
"Newsboys Of The Street," from Portland Sunday Oregonian, May 22, 1904, p.11
“This is what really happened, reported by a free press to a free people. It is the raw material of history; it is the story of our own times.” Henry Steel Commager
“Newspapers cannot be defined by the second word—paper. They’ve got to be defined by the first word—news.” Arthur Sulzberg, Jr.
“A good newspaper is a nation talking to itself.” Arthur Miller
“The newspaper is a greater treasure to the people than uncounted millions of gold.” Henry Ward Beecher
“Were it left to me to decide if we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” Thomas Jefferson
Newspaper typesetter from the era of hand composition. Photo from Morning Oregonian, December 4, 1900, p.15
“Most of us probably feel we couldn’t be free without newspapers, and that is the real reason we want newspapers to be free.” Edward R. Murrow
“People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.” Marshall McLuhan
“Every time a newspaper dies, even a bad one, the country moves a little closer to authoritarianism…” Richard Kluger
“I’d love to rise from the grave every ten years or so and go buy a few newspapers.” Luis Bunuel
“All I know is what I read in the papers.” Will Rogers
Though their presence in the historical record has often been overlooked, Native Hawaiians actually began coming to Oregon during the earliest periods of Territorial settlement.
"A Kanaka Belle" from Portland Sunday Oregonian, May 21, 1905, p.41. Although it was sometimes used as such, "Kanaka" was not inherently a racial slur. In fact, it comes from the Native Hawaiians' own term of self-identification, kanaka maoli.
In 1811, there were 24 “Sandwich Islanders” among the crew of men sent by John Jacob Astor to establish his trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River. One of these men was Naukane, known to the Euro-Americans of the Northwest as ‘John Cox’ (sometimes ‘Coxe’). Cox would later be remembered as “a bold and trustworthy fellow… a prodigy of wit and humor” (Alexander Ross, Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813, p.115). He was the first Polynesian person to travel into the Northwest interior, accompanying David Thompson on a voyage up the Columbia and helping to establish the Pacific Fur Company’s first inland post, Spokane House. Later, his travels on behalf of the company would take him to Montana, across the continent to Montreal, over the Atlantic to England, and eventually all the way around the globe, back to the Pacific.
Portrait of "Old Cox, Sandwich Islander" by Paul Kane, 1847. Courtesy of Royal Ontario Museum (Image No. 946.15.271)
Throughout the subsequent decades, Hawaiians continued to work in significant numbers for the northwestern fur trapping companies. At Fort Vancouver and other posts, Polynesians were valued for their skills as swimmers, navigators, boat builders, fishers, and strong manual laborers. They generally signed two- or three-year employment contracts. Most returned to the Islands after completing their term of service, but a not insignificant number settled permanently on the mainland. These people have left a legacy in Oregon place names, such as Kanaka Flats in Jacksonville (Kanaka means ‘person’ in Hawaiian language) and the Owyhee River in southeastern Oregon (Owyhee is an archaic spelling of Hawaii). According to research of the National Park Service, Native Hawaiians also played a significant role in helping to establish the Whitman Mission in 1836.
It is important to keep in mind that, even though Oregon was a mainland territory settled by Euro-American pioneers, for much of the nineteenth century it was much further “off the beaten track” of world commerce and international communication than was Hawaii. This is evident in issue #12 of Oregon’s first newspaper, the Oregon Spectator, where the editors acknowledge that the international news printed on page one was culled from “Sandwich Island papers.” Items on page 2 of the same issue point to the sometimes competitive nature of the relationship between Oregon Territory and the Hawaiian Islands, as both locales were vying for favored position in the lucrative trans-Pacific shipping trade. The Spectator diffidently notes that the editor of one Hawaii paper, the Polynesian, “…thinks the Americans have attached to Oregon an importance it never did possess.”
"Harbor at Honolulu," from Portland Sunday Oregonian, Aug 07, 1904, p.33
Throughout the territorial and early statehood periods, there was but scant journalistic treatment of the Hawaiian people living on the mainland. Almost always referred to as “Kanakas” in Oregon papers, they generally received press coverage only when they were involved in crimes. Reports of brawls between members of different minority groups were a journalistic mainstay of this period–see one violent example from the May 19, 1860 Jacksonville Oregon Sentinel. In times of Indian unrest, settlers of Southern Oregon sometimes viewed the Native Hawaiians in their midst with outright suspicion. “There were several Kanakas with the Modocs who were advising the Indians to kill the whites and prevent them from surveying and settling their land,” reported the Sentinel on June 26, 1858.
Occasionally, certain aptitudes and attributes of Hawaiians would be praised in print. For example, in the Daily Morning Astorian of March 7, 1884 was published an exposé on ‘Sailors Who Cannot Swim.’ In this piece, a retired whaler captain observes: “The Kanakas are the best swimmers in the world. They all swim at the Sandwich Islands, men, women, babies…”
"Hula Hula Dancing Girls," from Portland Sunday Oregonian, June 11, 1905, p.44
By the early 1900’s, with Hawaii now firmly ensconced within the United States’ sphere of influence, we find evidence in the Oregon papers of increasing interest with regards the Islands and their people. In May of 1905, for example, the Portland Oregonian dispatched a correspondent to Honolulu. This reporter, Frederic J. Haskin, filed a number of weekly reports from the Islands before moving on to Asia. In terms of approaching the indigenous culture, probably the most valuable story was the June 11 piece, ‘Folk-Lore and Legends of Old Hawaii.’ Fascination with Island Lore was not limited to adults: on September 24 of the same year, the Oregonian also published in its Sunday children’s pages an adventure story titled ‘Okame, the Hawaiian Shark Hunter.’
King Kamehameha Kills a Shark--not an entirely accurate depiction of Native Hawaiian costume or weaponry; never mind shark anatomy! From Portland Sunday Oregonian, September 24, 1905, p.46
The rise of the American middle class in the early decades of the 20th century further fueled this burgeoning interest. More people than ever had sufficient income and leisure time for travel, and it was at this time that Hawaii began to develop its reputation as a “tropical paradise” tourist destination. From Oregon ports, the Islands were particularly accessible, even in the days before commercial airline travel. An item in the May 27, 1914 Klamath Falls Evening Herald announced ‘Ladies To Give Hawaiian Tea’. “Hawaiian melodies, Hawaiian costumes, and Hawaiian refreshments” were to be featured at the event; some of the society ladies who had visited the Islands were also scheduled to read papers they had prepared about their vacations. Another item of interest from this period is ‘Hawaiian Play “Bird Of Paradise” At Page Friday’, from the Medford Mail Tribune of November 12, 1913. The reviewer reports that this drama offers an authentic and unsentimental view of life in the Islands–though his description of the plot strongly suggests otherwise.
While much of this popular-cultural interest in Hawaii and Polynesia was no doubt sincere, we cannot escape the impression that it often proceeded from rather condescending attitudes of romanticized exoticism. In fact, these stories demonstrate the turn-of-the-century roots of a “South Pacific chic” that would culminate in the kitschy “Tiki Bar” fad of the 1940’s and 50’s. These retro lounges are now enjoying a contemporary revival in Portland, as elsewhere.
Pseudo-Hawaiian Cocktail Kitsch: Inside the original Trader Vic's restaurant and lounge in Portland's Benson Hotel. Mai Tais were served here from 1959 until the doors were closed in 1996. Vintage postcard image.
From the sailors of yesteryear to the hipsters of today, there have always been Oregonians who are inclined to “get inked.” The Oregon-centric IFC sketch comedy series Portlandia has gone so far as to declare this the place where “the tattoo ink never runs dry”–and even a brief stroll around Stumptown would probably convince any visitor that tattooing has never enjoyed greater popularity in the Beaver State than it does today. That impression is most likely correct, but Historic Oregon Newspapers confirms that our interest in tattoos goes back much further.
Tattooed sailor William Legg, from Medford Mail Tribune, October 3, 1912, p. 2. Note 'The Last Supper' on his stomach.
According to textual and archaeological sources, tattooing is an art form that has been practiced for thousands of years in practically every region of the globe. It had even been widely utilized by European peoples in bygone times–ancient Greeks, Gauls, Saxons, Scythians, Thracians and Britons all adorned their bodies in this fashion–but, by the early Middle Ages, the art form had been all but forgotten in the West. It would not be rediscovered until the Age of Exploration, when Europeans first came into contact with Polynesians, Inuit and American Indians. In fact, the word ‘tatau’ (meaning ‘to mark’) comes to us from the Tahitian language; it was first recorded in the journals of Captain Cook during his Pacific voyage of 1769. (Many of Cook’s journal observations on indigenous tattooing cultures of the Pacific Rim can be found online here.)
"Black stains upon the skin called tattow": Designs worn by indigenous people of New Zealand, sketched by Sydney Parkinson during Cook's voyage of 1769. Image courtesy of the British Library.
One hundred years after Cook’s voyage, the South Seas Islanders’ traditional practice of tattooing remained an ethnographic curiosity, often remarked upon by observers from the West–as in ‘The Singular Samoans,’ a Salem Evening Capital Journal article dated March 11, 1889. However, even as the mainstream of Euro-American society continued to view tattoos as primitive, mysterious and even a little dangerous, certain Western subcultures were already beginning to adopt the practice by the latter half of the 1800’s. Primary among these were sailors and soldiers. Naturally, these professions were the ones that brought European men into contact with non-European cultures in those distant parts of the world–Africa, East Asia, Polynesia, etc.–where the tattooist’s art was still a living tradition. The first Western people to be tattooed in more than six centuries were inked by indigenous artists. Eventually, some of the soldiers and sailors learned the craft and brought it back to the ports of Europe and America. Tattoos are truly an antique commodity of global cultural exchange.
Illustration from Portland Sunday Oregonian, May 6, 1900, Section 2, p. 19
The earliest story about tattoo art in a digitized Oregon newspaper is ‘An Admirer of Washington in Trouble,’ from the Jacksonville Oregon Sentinel of December 10, 1870. The story tells how a notorious Portland criminal named Shultz could most easily be identified by “the effigy of [George] Washington on horseback, tattooed upon his breast, in India ink… Doubtless Shultz now regrets this indiscretion into which he was lead in his youth.” Here we have probably the first Oregonian ever to rue an impulsive tattoo decision–a sentiment to which many contemporary Oregonians still can relate!
A couple decades later, an influential sermon by Reverend Thomas DeWitt Talmage was reprinted in the Capital Journal on November 13, 1893. The text of this oration provides good evidence that tattooed Americans were already becoming a familiar sight by this time. For Talmage preached: “You have seen a sailor roll up his sleeve and show you his arm tattooed with the figure of a favorite ship… You have seen a soldier roll up his sleeve and show you his arm tattooed with the picture of a fortress where he was garrisoned… You have seen many a hand tattooed with the face of a loved one either before or after marriage… Now, God says that he has tattooed us upon his hands.”
"Sweetheart-and-spiderweb" back piece popular with English officers during the Boer War. From Portland Sunday Oregonian, January 7, 1900, p. 16
By the turn of the 20th century, the Portland Oregonian is reporting on “the tattooing craze which has overspread all England.” The issue of January 7th, 1900 recounts that the fad began among aristocratic young men serving in the Boer War, but now “[it] is growing and spreading among civilians.” The article specifically alludes to one tattooed guardsman “who bears a title known the world over.” This seems to be a coy way for the editors to demonstrate that the trend indeed has reached the highest levels of society, but without going so far as to name names of the participating rich and powerful. (They are quite possibly referring to Edward, Prince of Wales. See below.) Tattooing was, after all, still regarded by most readers as exotic and fairly scandalous business. Another Oregonian piece from later in the same year puts forth the then-novel notion that tattoos, at their best, might rise to the level of fine art.
"London's New Fad" from Klamath Falls Evening Herald, June 9, 1922, p.1
As the Evening Herald item pictured above indicates, tattoo art would continue to go in and out of style at various times throughout the 20th century. In 1922, even the ladies were getting in on the act, and more conservative-minded commentators were once again concerned that “it threatens to spread to America.” So the pattern was set: in the decades to follow, the tattoo “fad” would continue to wax and wane in popularity with the general public, right up to the latest revival that is still going strong today.
ODNP had an eventful week to kick off the month of April! Both the Oregon Heritage Conference and the Oregon Library Association’s annual conference were scheduled at this time, and (with a little creative itinerary-juggling) ODNP staff were in attendance at both events.
Our Quality Control Specialist, John Taylor, started things off on Thursday morning, April 7th, with a ‘Showcase’ table session at OLA in Salem. The next day, John returned to Salem with Karen Estlund, ODNP Project Coordinator, and the two collaborated to present a talk and slide show. Geared to a specialist audience of librarians from throughout the state, Karen and John’s presentation concentrated on process and technical matters–METS, ALTO, OCR–the “nuts and bolts” of running a major digitization project in an academic library.
While they were busy in Salem, Project Manager Jason Stone was in attendance April 7-9 at the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department’s annual Heritage Conference. The conference was held this year in Astoria, as that historic Oregon community is celebrating its bicentennial in 2011. Jason represented ODNP in the Premier Plenary Session of “leading players on the Oregon heritage stage,” and he was also a panelist for a featured discussion, ‘Heritage Collaborations the Statewide Way.’ Even more than talking about ODNP, Jason enjoyed attending various conference sessions and listening to heritage stars from throughout the State of Oregon and beyond.
Historic Liberty Theater in downtown Astoria: the site of many OHC 2011 events. (Photo courtesy of Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce)
Karen, John and Jason came away with some new insights and fresh ideas for moving ODNP forward. Best of all, it was another great opportunity to share the news about Historic Oregon Newspapers with the professional communities of librarians and historical preservationists. We found that many were already regular visitors of our Beta site. Word is definitely getting out!
Distinguished Cats, Portland Sunday Oregonian, December 25, 1904
Can’t cite a peer-reviewed study for this… But I once heard an Old Librarians’ Tale that the three most common subject searches by library patrons worldwide were ‘Cats,’ ‘Golf’ and ‘Hitler’ (in that order.) Therefore, please regard this latest post as ODNP’s experiment in internet search engine optimization.
Researchers seeking information on first peoples of the Northwest will discover a wealth of relevant material in Historic Oregon Newspapers. Entering the word ‘Indian’ in our web site’s search engine currently turns up 2,852 page hits–and there will be still more material coming as further titles are digitized and added to the site. While these stories provide a wealth of valuable knowledge, they must always be regarded and weighed in light of historical context.
"Lightering Freight From Steamer To Shore" via Native longboat, from Portland Oregonian, May 1, 1904, p.32
The relationship between indigenous Oregonians and the Euro-American settlers who began arriving in 1811 evolved along much the same pattern as we find in other regions of the country. Beginning in early editions of the state’s first newspapers, Oregon journalists have devoted not inconsiderable column space to stories about American Indian people, events and issues. No one could reasonably say that Indians were ‘invisible’ to the historic press in Oregon. However, serious questions concerning accuracy, integrity and inclusiveness begin to arise when we consider the tone and coverage of much of this material. Most newspaper writing from the period covered by our digitization(1846-1923) comes larded with the common and unfortunate prejudices of the day, and practically all of it is told from the point of view of Euro-Americans.
"Chief Doloose of the Coos Bay Indians: An Old Friend Of White Settlers." From Sunday Oregonian, March 18, 1900, p.19
The very first issue of Oregon’s first newspaper–the February 5, 1846 Oregon City Oregon Spectator–includes an item concerning native people: it reports that Doctor White, recently appointed Indian Agent for Oregon Territory, has been waylaid by Sioux on his journey west. As Oregon Trail pioneers continued to set out from the east in ever-growing numbers, the April 29, 1847 Spectatoroffered advice to prospective newcomers: “Treat the Indians kindly along the road, but trust them not.”
Cobless corn of the "teosante" type first domesticated and improved by American Indians. From Medford Mail Tribune, April 19, 1914, Second Edition Supplement, p.11
Press coverage often turned overtly hostile during the various Indian Wars of the territorial and early statehood periods. For example, on April 26, 1873, the Jacksonville Oregon Sentinel editorializes in favor of forcefully disarming all Indians on reservations and aggressively waging the Lava Beds War with the Modocs in Southern Oregon. The author writes: “The milk-eyed, sentimental, blubber-hearted fellows of the East who never saw an Indian are besieging the President with letters, imploring him to be merciful with the Indians, and not exterminate them on account of the treachery of the Modocs.”
A few decades later, with the wars resolved in the newcomers’ favor and all Oregon’s first peoples now pacified under a system of treaties and reservations, we can observe a dramatic shift in the tone of journalistic coverage. An idealized, romanticized view of the American Indian begins to be promulgated in the dominant society–‘Indians’ as cherished and colorful role-players in the emerging mythology of the ‘Old West.’ Former enemies who were once scorned now appear as revered elder statesmen of a bygone era: see ‘Joseph in Wallowa’ from the June 24, 1900 Portland Sunday Oregonian. Also popular in the newspapers of this period are nostalgic and rose-tinted reminiscences of White-Native relations during earlier times. Witness another item from the Sunday Oregonian (1905), ‘John Davenport, An Oregonian Whom The Indians Loved Because He Never Told Them A Lie.’
"Honest" John Davenport gets some love. Illustration from Portland Sunday Oregonian, June 11, 1905, p.39
Thankfully, another point of view begins to emerge in the early decades of the 20th century–just in time to fall within the scope of our digitization project. For lack of a better or more all-encompassing term, this frame of mind may be labeled ‘proto-Anthropological.’ Although still fraught with their own biases and blind spots, stories written from this point of view provide some of the earliest examples of a less ethnocentric, more rigorous approach to documenting the heritage, history and life-ways of indigenous peoples. Two more samples from the pages of the Portland Oregonian: a story from 1900 entitled ‘Festivities of The Buck Moon on Umatilla Reservation’, and a 1905 photographic feature, ‘Stone Implements Used By The Oregon Indians.’
Photo from Pendleton East Oregonian, February 9, 1897 (Special Edition) p.3
Another type of story that is common throughout the digitized run of papers is the more dry and news-like reportage of legal issues and government affairs relating to the administration of Indian treaties, reservations and schools. From the Daily Astorian in 1884 comes ‘Northwestern Indians: What the Indians require and what the government must pay.’ In 1905, the Oregonian covered a Portland-area conference on the reform of Indian Schools. In a stroke of irony that was no doubt unintended–but nonetheless may be savored by those who are familiar with the checkered early history of Bureau of Indian Affairs education policy–this story ran beneath a large photograph of the crowd at Barnum & Bailey’s circus, coincidentally doing business in town that very same week. —Jason A. Stone
Sherman Institute (Indian school in Riverside, CA) varsity football team that played a tie game with Multnomah in 1905. Image from the Sunday Oregonian, November 19, 1905, Section 2, pg.17.
Salmonid fishes can be found in subarctic waters worldwide. However, for more than a century, “salmon” have been virtually synonymous with the Pacific Northwest. In fact, the Chinook Salmon is the official State Fish of Oregon–drivers may even choose to display this magnificent creature on their bumpers:
Official Oregon DMV Salmon license plate design.
An historical essay published in the Daily Morning Astorian on January 29, 1887 suggests that the salmon might have played a small but important role in Oregon’s ever becoming an America territory. Entitled ‘The Boundary Question. How the Oregon Trouble was Settled and the Country was Saved From War,’ this article relates that a man named Gordon, commander of the English man-of-war America, concurred with John McLaughlin’s assessment that the Columbia River country was ‘not worth a war’ with the United States. Remarkably, the article reports that the commander’s dismissive opinion was based upon his observation, “…being fond of angling, the salmon would not rise to the fly. A country where the fish were not lively enough for his sport was, in his estimation, worthless.”
Chinook people dip-netting salmon at Willamette Falls, 1841. Image from collection of University of Washington Library.
Whatever the quality of sport on offer, at the time of the first Euro-American settlement, the salmon fisheries of the Pacific Northwest seemed literally inexhaustible. Millions of fish averaging thirty pounds and more made the annual spawning run up Oregon’s numerous coastal rivers. They were an important food resource for both indigenous peoples and the pioneer settlers. In fact, the fish were so abundant that people often kept only the choicest cuts of meat and threw the rest away! The first commercial harvest of salmon by Euro-American settlers in Oregon occurred in 1823. Many thousands were caught every year thereafter, but for a while it seemed as if all the people in Oregon would never be able to eat enough salmon to put even a small dent in the overall population of fish.
'One Boat's Catch of Coos Bay Chinooks.' From Marshfield Daily Coast Mail, January 7, 1904, p. 12
But then, by the 1860s, new inventions and improvements in food canning technology suddenly made it possible for Oregon businesses to preserve the catch and transport it for sale to markets around the globe. It was at this time that canned ‘Pacific Salmon’ became a popular staple of the American diet, available on grocery shelves almost everywhere.
Can label of White Star Packing Company, Astoria, 1885.
The Oregon newspaper titles presently available on Chronicling America provide us with a wealth of information about salmon and commercial salmon fishing. Here we can read about the rapid development of the state’s salmon canning industry and its major contributions to the early economic growth of the state–but also the subsequent emergence of a public conservation ethos as Oregonians began to notice, within a decade or two, some of the grimmer consequences of that industry’s success.
Good price on fresh salmon! From Klamath Falls Evening Herald, July 10, 1919, p.2
As a point of entry, try the front page of the Daily Morning Astorian from January 27, 1888, where we find an article headlined ‘STATEMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS. Report of the State Fish Commission.’ This story details initial efforts to regulate the Columbia River salmon fishery, and also discusses other factors then known to pressure salmon populations, such as the widespread disposal of sawdust in rivers, and predation by sea lions.
On April 6, 1904, the Sumpter Miner ran a story, ‘Oregon Owns World’s Big Fish Hatchery.’ The largest hatchery in the world had recently begun operating on the Snake River near Ontario, Oregon. The Miner reports that the hatchery will soon be releasing its first batch of fry: more than 25,000,000 young salmon to be stocked into the Columbia watershed in hopes of maintaining the fishery in the long term.
Page 7 of the April 9, 1911 Medford Mail Tribune offers a piece entitled ‘Uncle Sam Studies Traits of Salmon.’ This is an excellent account of the actual scientific methodology used by the federal Bureau of Fisheries to begin tracking the natural life cycle of Pacific salmon species. Here we find the beginnings of ‘fish tagging.’ Prior to this time in the early 20th century, there was much that had remained mysterious about the annual comings and goings of salmon in Oregon’s ocean and rivers.
Seining salmon from the Columbia River, circa 1914.
Throughout Oregon’s history, its citizens have always been inclined to look hopefully toward the future. New Years Day has always been an important holiday in the state, as the historic newspaper record will reveal. A search of Historic Oregon Newspapers or Chronicling America will yield a number of headlines and illustrations commemorating the arrival of a New Year. Below is an example from the December 31, 1922 Astorian that you won’t find on either of the web sites (because it falls outside the scope of dates digitized for this title.)
Note the fuming factory smokestacks in the background of the picture–this is a recurring motif in newspaper illustrations of the day. While we in the 21st Century tend to look at the pall of black smoke and say “Yuck! Pollution!”, in the 19th and early 20th Centuries smokestacks are commonly used to symbolize wealth, industry, modernization, and desirable economic growth. Awareness of the negative impacts of environmental pollution would not begin to enter the broader American consciousness for a few more decades. So this truly would have been the perfect image of a “Happy and Prosperous New Year” for most residents of Astoria in 1922.
Here at the beginning of another New Year we find a convenient opportunity to remind ourselves that the times are always changing. —Jason A. Stone
With the onset of the winter holiday season, I’ve been looking through December issues of the historic newspapers, enjoying the nostalgic illustrations, articles and advertisements from seasons past. You can do the same on Chronicling America, where issues of the Sumpter Miner and Klamath Falls Evening Herald are available for public viewing.
In turn-of-the-century Sumpter and Klamath Falls, people certainly got into the Christmas Spirit: when I performed a simple search on the word ‘Christmas,’ I received 1774 results!
Santa and Sam, from Klamath Falls Evening Herald, 12-18-1915, p.2
As in the illustration above, use of the abbreviation ‘Xmas’ was rather common–and, it would seem, entirely uncontroversial–in these newspapers of the early 20th Century. (See Wikipedia for a concise explanation of the history of the Xmas abbreviation, which was never really intended to make any sort of political statement or to offend anyone.)
My search on ‘Hanukkah’ (variant spellings included!) failed to turn up a single item in either of the Oregon papers. (This is probably reflective of period demographics in Eastern Oregon–it will be interesting to retry the search once the titles from Portland and Salem are available.) The earliest reference to Hanukkah that appears anywhere in Chronicling America is an item from the Hebrew Observer reprinted in the December 24th, 1885 issue of the Daily Honolulu Press. The earliest full and detailed article about the Jewish Festival of Lights was published December 17, 1887 by the Waco Daily Examiner.
Menorah, from New York Tribune, 02-24-1907, p. 20
For the time being, at least, we can’t expect to find information on ‘Kwanzaa’ in Chronicling America: the first Kwanzaa celebration was in 1966-67, and the digitized newspapers only run through 1922.
Come back in a couple weeks, when we’ll take at look at historic Oregon ‘Happy New Years’ items. In the meantime… Happy Holidays! —Jason A. Stone
