The time we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived! Historic Oregon Newspapers online now contains the full 20th century public domain run of the Portland Morning Oregonian and The Sunday Oregonian! All newspapers published on or before December 31, 1922 are considered to be in the “public domain,” which means that copyright permission is not required for reproduction or use of the content.

In 1922, the Morning Oregonian successfully launched Oregon’s first commercial radio station, KGW, evidence of which can be found in the newspaper:

Also, by the time 1922 rolled around, the Morning Oregonian was publishing a political cartoon on the front page of every issue! These cartoons are just as telling of the times as the textual content, and can serve to remind us how much things have changed since then, but also how much things have stayed the same! For example, on this day, December 5, in 1922 (91 years ago!!!!), the following political cartoon appeared on the front page of the Morning Oregonian:

How does this scene compare to the Congress of today? Knowing the context of these cartoons is crucial to understanding their messages, and the textual articles within the papers help to build that understanding.

The Sunday Oregonian also consistently published a Comics Section at the end of each issue, with a more relaxed approach than the highly charged political cartoons of the Monday Oregonian. Stay tuned for our next blog, which will provide a guide to finding cartoons and comics on the Historic Oregon Newspapers site!

Happy searching!

The latest additions to the Historic Oregon Newspapers website come once again from Oregon City, but there is more to this story than just an announcement of new content!

As you browse through Historic Oregon Newspapers online, you might wonder why some newspaper pages look cleaner or more readable than others. Almost all of the images you see were scanned from microfilm negatives to create the best possible digital image. However, the condition of print papers at the time of filming, as well as the way in which the papers were filmed, underlies the readability of the digital images that we use today. For example, papers that were originally filmed as bound volumes have a center binding that often creates a gutter shadow and/or page curvature, which can obstruct some of the text on each page. Papers with any kind of obstructed text are often difficult to read on microfilm, and thus difficult to read in digital form, not to mention difficult for computer software to “read” when performing the optical character recognition (OCR) that allows us to find information in the papers through keyword searching.

Historic print newspapers are fragile and susceptible to water damage, mold, rips, tears, and fading ink:

Newspapers tend to become brittle and damaged over time, so it’s rare to find many historic print copies that are still in good condition. In many cases, the original microfilm for these newspapers is all we have left to work with. However, if we can locate good quality print copies of a title that was originally filmed in poor condition, we can re-film the paper to create a better, more readable, and thus more usable image. Through our partnership with the Oregon City Public Library, with funding from the Library Services and Technology Act, we were able to re-film portions of the Banner-Courier, the Morning Enterprise, and the Oregon City Enterprise. Many thanks to the Milwaukie Historical Society’s Milwaukie Museum, where these bound volumes of old Oregon City newspapers were kept intact!

Notice the difference between papers that were filmed bound as opposed to those filmed flat:

Before:

After:

To prepare the papers for filming, we first dis-bound the pages of each volume so that we could film them flat, one at a time. Tears or rips in the paper were repaired using Filmoplast (archival quality transparent tape made from paper) and wrinkles and creases were mitigated with a steam iron. The papers were microfilmed using best practices set by the Library of Congress, and then the microfilm was scanned to produce the digital images that are now viewable online at Historic Oregon Newspapers:

• The banner-courier, Jan. – Dec. 1922 (re-filmed)
• Morning enterprise, Jan. 1912 – Dec. 1913 (re-filmed)
• Oregon City enterprise, Jan. 1905 – Jan. 1908 and July 1917 – Dec. 1922 (1905-1906 and 1921-1922 re-filmed)

The combination of printed page, microfilming, and digitization has not only helped to preserve the history of Oregon City, but also to provide access to these newspapers to anyone in the world with an internet connection. We hope you enjoy the final product as much as we do! An initial browse through this newly added content has yielded the following clippings, but there are many more articles, images, and advertisements of interest just waiting to be discovered by you!

Happy Searching!

In partnership with Oregon City Public Library, with a grant from the Library Services and Technology Act from the Institute of Museum and Library Services via the Oregon State Library, we’ve just added over 750 new issues of historic newspaper content from Oregon City! Latest additions include:

• Oregon City enterprise, Oct. 27, 1866-Oct. 17, 1868
• The Weekly enterprise, Nov. 14, 1868-Nov. 3, 1871
• Oregon City enterprise, Nov. 10, 1871-Dec. 1, 1887
• The enterprise, May 3, 1888-March 27, 1891
• Oregon City enterprise, April 3, 1891-Feb. 17, 1893
• Oregon City courier, Oct. 15, 1897-Sept. 16, 1898
• Oregon City courier=herald, Sept. 23, 1898-Oct. 31, 1902
• Oregon City courier, Nov. 7, 1902-July 22, 1904

The 1902 New Year’s edition of the Oregon City courier=herald has some especially interesting information and photographs of the development of Oregon City and the surrounding area. Here are just a few examples in regards to transportation:

The steamship Leona was operated by the Oregon City Transportation Company from 1901 until it was destroyed by fire in 1912.

The article following this image of an Oregon City electric railway car reads:

How much has changed since 1902? Take a peek through these pages yourself and see what other kinds of interesting gems you can find! Happy searching!

What better way to stay warm in the coming winter months than to hunker down with Historic Oregon Newspapers online? With over 500,000 pages from 75 titles, you can search and browse to your heart’s delight, especially now that we have added four new keyword-searchable titles from La Grande, Eugene, and Portland! We could have spent hours browsing through these new papers alone, but in order to get this news out in a timely manner, below are just a few examples of content that can be found within the new additions:

• Eugene, OR. The Eugene City Guard, from February 12, 1876 – April 21, 1900, “Established for the dissemination of Democratic principles, and to earn an honest living by the sweat of our brow:”

• La Grande, OR. La Grande Evening Observer, from December 1, 1904 – December 13, 1911, daily newspaper covering eastern Oregon:

• Portland, OR. The West Shore, from August 1, 1875 – March 28, 1891 and The Illustrated West Shore, from April 4, 1891 – May 2, 1891, Oregon’s first illustrated journal with roots as a booster magazine for the Pacific Northwest:

Stay tuned for more announcements and updates to come! Happy Fall, and Happy searching!

Thanks to Bill Gabriel, Ashland High School, and the ODNP Advisory Board, these issues of the Rogue News are now included in the keyword-searchable Historic Oregon Newspapers online database. This project is not only exciting for the current students and alumni of Ashland High School, it is also a way for students nationwide and across the globe to connect with peers of the past and get a feel for what high school was like during the mid-20th century. Now that the content is available online, it will be interesting and educational to search and browse through the historic pages and identify the similarities and differences from past to present. Although technology and society continue to transform and shift our culture, it is clear that some traditions will remain in place for years to come.

Here are a few snippets from the paper to spark your curiosity:

 

 

In partnership with the Oregon City Public Library, with funding from a Library Services and Technology Act grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Oregon State Library, more historic newspaper content from Oregon City is now available on Historic Oregon Newspapers. The new additions are:

The Oregon Argus (April 21, 1855 – Oct. 26, 1863)

Oregon City Courier (Nov. 23, 1883 and June 13, 1884)

Oregon Courier (Jan. 31, 1890 – July 3, 1896)

Oregon City Enterprise (Now available from Feb. 24, 1893 – July 13, 1917)

Oregon City Courier (July 10, 1896 – Oct. 8, 1897)

Oregon City Press (Feb. 9, 1898 – April 26, 1899)

Clackamas County Record (Jan. 5, 1903 – July 30, 1903)

Oregon City Courier (July 29, 1904 – July 3, 1919)

Other titles already available from Oregon City include:

Oregon Spectator (Feb. 5, 1846 – Feb. 10, 1855)

Oregon Free Press (April 15, 1848 – Nov. 25, 1848)

Oregon City Enterprise (Nov. 15, 1872 – Nov. 7, 1878)

Items in the news 100 years ago today in Oregon City:

Stay tuned for more updates on new additions to Historic Oregon Newspapers!

In partnership with Langlois Public Library, with funding from the Curry County Cultural Coalition and the Oregon Cultural Trust, the Southwest Oregon Recorder is now available for keyword searching and browsing on Historic Oregon Newspapers from September 9, 1884 – February 17, 1885. The Southwest Oregon Recorder was published weekly in Denmark, Oregon, a small community along the southwest Oregon coastline. Around 1887, the publishers moved about 15 miles north on the coast to Bandon, Oregon, changing the paper’s name to the Bandon Recorder, which is also available on Historic Oregon Newspapers from 1890 – 1905, and later the Semi-weekly Bandon Recorder, available online from 1913 – 1915.

The Southwest Oregon Recorder contains intimate notes on the activities of local people and visitors, reports on court proceedings, local announcements, county and statewide news, letters to the editor, topics of interest from other states, poems, advice, stories, jokes, birth and death notices, advertisements, and countless other interesting items. We could really spend all day perusing through this title! Here are just a few examples of the content that can be found in the pages of the Southwest Oregon Recorder:

Selections from the latest news:

Local happenings of note:

Advertisements for local businesses:

Detailed updates on local people and events:

Health Hints:

And other interesting speculations:

What kinds of fun and educational articles will you find in the Southwest Oregon Recorder and other titles in Historic Oregon Newspapers? Happy searching!

Historic newspaper pages from the Pendleton East Oregonian: E.O. are now available on Historic Oregon Newspapers online from March 1, 1888 through Oct. 1, 1914!

Officially incorporated in 1880, Pendleton is located in Umatilla County, adjacent to the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and is the home of the famous annual Pendleton Round-Up Rodeo, which began in 1910. A keyword search for the words “Pendleton Round Up” within 5 words of each other on the Historic Oregon Newspapers “Search” page turns up over 1500 result pages!

The E.O. began as a daily publication in 1888 and has continued to provide news coverage for the citizens of eastern Oregon to the present day. Learn more about the E.O. on our Historic Oregon Newspapers “History” page, which contains historic essays about the E.O. and other early Oregon newspaper titles.

Content from the E.O. and other Oregon titles is also available via the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America website, along with historic newspapers from several other states!

Stay tuned for more new content, and happy searching!

We’ve all been there before – so excited to search and browse through historic newspapers online, but not quite sure how to use the search function, zoom in and out, or print an article. Well, we’ve got some good news! The National Digital Newspaper Program in Ohio at the Ohio Historical Society has created a series of podcasts explaining the basic functions of the Library of Congress’ and National Endowment for the Humanities’ Chronicling America historic newspaper site, as well as two new videos that focus on how to perform an efficient keyword search in Chronicling America. For those specifically interested in Oregon history, the Historic Oregon Newspapers website newspaper viewer and search page are modeled after Chronicling America, so the podcasts and video tutorials will help users of both websites.

“Using Chronicling America” podcast series:

• 11 podcasts about Chronicling America:

Keyword search tutorial videos:

• Any vs. All vs. Phrase Searching – S.S. Sultana Disaster (the worst maritime disaster in American history)
• Searching by a Specific Date – Death of Ray Chapman (the only Major League Baseball player to die from being struck by a ball)

Searching and browsing through historic newspaper archives such as Historic Oregon Newspapers and Chronicling America can be fun, interesting, and educational, but have you ever wondered about the history of American newspapers? Although Oregon was the first state on the West Coast to produce a newspaper (Oregon City’s Oregon Spectator, first published on February 5, 1846), states on the East Coast, such as New York and Pennsylvania, had already been printing the news for decades!

The University of Illinois’ History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library has created several short videos focusing on the history of newspapers in the United States before the Civil War. The newest videos, each roughly 20 minutes long, are entitled:  “Introduction to American Newspapers, 1800-1860,” “American Newspapers, 1800-1860: City Papers,” and “American Newspapers, 1800-1860: Country Papers.” These and other informational videos are available online through the library’s guide on Antebellum American Newspapers (http://uiuc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=240860) or via YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/HPNLuiuc).

Exciting news! Two new historic newspapers (with the same title!) from Oregon City, covering the late 19th/early 20th century, are now available online at the Historic Oregon Newspapers website:

1. Oregon City Enterprise, Nov. 15, 1872-Nov. 7, 1878
2. Oregon City Enterprise, Feb. 24-1893-March 3, 1911

Click the “Calendar View” button/calendar icon to browse issues or look for specific issue dates, or use the “Search” page to do a keyword search.

Established in 1829, Oregon City was the first city to be incorporated west of the Rocky Mountains, playing a significant role in the history of Oregon and the American West. Not only is Oregon City historically known to mark the end of the Oregon Trail, it was also the birthplace of the very first newspaper to be published in Oregon and on the West Coast – the Oregon Spectator, published in Oregon City from Feb. 5, 1846-March 10, 1855. Located just south of Portland, Oregon City is the home of the Willamette Falls and serves as the county seat of Clackamas County.

Here are just a few examples of the interesting clips that can be found in these Oregon City newspapers: precisely 112 years ago today in Oregon City:

This new content is available through funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Oregon State Library with a Library Services and Technology Act grant in partnership with the Oregon City Public Library. More historic newspaper content from Oregon City will be coming soon, so stay tuned! Happy searching!