Tag: Portland

New titles from La Grande, Eugene, and Portland now online!

Posted on by srabun@uoregon.edu

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:”
Advertisement clipped from The Eugene City Guard reads: "University of Oregon. Eugene. Next session begins on Monday, the 21st day of September, 1891. Tuition, free. Four courses: Classical, Scientific, Literary, and a short English course, in which there is no Latin, Greek, French or German. The English is pre-eminently a Business Course. For catalogue or other information, Address J.W. Johnson, President."
The Eugene City guard. (Eugene City, Or.) August 15, 1891, Image 4. http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn84022653/1891-08-15/ed-1/seq-4/
  • La Grande, OR. La Grande Evening Observer, from December 1, 1904 – December 13, 1911, daily newspaper covering eastern Oregon:
Clipping from the La Grande Evening Observer reads: "To make a newspaper requires many hands and several minds. Metropolitan papers can only be printed in large centers of population because of the enormous expense required. In towns the size of La Grande and other Eastern Oregon points the paper that first gives the telegraph news of the world and then confines itself to state and local news is bound to satisfy and please the people. But to do this requires an outlay of money and labor each week that few people realize. La Grande and Union and Wallowa counties are entitled to a good evening newspaper carrying telegraphic news, and that is what the Observer is today. We invite comparison with papers of other cities of this size with the full realization that no loyal La Grande man will be ashamed of the Observer."
La Grande evening observer. (La Grande, Or.) May 10, 1910, Image 1. http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2006260039/1910-05-10/ed-1/seq-1/
  • 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:
Image from The West Shore depicts a very detailed drawing of old city buildings and street, with people, horses, and carriages in the street. Caption reads, "Front Street, Portland, Looking South from Alder."
The west shore. (Portland, Or.) March 01, 1876, Image 1. http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2012260361/1876-03-01/ed-1/seq-1/
Image from the Illustrated West Shore depicts, in political cartoon fashion, Uncle Sam sleeping under a tree next to the Columbia River, with a stack of grain sacks nearby as if preparing for a flood. Three women standing in the river with shovels are indicated as representing Oregon and Washington. Caption reads: "Girls in chorus - There are no signs of his waking up. We'll have to do this ourselves."
The illustrated west shore. (Portland, Or.) April 25, 1891, Image 1. http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2012260365/1891-04-25/ed-1/seq-1/

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

The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition: Portland’s “World’s Fair”

Posted on by srabun@uoregon.edu
The Sunday Oregonian, August 27, 1905

World’s Fairs are an unforgettable event in a city’s history, bringing scores of tourists, revenue and prestige for years after the fair.  If you’ve ever seen Meet Me in St. Louis, you’ve experienced Hollywood’s take on the World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri in 1904.  If you’ve ever wondered what the reality of a fair might look like, you can search many historic U.S. newspapers of the era at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ for first and second-hand accounts of U.S. World’s Fairs.

In 1905, Portland, Oregon joined the illustrious list of cities that have sponsored a “World’s Fair” event.  Although it was commonly referred to as a World’s Fair, it was not in fact recognized as one by the Bureau of International Expositions.  Instead, it was an exposition dedicated to the centennial year of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. For four and a half months, Portland was host to 1.5 million visitors at the fairgrounds constructed for that purpose along the Willamette River.  You can read about the goals and plans for the fair in this article from the New Year’s Day edition of The Morning Oregonian, “The Great Lewis and Clark Exposition: 1805-1905.”

If you’re curious to know more about Portland’s “World Fair,” you can find a wealth of information in the pages of historic Oregon newspapers at the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program‘s website.  Nearly every aspect of the Exposition was covered by newspapers of the time, including economic, cultural and political perspectives.  I’ve listed a few interesting articles to pique your interest, but the amount of information on this incredible event is astounding, so get in there and do some searching! (For a brief overview of the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, you can also visit the Oregon Encyclopedia’s entry on the fair.)

You can also find more images of the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in the shared OSU/UO Digital Collections website, like this photo of the States Building, or this colorful postcard of the Agricultural Building.

The New Northwest added to Historic Oregon Newspapers!

Posted on by srabun@uoregon.edu

The Oregon Digital Newspaper Program is excited to announce the addition of Portland’s historic suffragist newspaper The New Northwest to our free online collection of digitized and keyword-searchable content at Historic Oregon Newspapers!

Portland the New Northwest, June 8, 1877
Front page of Portland's the New Northwest, June 8, 1877

For sixteen years, between 1871 and 1887, The New Northwest blazed a progressive and iconoclastic trail, bringing much-needed attention to controversial issues such as suffrage, worker’s rights, temperance, racial inequality, civil liberties, immigration, and human rights.  The paper advocated tirelessly for the equal rights of American Indians and Chinese immigrants even as the general press remained openly hostile to such causes.  Most famously, the paper was instrumental in agitating for the nascent women’s suffrage movement in the Pacific Northwest.

In addition to its influential and highly political journalistic content, The New Northwest also served as a significant publisher of quality literary content.  Poems, serialized fiction, and literary non-fiction reflecting the newspaper’s progressive political stance were published alongside regional and national news.  Following a change in ownership in 1887, the paper continued for another two years as a purely literary journal.

The uncommonly forward-thinking agenda of this firebrand newspaper was coordinated under the guidance of Abigail Scott Duniway, Oregon’s “Mother of Equal Suffrage”.  Duniway saw The New Northwest as an instrument of social change, a tool for the “[e]nfranchisment of women and full emancipation of speech, press and people from every fetter of law or custom that retards the free mental and physical growth of the highest form of humanity.”

Though women’s suffrage in Oregon was not to become a reality during the run of The New Northwest, Duniway would continue to fight tirelessly for the cause.  In 1912, following a lifetime of struggle, Duniway was asked by Governor Oswald West to author and sign the Oregon Proclamation of Equal Suffrage.  This historic and hard-won victory was sealed when Duniway registered, at the age of 79, as the first female voter in Multnomah County.

Abigail Scott Duniway. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.
Abigail Scott Duniway. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Portland Oregonian at Multnomah County Library

Posted on by srabun@uoregon.edu

We have recently announced that we will be digitizing select dates of the Portland Oregonian as part of the Oregon Digital Newspaper Project. These issues, mostly from 1900 and 1901, should be available online at some point later this year.

For those who are interested in accessing a more complete archive of past Oregonian issues, we are happy to note that there is now another resource available. The Multnomah County Library has recently announced that the paper will be available as a free, digital resource for library patrons:

“Multnomah County Library now features the only publicly available, complete full-text digitized archive of The Oregonian newspaper. Multnomah County Library cardholders can now access every article, editorial, illustration, photograph and advertisement published in The Oregonian between 1861 and 1972. By the end of this year, the archive will include all editions up to 1987.”

This is great news, as digitized content from The Oregonian had previously been accessible only on a for-pay basis. For more information, you can read the full article on the Multnomah County Library website.