Category: IDNC

Digital Newspaper Dive: The Flying Saucer Phenomena of Post-war America

Posted on by Jessie Knoles

Using the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections

Each year, the Illinois Newspaper Project (INP)—a joint project of the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library (HPNL) and the Preservation Services Unit of the University Library—participates in the Archives Bazaar, which highlights special collections, museums, archives, and other cultural heritage organizations in Champaign County and is hosted by the Champaign County Historical Archives at The Urbana Free Library.  

Clipping from the Day Book, October 12, 1916, p.20

This year’s theme was the “bizarre Bazaar,” and the event was held at The Urbana Free Library on Saturday, September 20. While brainstorming newspaper content for the INP table, I initially considered conducting a deep dive of search results in the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections for the keyword “bizarre” and highlighting how historical newspapers can be resources for mapping language evolution and trends. I eventually ruled this idea out…perhaps too boring, too academic, and not easily digestible in an open-house format.

I then considered highlighting a newspaper preserved and digitized by the Illinois Newspaper Project, The Day Book, conceived by newspaper mogul Edward Willis Scripps as an experiment in advertisement-free newspaper publishing. The Day Book often published sensational stories and wacky tabloid-like facts about people around the world. It also published many images and sketches, and visual imagery is good for newspaper outreach events. However, I ultimately decided this wasn’t bizarre enough, plus, I wanted to highlight the richness of the IDNC and its cross-search capability across all titles in the digital collection and not just highlight one specific newspaper.

So, I did what anyone would do—I pivoted to UFOs (unidentified flying objects, flying saucers, flying disks, flying discs, etc.). 

Continue reading “Digital Newspaper Dive: The Flying Saucer Phenomena of Post-war America” →

The Story of the “Farmer’s Wife” (Part 1)

Posted on by Geoffrey Ross

Beclouded Beginnings and Suspicious Name Games

Little is known about the origins of the Farmer’s Wife. It might have begun publication in 1897, but more likely 1900, in Winona, Minnesota. Its first publisher was John Halvor Johnson, who went by “J.H.” just about everywhere except his gravestone. The son of Norwegian immigrants, Johnson was a traveling salesman turned investor: he began with buying-and-selling newspapers and ended with real estate. His first big investment was the Winona Daily Herald, which he purchased in 1890 and sold ten years later.1 He then began launching new publications under the names of recently-abandoned titles. For example, in 1892 Farm, Field and Stockman changed its name to Farm, Field and Fireside, and that same year Johnson began publishing a monthly under the title Farm, Field and Stockman, which he later sold to the Model Farmer Publishing Company of Chicago. Similarly, in 1900 the weekly American Stock Farm changed its name, shortly after which Johnson began a monthly using that title as well.2

Continue reading “The Story of the “Farmer’s Wife” (Part 1)” →

Using the IDNC: Researching Black newspapers, labor, and business

Posted on by Jessie Knoles

The Black Press 

Chicago World (Chicago, Ill.), August 27, 1949 

In honor of Black History Month, the Illinois Newspaper Project (INP) is using the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection (IDNC) to understand Black labor history (rights, unions, and movements) and Black-owned business in Illinois through historical newspapers. We’re highlighting the mastheads of (and people behind) Black newspapers as well as advertisements for Black-owned businesses found within newspapers. A special photograph issue (published December 5, 1943) of the Chicago Sunday Bee specifically highlights Willard S. Townsend, a Black labor leader and first African-American to hold office in a national union, and printed photographs of Black labor leaders present at a Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) meeting in Philadelphia.

Did you know that the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections (IDNC) has a collection of Black newspapers? In order to preserve the cultural and print heritages of Black papers and their readers, the Illinois Digital Newspaper Project (IDNP) has centered past digitization projects around historical Black newspaper printed (primarily) in Illinois.  

 

Continue reading “Using the IDNC: Researching Black newspapers, labor, and business” →

Flesh Out your Genealogical Searches with Small Town Newspapers

Posted on by Kimberly Lerch

 

Change of plans: no more rabbit holes. Geneaology!

Stephen Cornett Pribble Obituary
Stephen Cornett Pribble’s Obituary

Genealogy is more than just names and dates, jobs and relationships. I started in the late 1990s researching my dad’s side of the family. I  live in the area that my ancestors lived in back in the 1870s. There are a lot of us (Pribbles) in the Vermilion and Champaign County area. How did I find this out? Censuses, talking to older relatives (I interviewed my great-aunt, Anna Kathryn Pribble McNeese, 98 at the time), cemetery listings and walks, and joining the Illiana Genealogical and Historical Society. I used the society’s resources which, at the time, were reference books and microfilm. I looked on sites such as Ancestry.com, which were free back then, but there was a gap between my known Pribbles and the Pribbles listed on the site. Where did we fit in to the line that came over from England as an indentured servant?

Using HPNL’s libguide entitled Geneaology Resources, I found a number of aids useful in tracking down ancestors. Ancestry.com is still available, but you must pay to access the information there now, but Family Search is free.

Through the USGenWeb Project, I accessed the ILGenWeb site and from there, the Vermilion County genealogy website. From this site, deaths, marriages, military information, newspapers, and obituaries can be accessed. I’m just looking in Vermilion county for my folk, but the ILGenWeb has a site for each county in Illinois, and the USGenWeb Project for each state. I have used this site in the past to verify deaths and marriages.

Back on the Geneaology Resources libguide page, I selected “V” under the “Illinois” sidebar on the Genealogy Resources page, and am taken to the “Where to Start” page for searching information in Vermilion county. This led me to a number of books that may contain useful information. As for my Vermilion county cousins, I was able to read about them from an entry in History of Vermilion County… (Beckwith). Yohos can still be found in the area I went to school with Henthorns in Catlin, a nearby village to Westville, Georgetown and Sidell. It is a small world. One of my West Virginia (migrated in the 1870s, settling in Ridgefarm) cousins can be read about here. Frank’s brother was named Wilbur. Go figure. Kinfolk, but definitely independent lines from a common ancestor. Continue reading “Flesh Out your Genealogical Searches with Small Town Newspapers” →

Open for Nominations: Illinois Newspaper Project

Posted on by Rebecca Stover

 

ImageThe Illinois Newspaper Project is open for nominations now through September 30th 2023.

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Cultural Heritage Institutions can nominate an Illinois Newspaper for digitization and free online distribution at https://t.co/6vY1RoJVbY.

Newspapers should be from Illinois, not under copyright, and microfilmed (no print newspapers at this time.)

For more information on nomination eligibility, FAQs, and paper applications see https://www.library.illinois.edu/illinoisnewspaperproject/get-involved/nominating/

Want more information? Join the mailing list at https://groups.webservices.illinois.edu/subscribe/171591. 

Over 200 Illinois Newspapers Digitized

Posted on by Geoffrey Ross

Now available: over two hundred digitized Illinois newspapers: https://go.library.illinois.edu/npcom. Access currently restricted to computers with a campus IP address, but will soon be freely available through the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections (IDNC) to researchers everywhere. Continue reading “Over 200 Illinois Newspapers Digitized” →

Zion, IL: Utopia on the Prairie

Posted on by Rebecca Stover

In researching context for newspapers in the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection I came across the fascinating history of Zion, IL, formerly Zion City, which was created as a utopian community in 1901 by an evangelical and early Pentecostal faith healer named John Alexander Dowie. In its early years the city did not allow drinking, dancing, smoking, card playing, theater, or even driving more than 10 miles an hour. Zion is a small town south of Kenosha and north of Waukegan in Lake County, Illinois. It is currently home to a nuclear power plant but boasts a rich history in American religious movements and utopian city planning.  Continue reading “Zion, IL: Utopia on the Prairie” →

The Twin City Review: A 1920s Labor Newspaper For Champaign County

Posted on by Connor Monson

The Twin City Review went into circulation in November 1920. The Review was originally published in Tolono, Illinois, before relocating to Champaign. The Twin City Federation of Labor published the paper “in the interest of organized labor.” At the time, Champaign County’s primary industries were higher education (the University of Illinois), railroads, and farming.  The Review frequently wrote about the perceived need for solidarity between farmers and urban laborers, including an inaugural issue article titled “Farm and City Workers Aim Identical-To Secure Justice”  Continue reading “The Twin City Review: A 1920s Labor Newspaper For Champaign County” →

The National News: A Trade Unionist Newspaper

Posted on by Connor Monson

The National News was created by editor Carl E. Person after the shutdown of the Strike Bulletin in May 1915. National News began publication only a few months later in October of that year. Person was a famous labor activist who had been put on trial in 1914 for shooting a strike breaker and was later acquitted on the basis of self-defense. Much like Strike Bulletin, the National News was devoted to describing collective labor actions across the United States. However, it also contained excerpts from the some of the latest popular fiction of the day including a novel The Abysmal Brute by Jack London. Person centered the National News in Chicago instead of his earlier location in Clinton, Illinois due to his feelings that Clinton had become a hostile work environment following the end of the Illinois Central Shopmen’s Strike and his near-fatal encounter.  Continue reading “The National News: A Trade Unionist Newspaper” →

The Illinois Issue and The American Issue: Prohibitionist Newspapers

Posted on by Connor Monson

The Illinois Issue was a weekly newspaper created in January 1906 for an audience of prohibitionist readers. The Illinois Issue was centered in Chicago, IL, and published in Downers Grove, IL. In February 1912, the Illinois Issue ceased production. Starting in July 1913, the Illinois Issue merged with a weekly national publication called the American Issue. Both papers were organized by a political group called the Anti-Saloon League. The American Issue began in 1896. It then ramped up production in 1909 because the town of Westerville, OH, donated a printing plant to the Anti-Saloon League to further the cause of alcohol prohibition.    Continue reading “The Illinois Issue and The American Issue: Prohibitionist Newspapers” →