Category: Uncategorized

Since the rise of the internet a common joke has always been that the internet is meant for cat gifs. Be it your cousin’s boyfriend posting incessantly about their cat’s every movement or the trending page on YouTube, it is often hard to get away from cute stories about cats. This apparently has long been […]

Nothing screams the holidays quite like fruitcake. Honestly, these cookies are good enough that I would happily make them at any time of the year.   Spicy Holiday Fruit Cookies Source: December 3, 1960- Lancaster Farming Recipe: 1 cup shortening 2 cups packed brown sugar 2 eggs ½ cup rolled oats 3 ½ cups sifted […]

Are you a fan of super chewy cookies? If, so you may be interested in these Christmas cane cookies! I can’t say that I quite understand the association between the Holidays and these orange-ish flavored cookies, beyond the shape you can give them. Regardless, let’s jump into the recipe:   Christmas Cane Cookies Source: December […]

In the most recent adventures in trying to become a 1950’s housewife, I decided to try out several holiday themed recipes from our archives. The first of which, and the subject of today’s blog post, is for pie crust and cranberry pie. Just last year I discovered a love for cranberries and this recipe may […]

The holiday rush is upon us and that means one thing, a huge uptake in baking and cooking for the ones we love. While I tend to spend a lot the year eyeing new recipes I tend to not actually test them out until the holidays. (Personally, I’m notorious for baking at two in the […]

In the 1910’s one woman made it her personal mission to bring attention to the plight of homeless people, especially homeless women. Her life story is not immediately clear and she does not seem to have any biographies written on her. Instead, her memory lives in the pages of newspapers. This is what we currently […]

It is absolutely no secret that Americans love dogs, a 2006 Gallup poll estimated that 44% of Americans owned a dog.[1] According to an article in the Atlantic Americans spent a combined $63 billion on their pets in 2016 alone.[2] This love for animals is by no means a recent phenomenon, as a series of […]

In March of 1912 a lovelorn young woman wrote into the Rock Island Argus with a problem. At 20 years old she found that her boyfriend of 2 years was starting to hint that he was interested in marriage. Overcome with doubt, she wrote a letter to Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, the Rock Island Argus’ resident advice columnist. […]

One fateful day in 1920 a grisly discovery sparked a violent riot that would shake the small mining community of West Frankfort, Illinois. On August 5th several hunters were trapesing through the woods searching for squirrels. Instead, they of finding the charming rodents they had been hoping for, they stumbled across a crime scene. There, […]

Welcome to the new and improved Illinois Newspaper Project Website! Starting in 1987, this project is aimed at identifying, preserving, cataloging, and digitizing Illinois newspapers. All newspapers that are digitized are housed on our Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection which can be accessed here.  To see where specific newspapers are held you can search by city […]