Does your local library, historical society, or genealogy club want to digitize your Indiana community’s newspapers? Does the prospect seem overwhelming? Or perhaps you just don’t know where to start.
If so, have no worries! The Indiana State Library staff would be happy to talk to you individually or present a public program about newspaper digitization best practices, and how the State Library could help.
My colleague, Connie, and I recently visited the Northwest Indiana Times in Munster (formerly Lake County Times, and Hammond Times) to discuss our newspaper digitization efforts, and to answer some of their questions about digitizing their newspaper. You can read about our visit here: Indiana working to digitize historic newspapers : Munster Community News.
We are excited to blog that the Newspaper button on Indiana Memory is LIVE! Clicking on the button will take you to all of the newspapers we have digitized as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program plus a few more. The content is being displayed in Veridian software, which is really exciting because users like you can correct the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) text.
If you researched with any digitized content in the past, you may have discovered that the search results you received were often only as good as the OCR. The crowd-sourcing component of Veridian allows you to register and make corrections to the OCR. For instance, if you find an individual’s name garbled in the OCR, you can correct it yourself, so that future users can find that person’s name in the newspapers easier.
The Library of Congress recently ingested another 12,533 pages of Indiana newspapers into Chronicling America! This brings the total number of Indiana newspaper pages in ChronAm to over 80,000! The Indiana State Library staff are digitizing these newspapers as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program.
A few years ago the Indiana State Library awarded a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services to the Putnam County Public Library, DePauw University Libraries and the Greencastle Banner Graphic to digitize Greencastle newspapers. The organizations launched their archive of Greencastle newspapers in May 2012. Unfortunately, those newspapers have been inaccessible the last few months because of some server issues.
The good news is that they recently migrated most of the content to the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana’s (PALNI) Digital Collections, and the content can now be accessed here. AUGUST 2015 UPDATE: We are in the process of migrating the Greencastle content from the PALNI digital collections into Hoosier State Chronicles. We should have most of the issues migrated by the end of 2015. When it is done there will be around 14,450 issues, and nearly a hundred years worth of Greencastle newspapers from 1880-1979.
As of this update [May 1, 2017], these are the issues we currently have migrated into Hoosier State Chronicles:
We will give updates on newly migrated Greencastle content in future blog entries (so be sure to subscribe to our blog, or follow us on Twitter @HS_Chronicles ), or you can just click through and find an up-to-date list here.
The Library of Congress recently updated Chronicling America, and the following new Indiana newspaper content is now available: Brookville American, 1858-1860; Indiana American, 1853-1857; Indiana State Sentinel(weekly edition), 1875-78, 82-89, 92-94; and more issues of the Wabash Express, 1860-1861.
If you are a regular user of Indiana newspapers on Chronicling America, you may notice that several Plymouth newspapers have disappeared from the site. Those newspapers have been temporarily purged, but they should be restored within a week.
These additions will bring the total number of Indiana newspaper pages on Chronicling America to over 70,000. Happy searching!
The News began publication in 1869 as a Republican leaning, although officially independent, newspaper. Its circulations outpaced its long-time rivals the Sentinel and the Journal by the late 19th and early 20th century. The News consolidated with the Star in 1948, but continued to be issued as a separate title. The News ceased publication in 1999.
The 1900 U.S. Census reported that Plymouth, Indiana, located in a rich agricultural area in north-central Indiana, had a population over 3,600. The town had supported two major newspapers, the Plymouth Republicanand the Plymouth Democrat, since the 1850s. With the rise of Populism in the 1890s, another newspaper debuted in Plymouth in 1894, the Marshall County Independent.
Albert R. Zimmerman started the Independent as an eight page weekly. He took on A. D. Smith as a partner in July 1895, changed the paper to a semiweekly titled the Plymouth Semi-Weekly Independent, and began issuing a daily edition, the Plymouth Daily Independent. Reported circulation for the Independent was 750 in 1897, barely half the respective circulations for its in-town rivals. In 1896, Smith sold his interest to Zimmerman who then sold the paper to Silas H. Joseph and Clinton H. Grube. The new owners split management and editing duties, but after a year they sold the Independent to Clay W. Metsker.
In 1897, Metsker changed the title back to the Marshall County Independent and by 1900 returned to a weekly publication schedule. By then, the Independent was faring well in terms of circulation with its chief competitors, the Republican and Democrat. In March 1902, Metsker purchased the Plymouth Democrat and continued issuing the daily edition as the Daily Independent, but he switched the title of the weekly edition from the Independent to the Weekly Democrat. The acquisition of the Democrat nearly doubled the Independent’s weekly circulation from 1,650 to 3,200. Metsker retired the Independent name completely in 1909 when he started issuing the daily edition as the Plymouth Daily Democrat. Metsker sold the paper in March 1931. The new owners changed the daily title to the Plymouth Daily News and discontinued the weekly edition of the Democrat in 1941.
Click on the links throughout this essay to access digitized issues of the Sentinel through Chronicling America
After shuttering the Wabash Enquirer in Terre Haute, the Chapman brothers, George A. and Jacob P., moved to Indianapolis and purchased the Indiana Democrat, and Spirit of the Constitution in 1841. The Chapmans renamed the newspaper the Indiana State Sentinel and produced its first issue on July 21, 1841. The Sentinel was a Democratic paper and displayed on the masthead the party mascot, a rooster, with the motto, “Crow, Chapman, Crow!”[1] The majority of Indiana’s elected officials throughout the 1840s and 1850s were Democrats, and the Sentinel became the preeminent Democratic organ in the state during these decades and the major foil to the city’s Whig and later Republican voice, the Indianapolis Journal. The Chapman brothers issued the Sentinel as a weekly but produced a daily edition while the Indiana General Assembly was in session from 1841 to 1844. In 1845, the newspaper inaugurated the twice-weekly Indiana State Sentinel. A tri-weekly edition also appeared during legislative sessions. After 1853, the weekly version was called the Weekly Indiana State Sentinel.
Austin H. Brown acquired complete control of the paper in 1850 and made it a year-round daily on April 28, 1851. The Sentinel changed hands at least six times during the next decade, which partly contributed to the paper’s loss of influence and subscribers. During the Civil War years, the Daily State Sentinel and the weekly Indiana State Sentinelwere vocal critics of the Republican-controlled government.The Sentinel’seditor, Joseph J. Bingham, was arrested by the army for treason and conspiracy. Bingham ultimately turned government witness in the Indianapolis trial by military commission in 1864 of Harrison H. Dodd and others accused of involvement in a Copperhead conspiracy. This turmoil contributed to the decline of the Sentinel. In July 1865, Charles W. Hall and a partner acquired the paper and changed its name to the Indianapolis Daily Herald. Fifteen months later, the newspaper went into receivership. In 1868, its name reverted back to the Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, and there also appeared a weekly edition, the Indiana State Sentinel. The paper continued to change hands until 1872 when it was acquired by the Sentinel Company, which dropped “Daily” from the title. Circulation figures for the daily edition averaged about 6,000 between 1869 and 1888. The name was changed several more times over the next few years before finally returning to the Indianapolis Sentinel in 1880. The Sentinel’s weekly edition, with a strong readership among Indiana farmers and stock-raisers, enjoyed a circulation of 12,000 during this period.
In February 1888, Samuel E. Morss purchased the paper and helped to return the Sentinel to the level of influence it had enjoyed back in the 1850s. Morss came to the Sentinel after editing the Fort Wayne Gazette and Fort Wayne Daily Sentinel and co-founding the Kansas City [MO] Evening Star. According to a contemporary source, the Sentinel under Morss “has been constantly progressive and eminently the advocate and champion of clean politics, good government and civil service reform.” During Morss’s tenure (1888-1903), circulation averaged 18,091 for the daily (which was issued as the Indianapolis Globe for a few weeks in 1903), and 49,389 for the weekly edition. Despite these impressive figures, the Sentinel faced growing competition and financial difficulties. The paper had failed to take a stand on the dominant political question of 1890s regarding free silver and consequently lost subscriptions and advertising revenue. In an effort to lure back readers and to compete with cheaper papers, the weekly subscription rate was dropped from a dollar to fifty cents in 1898, causing circulation to spike to 100,000 in 1901-05. The daily’s yearly subscription was also reduced from six dollars to three dollars. Morss died unexpectedly on October 23, 1903. A group led by Democratic National Committee Chairman Thomas Taggart took over the Sentinel for a few months before Frank T. Baker purchased it. Under Baker, the Sentinel adopted a more sensationalist tone associated with the yellow press. The Indianapolis Sentinel ceased publication on February 25, 1906.
[1] The motto “Crow, Chapman, Crow!” reportedly originated in reference to Hancock County, Indiana politician Joseph Chapman, and not the Chapman brothers.
Issued as the Marshall County Democrat from 1855-1859, digitized issues are available through Hoosier State Chronicles.
The Marshall County Democrat debuted on November 15, 1855, in Plymouth, an agricultural community in north-central Indiana. The paper originated not long after the Kansas-Nebraska Act divided the Democratic Party. While the Marshall County Democrat declared, “Slavery is wrong, either North or South of the Missouri Compromise line,” it also endorsed popular sovereignty stating, “All territory is free until it becomes a State, and then the people alone can control the institutions.” Thomas McDonald co-founded the paper, and he and his sons, Platt and Daniel, and grandsons, John and Louis, would intermittently own the Democrat over the next 47 years.
Issued as the Plymouth Weekly Democrat from 1860-1869, click to access these issues from Hoosier State Chronicles.
During the Civil War, Daniel E. VanValkenburgh acquired the newspaper, which the Union Army suppressed in May 1863. Early that month, General Ambrose Burnside issued General Orders No. 38 which permitted military commissions to try any private citizen who expressed opposition to the Lincoln administration or sympathy for the Southern rebels. VanValkenburgh editorialized on what he viewed as Lincoln’s abuses of power, and lamented, “It may be that our liberties are ‘clean gone forever.’” The last straw was VanValkenburgh’s criticism of Burnside’s lieutenant, General Milo S. Hascall. The Democrat wrote, “Brig. Gen. Hascall is a donkey, an unmitigated, unqualified donkey, and his bray is long, loud and harmless.” A few days later, Union soldiers arrested VanValkenburgh and brought him before General Burnside in Cincinnati to answer charges of treason. Burnside ultimately released VanValkenburgh but cautioned him to be more careful of his criticisms in the future.
After several changes in ownership, the McDonalds reacquired interest in the Democrat in 1869. By 1877, Daniel McDonald had become complete owner, and with the exception of an interruption in 1879-81, he owned and edited the paper until 1902. By 1894, the Democrat had expanded to eight pages. It reached its peak circulation around that time with a reported 1,650 copies.
Clay W. Metsker, the owner of the Marshall County Independent, acquired the Democrat in March 1902. He merged the two publications but continued issuing them under separate titles as daily and weekly editions respectively until 1909 when the Democrat replaced the Independent as the daily edition. Metsker sold out to Roland B. Metsker and Heyward P. Gibson in March 1931. The new owners renamed the paper the Plymouth Daily News. They also retained the Democrat title for the weekly edition until discontinuing it in January 1941.
