Newspapers: Communication, News and EntertainmentThis is a featured page

Washington State Library Image: Newspapers Montage
Newspapers are the oldest “mass media.” They have been providing news, entertainment and commentary on current events to large and small groups of readers for hundreds of years. From the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, newspapers were the primary source of news for most people. Through features such as comics, book, theater and movie reviews, sports, Sunday magazine supplements, advice and gossip columns, they have also provided entertainment to millions.

Some key historical questions: What technology spurred the development of the newspaper industry? What is “yellow journalism?” How are small town newspapers different from those that cover large metropolitan areas? How has your community newspaper changed over the last 100 to 150 years? Can a single newspaper or writer be used as a focus to interpret the historical development of the newspaper industry? How have the roles and impact of newspapers changed over the last eighty years? What were “underground newspapers” and what role did they play in the 1960s and 1970s? What are newsletters and how are they different than newspapers? How did newspapers serve immigrant communities?

Be sure to consider other possibilities for historical questions as you analyze and interpret your topic.

Primary Sources:
  • Corporation Filings and Indexes – Newspapers
  • Territorial Newspaper Index
  • County Corporation Filings and Indexes - Newspapers
  • County Corporation Filings and Indexes - Newspapers
  • County Corporation Filings and Indexes - Newspapers
  • County Corporation Filings and Indexes - Newspapers
  • County Corporation Filings and Indexes - Newspapers
  • Wally Funk Papers (Journalist)
  • T. Patterson and Company Records (Newspaper Publisher)
  • Northwest Worker Newspaper (Socialist Party Publication)
  • Everett Ekko Newspaper (Everett’s Norwegian and Dutch Communities)
  • Port Townsend Leader (Newspaper) Records
  • Charles B. Lindeman Papers (Journalist)
  • Seattle Post Intelligencer Records
  • Seattle Newspaper Photograph Collection
  • Francis H. Cook Papers (Newspaper Publisher)
  • Nelson W. Durham Papers (Newspaper Editor)
  • W.D. Knight Reminiscences (Journalist)
  • Nicholas V. Lindsay Papers (Journalist)
  • Henry Rising Papers (Journalist)

  • George A. Arthur Papers (Underground Newspapers)
  • ASUW Daily Committee Records (student Newspaper)
  • Harry E. B. Ault Papers (Seattle Union Record Newspaper)
  • Clarence B. Bagley Papers (Newspaper Editor)
  • Erastus Brainard Papers (Newspaper Editor)
  • Asahel Bush Papers (Newspaper Editor)
  • Charles T. Conover Papers & Scrapbboks (Newspaper Editor & Columnist)
  • Samuel P. DeBow Scrapbook (Seattle Searchlight)
  • Saul Haas Papers (Seattle Union Record Journalist)
  • Nathan Krems (Editor – Jewish Community Newspapers)
  • Fred Lockley Scrapbook (Journalist)
  • Svante Lofgren Papers (Swedish-American Journalist)
  • Robert E. Mahaffey Papers (Reporter)
  • McElroy Family Papers (Newspaper Publishers)
  • Terry Pettus Papers (Reporter and Editor/Newspaper Strike)
  • Walert H. Rasmussen Papers (Union Newsapaper Editor)
  • John W. Redington Papers and Scrapbook (Reporter and Publisher)
  • James Y. Sakamoto Papers (Japanese-American Courier Publisher)
  • Seihoku Nippo Newspaper Records
  • Anna Louise Strong Papers (Radical Journalist and Activist)
  • Svenska Posten Newspaper Records
  • University of Washington Student Publications Office Records
  • Victorio Velasco Papers (Editor/Publisher of Filipino Forum)
  • Washington Press Association Records
  • James E. Whitworth Papers (Newspaper Publisher)
  • Oliver L. Willoughby Papers (Owner – Port Townsend Call)
  • Rufus Woods Papers (Publisher – Wenatchee Daily World)













  • Edward N. Fuller Papers (Newspaper Editor)
  • Sidney A. Perkins Papers (Journalist)



  • Joseph L. Ashlock Papers (Journalist)
  • Ashmun N. Brown Scrapbooks (Journalist)
  • Guy M. Richards Papers (Agricultural Journalist)
  • Wilson Creek World (Newspaper) Records



Secondary Sources:
Washington: A Centennial History by Robert E. Ficken and Charles LeWarne
Empire of the Columbia: A History of the Pacific Northwest by Dorothy Johansen
Raise Hell and Sell Newspapers: Alden J. Blethen and the Seattle Times by Lorraine McConaghy and Sharon A. Boswell
The Pacific Northwest: An Interpretive History by Carlos Schwantes


MaryWSL
MaryWSL 		Latest page update: made by MaryWSL , Sep 10 2008, 1:20 PM EDT (about this update About This Update MaryWSL Edited by MaryWSL


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