Congressionally Funded Newspaper Digitization Completed

 by Carrie Marsh, Director, Clarke Historical Library 

Newspapers are among the most enduring records of Michigan’s history and serve as essential resources for uncovering stories that you won't find in other types of records. How were Michiganders impacted by the American Civil War, the Great Depression, or two world wars? How did Michigan towns adapt to economic changes over the past century? An important resource to help answer these questions and many more is our newspapers.

In 2022, the Clarke Historical Library received a Congressional earmark of $135,000 to digitize historical Michigan newspapers and make them openly accessible online. We were one of eleven historical or cultural organizations to receive this funding, which was administered by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). Between January 2023 and March 2025, Clarke staff digitized portions of 17 historical newspapers, totaling more than 250,000 newspaper pages.

Front page of the Iron Ore,
September 21, 1895

Among the digitized titles was Iron Ore, founded by geologist and mining expert George Newett in Ishpeming. Iron Ore not only covered the mining activities and other news of the Ishpeming area but also reported on mines across the U.S. and around the world. The Clare County Cleaver has been reporting local news and events since 1881, making it the oldest ongoing business in the county. The earmark funds helped us fill in gaps in the Clare County Cleaver’s online coverage between 1976 and 2004. While Monroe Commercial, founded in 1840, is not Monroe’s first newspaper (that’s The Michigan Sentinel, founded in 1825), it was one of the longest-running newspapers under that title for the county. Now available online, thanks to the earmark funds, is the run of Monroe Commercial published between 1859 and 1885.

The 16 newspapers in this project are openly accessible in the Clarke’s online newspaper site, DigMichNews where everyone--community members, families, students, teachers, genealogists, and others--can research Michigan’s rich history documented in historical newspapers. We extend our deep gratitude to Senator Gary Peters and Senator Debbie Stabenow for championing the Clarke’s project and including it in the 2022 omnibus bill.

 A Complete List of the Newspapers Digitized with Congressional Funding
(including links to the digitized content, items with and asterisk will come online soon)

Title	Dates
Clare County Cleaver	1976-1980, 1990-1997, Dec 1998-2004
Menominee Herald Leader	1912-1936
Monroe Commercial	August 1859-November 1860, 1869 (November and December), 1862-1885
Monroe Democrat	March 1880-March 1914
Mount Clemens Monitor	1869 (January and February), 1880-1897, May 1898, 1899-1900, 1901 (January and December), August 1902, 1903-1936
Pontiac Press	1970-1972
Oakland Press	1970-1973
Gratiot County Journal; Gratiot County Herald	1884, 1889-1906
[Ishpeming] Iron Agitator, Iron Ore, Weekly Agitator	1882-1886, 1879-1881
Zeeland Expositor	1893-1896
Zeeland Record	1897-1912
Bessemer Herald*	1847-1945 (some gaps)
Elk Rapids Progress*	1872-1899 (some gaps)
[Orchard Lake] Niedziela (Sunday)*	1891-1894, 1989-1902

 

Who’s that looking at me from the courtyard?

By Gillian Macdonald

Being eyeballed by mysterious creatures in a courtyard isn’t something we normally associate with a university, is it? Even today, a small plastic owl stares at the students of Pearce Hall from the branches of a tree in the courtyard. Our plastic friend, however, isn’t the only guest to have looked upon the students from the bushes and trees…

Thanks to one industrious mathematics professor, for almost twenty years between 1971 and 1990, students and staff members alike were serenaded by strange screeching emanating from the Pearce Hall courtyard. The weird and often jungle-like noises were often accompanied with stares from some curious dwellers under the bushes and in the trees.

William Swart’s tenure in the Department of Mathematics at CMU from 1967 to 1986 had some quirky additions to teaching and research. Thanks to his hobby of raising animals, under Swart’s charge, various creatures became residents of the Pearce Hall courtyard. Swart’s animal raising was not limited to CMU grounds; he also reportedly kept three pheasants at the Pleasant Manor Nursing Home on Crapo St., and also raised wild turkeys, grouse, and Arabian horses at his own property. In 1990, CMLife reported on the peacocks roaming in Pearce Hall’s small courtyard. Turns out, the peacocks were part of a longer tradition and what one reporter called an animal menagerie that had existed since 1971.

Professor Swart first introduced animals into the space in 1971. He decided the courtyard should have some sort of purpose. After seeking and being granted permission, Swart put game birds in the courtyard after the 1971 “energy crunch” (CMLife, 25 April 1986). His first charges were pheasants—Ringneck and Lady Amherst—whose feathers were clipped on one wing to keep them from flying away.

Swart originally had around 15 birds in the courtyard, but they started disappearing at an alarming rate. Speaking to CM Life staff reporter Dan Criscenti, Swart recalled the incident and his eventual conclusions. First thinking they were stolen, Swart then discovered remains on top of the feeder leading him to a different conclusion. Since the courtyard was well-lit and smaller, the clipped birds were easy prey for predators like owls. Shutting off the lights at night seemed to take care of the problem.

The birds not only became a staple of life at Pearce Hall but also the butt of many jokes. Signs on the windows at Pearce Hall that advocated for feeding the birds apple cores were often accompanied by recipes for roasted pheasant. Thankfully, no pheasant was ever resigned to this fate. Swart also encouraged students to work on improving the nesting areas in the courtyard or replicate the project in other buildings (CMLife, 5 November 1973). Which begs the question: are there more secret pheasant hideaways anywhere else at CMU?  

It doesn’t seem like it. Swart’s personal project remained in the Pearce Hall courtyard and expanded with the addition of Gigi Golden pheasants later. However, pheasants were not the only creatures who cut loose in the courtyard. In 1985, Swart introduced four peacocks to the population of Pearce Hall for no other reason than to “look at and enjoy.” Students of the industrial education program later built the peacocks a small shelter in 1987. The peacocks were also joined by African Pygmy goats and quail who wandered around the small, enclosed space. With the help of Sydney Watson, chair of health and science, and Sandra Warriner, computer science instructor, Swart fed and took care of the courtyard animals.

Sadly, Professor Swart passed away just last year in July 2020. The legacy of the noisy courtyard, however, lives on among the staff of Pearce Hall, including Patti Cotter in World Languages and Cultures, who passed this story on to others. You do have to wonder, whatever happened to keeping animals in the courtyard?

Digital recreation of what the animal menagerie in Pearce Courtyard possibly looked like (Photo credit: Ben Ackley)

Give to the Clarke Microfilm Project on Giving Tuesday

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO THE MICROFILM PROJECT ENDOWMENT

2017 marks the golden anniversary of Clarke Historical Library Microfilm Program. And there is no better time than Tuesday, November 29, 2016, also known as Giving Tuesday, for you to help keep this program going strong for years to come. We hope you will help us reach our goal of establishing a $50,000 endowment to be used for preserving and making accessible the history of our state as told by our local newspapers.

Frank Boles, Director of the Clarke, recently explained in a blog post the history and significance of the Microfilm Project - click here to read it. He also mentioned the difficulties faced because of increasing costs of modern microfilming and digitizing technologies. 

How to donate

If you would like to be part of preserving and making Michigan’s history accessible, we ask that you click on the link at the top or bottom of this post in order to donate.After you click on the link, you will be taken to the Central Michigan University Giving Form. In step one, simply type Clarke Historical Library in the “search for funds” box and select “Clarke Historical Library Associates Program.” Then enter the amount you would like to give. In steps two and three, you can fill in information about yourself, your gift, and your contact information. In step four, type “Please use this gift for the Microfilm Project Endowment” in the “Additional Comments” box. From here, you can submit your donation and arrange for payment via credit card.

If you prefer to make you gift in the form of a check, please send a check made out to Central Michigan University to Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University, 250 E. Preston Street, Mount Pleasant, MI 48859. Please be sure to note the Microfilm Project Endowment on your gift.

Again, we hope you will support the Clarke in our goal to preserve Michigan’s history in the form of newspapers and make that history available to anyone who is interested.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO THE MICROFILM PROJECT ENDOWMENT

The Clarke Historical Library Microfilm Project Endowment

by Frank Boles

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Clarke Historical Library Microfilm Program in 2017 the library is hoping to raise $50,000 to create an endowment supporting the ongoing work of preserving and making available to researchers Michigan’s newspaper heritage. We hope you will help us reach that goal. Much of our state’s local history hangs in the balance.

The Clarke Historical Library started the Microfilm Project in October 1967 after the staff raised the funds to purchase a microfilm camera. Director John Cumming had begun discussing a project to film Michigan newspapers in 1964. He recognized that Michigan’s newspapers represented the most complete documentation regarding the state’s history. Newspaper reporters often talk about writing “the first draft of history.” They’re right. If local newspapers are not preserved, the majority of the state’s local history would be lost.

The money to undertake the project did not come easily. With great determination, Cumming chased after every funding source he, or anyone else, could think of to support the project. At one point Cumming admitted he was disheartened. Nevertheless he continued and eventually the money was found.

When the money was finally assembled, one of the members of the Clarke Board asked Cumming when the project would be done. Cumming answered that as far as he could tell the need was endless, but the funding would last about five years. Cumming was right on both points. Many millions of newspaper pages were quietly rotting away and the money ran out long before the need was met.

To keep the project alive, the library staff made a unique, and sometimes challenging, decision to make the microfilm project self-funded. Unlike other library activities, the microfilm project would have to pay its own way, becoming for practical purposes a not-for-profit business. And perhaps to everyone’s surprise, the plan worked and it continues to do so to the very day.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, change in the Microfilm Project seemed inevitable. Many said that electronic media would replace microfilm. Microfilm was old fashioned, hard to use, and generally inconvenient. Online resources were available round-the-clock, allowing for use at a time that met the researchers’ schedule. But a funny thing happened in the digital world. Scanned material proved to be a wonderful mechanism for distributing information to researchers, but a not very good means of preserving that information. Frequent data migration, new software, and the lack of standardized digital preservation formats led to a world where online sources became the preferred way to share historical newspapers, but a preservation nightmare. Microfilm continued to be the preferred solution for the long haul.

A Clarke employee inspects microfilm for scanning

The Clarke’s microfilm program embraced the world of digital content distribution. Beginning in 2008, the Library began to convert newspapers on microfilm into digital formats. Some of these appeared on our own website - https://www.cmich.edu/library/Pages/Digital-Collections.aspx. Others, with the help of the National Endowment for the Humanities, were made available on the Library of Congress website, Chronicling America - http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/. Still other projects were undertaken with the assistance of other libraries or historical societies, which purchased digitizing services from the Clarke and then made the digital images available either in-house at their library or through their own website. While we have embraced the digital world, we also continue to crank out good, old-fashioned, long-lived microfilm. In the last fiscal year (2015-2016) the Library produced over 460,000 digital scans. The Library staff also produced 123 reels of microfilm, approximately 120,000 images.

You would think at this rate we would soon run out of things to film and scan. But today John Cumming’s words about an “endless” number of newspapers still rings true. Although there may be an end someday, the end of newspaper preservation on microfilm and digitization of Michigan’s newspaper heritage is nowhere in sight.

Our ability to do carry out this enormous endeavor on a cost-recovery basis has become seriously challenged by the ever-increasing costs of both microfilm and digitization hardware and software. When the project began a good, reliable Kodak microfilm camera cost about $20,000 and could be relied on to work for what seemed forever -- the Clarke’s two Kodak cameras lasted about 40 years. Contemporary microfilm cameras cost nearly four times as much and have a life expectancy of about eight to ten years. Digital equipment is equally expensive and short lived. A microfilm scanner costs approximately $50,000 and has a life expectancy tied to ever-changing software.

Microfilm cabinets in the Clarke

In addition to the initial purchase price, these complex machines require ongoing service, paid for by annual service contracts. Service contracts for hardware and software today cost the library over $20,000 a year. But to go without the contracts is even more expensive because “a la carte” service is only available from a limited number of sources. For example, our current microfilm camera’s certified maintenance is only available from two places – Maryland and Utah. Without a service contract, we would begin a “service call” by paying the air fare for the technician to fly to Michigan, if one can be spared from clients with service contracts.

To be able to continue to offer relatively low priced microfilm and digitization services that primarily preserve and make accessible Michigan’s rich newspaper heritage we are asking that you join us in creating and operating endowment to celebrate the Microfilm Project’s golden anniversary. Hardware, software, and service contracts don’t grab much attention in the world of grants and giving. But like roads, the electric grid, water pipes and other infrastructure projects, they are ignored at our peril. The infrastructure that preserves Michigan’s newspaper heritage needs constant care and regular improvement. Please help make it possible by making a gift to the Clarke Historical Library Microfilm Project Endowment. Tax deductible gifts can be sent to the Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 or they can be given on-line. Click here for more information about on-line gifts.

Historical Alpena Newspapers Now Available

Back in January, the Clarke hosted the Michigan Digital Newspaper Grant Contest. Over 100,000 Tweets and 8,000 postcards were cast as votes by supporters of the five finalist communities. And the winner, at the end of the flurry of votes, was Alpena.

Today, we are pleased to announce that the Alpena Evening News (1899-1905, 1909-10) and the Labor Journal (1885-1890) are now available via the Digital Michigan Newspapers website. These two titles are the first titles that we added to our digitized newspapers after the switch to our new digital document interface.

Congrats again to Alpena. Welcome to the Digital Michigan Newspapers Database!

Newspapers are Dying, You Say?

[editor's note: Tomorrow, February 4, Dr. Joyce Baugh will speak about her book, The Detroit School Busing Case: Milliken v. Bradley and the Controversy over Desegregation, at 7:00 pm in the Park Library Auditorium. A reception will follow in the Clarke.] 

 

Newspapers are Dying, You Say?

by Frank Boles

You hear it almost everywhere; newspapers are either dead or dying. Everything is migrating to the Internet and old-fashioned, printed papers are a thing of the past.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the annual meeting of the Michigan Press Association. Turns out a funny thing happened on the way to the cemetery. Profits. In some cases, record profits. This profitability is not evenly distributed. The big-city, metropolitan papers, about ten percent of the newspaper titles in America, are losing subscribers and income. But newspapers in small communities are doing well. Many are setting profit records. How is this possible to lose money in the big city but make it in small towns?

America has about 20,000 newspapers. A bare majority are small, independently-owned publications, with an additional sizable minority in relatively small newspaper groups – less than five newspaper titles. Most of these independent papers or small chains are weeklies or dailies in small markets. Those that are most profitable relentlessly focus on local news. They realize that their readers can turn to CNN or the New York Times for national and international coverage. But CNN and the New York Times won’t have much to say about last night’s city council meeting or the prospects for the local high school football team. To find out about those stories, people who live in these communities still buy a newspaper.

Some of the local newspapers collected by the Clarke

Also interesting are two additional characteristics of the most successful of these small papers. The trick is not just local news. It is well-written, well-laid-out newspapers. When non-subscribers are polled about why they don’t buy a paper, their two biggest complaints are not enough local news (38%) and poor writing (22%). This survey corroborated what another speaker had said earlier in the conference, there is still money to be made in print newspapers, but only if you display journalistic excellence, with interesting, well-written stories, displayed in an easy-to-read manner.

Thousands of reels of Michigan
newspapers on microfilm
in the Clarke stacks

For more than fifty years, the Clarke Historical Library has worked to preserve and distribute Michigan’s historical, local newspapers. I have been asked, more than once, what happens when all those papers go out of business? The answer it seems is that they aren’t going to go out of business. Better yet, the way to stay in business is not to cut staff and pages, but to devote time and energy to excellent coverage of local events. Newspapers with that emphasis are not only performing an important community service, they are creating the next generation of newspapers that will, in a few years, become important community history.

Having spent two days with journalists, editors, and publishers, I came away with the feeling that this aspect of the Clarke Historical Library mission, preserving and making available Michigan’s historical newspapers, will grow, especially as the smaller regional newspapers the Library documents thrive by engaging in quality local journalism. The better each paper is, the better the history we can eventually share with communities around the state.

It is  certainly an exciting time to be working with Michigan’s local newspapers. If you are interested in joining in, take a look at our blog post explaining how you can help to bring historic Michigan newspapers online for people all over the word to explore.

Please Help Digitize Newspapers

by Frank Boles

Last week proved many of you are as excited as we are about digitizing and placing online Michigan’s historic newspapers. In the course of a week, more than 110,000 Tweets and 8,000 postcards were received casting votes for your favorite city. The Clarke staff congratulates Alpena on their victory. But now what?

The truth is all five finalist newspapers in last week's election deserve to be made available online. The truth is there are many other papers, equally important, that should be available online. The truth is, without your help, there is no money to make this happen. For more than fifty years, the Clarke Historical Library has been microfilming Michigan newspapers to ensure their preservation. For the last decade, we have added the ability to digitize newspapers and we have invested in the software to make them freely available online. But over all this time, we have had to charge people to do this. In University budgeting terminology, this project is “self-funded.” There are no tax dollars helping make this happen; there are no student tuition dollars being used to support this work. There is just a small library with a passionate commitment to Michigan newspapers, which works with friends and neighbors whose dollars help us move toward the goal of saving Michigan’s newspaper heritage and making it available online.

Two dedicated endowments help support this work. Through the generosity of Robert and Susan Clarke, and the family of Gail D. Knapp, our library has the means to annually digitize and upload about 20,000 newspaper pages online. It’s a start, but it’s a small start. There are well over a million pages that we know of, waiting to come online – and likely other newspapers are hiding, waiting to be discovered, preserved, and made available.

A Clarke student assistant works to digitize
historic newspapers from microfilm

If you have participated in the contest, or if you share our passion to see Michigan’s historic newspapers freely available online, please consider making a financial contribution to either the Robert and Susan Clarke Endowment, or the Knapp Family Genealogical Endowment. If everyone who voted gave us one dollar for every tweet or postcard they contributed, the endowments would grow enough so that next year, when we again offer Michigan communities a chance to have their newspaper placed online, we could digitize closer to 100,000 pages. It would still take a long time to make all the state’s historical newspapers available – but the job might be done in something like a decade, instead of a century.

Please mail a check made payable to Central Michigan University – Robert and Susan Clarke Endowment or Central Michigan University – Gail D. Knapp Endowment to the Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859. Your contribution is tax deductible.

Please help. Every gift, small or large, will allow us to carry on this important work.

Reference Tops the Charts

by Frank Boles

It was one busy month in the Clarke Historical Library during November. 426 people visited – by far the busiest month in a decade and astounding when one recalls that in the entire year of 2005-06, 929 people visited the Library.

Much of this increased use has to do with changes in the way history courses are taught. In particular, the Common Core State Educational Standards Initiative has changed the way teachers are expected to teach, and thus changed the way schools like CMU teach future teachers. Common Core calls on teachers to impart not just information, but learning skills to their students, what supporters call “deeper learning skills.” This, in turn has led to an emphasis on learning more than just “facts.” More and more teachers will be asked to develop in their students the ability to understand and interpret facts – to learn how to think about information.

Student working with primary source material in the Clarke

One way to do this is by using primary source material, the kind of things found in a library such as the Clarke. Learning how to assess documents, discussing how documents might be interpreted, and then developing a conclusion are critical skills both in history and in general in the twenty-first century. Future teachers learn how to do this in places like the Clarke Historical Library. This need to learn a new way to teach has created a new demand for the resources we have always held important.

It keeps the Library staff busy and the Library increasingly relevant to the mission of CMU as well as the broader social issues America faces.

Tips and Tricks for CONDOR Featured in Saline Newspaper

The Clarke Historical Library and the CMU Libraries have worked hard over the past several years to make historic Michigan newspapers freely available on-line. We will continue to add more titles to CONDOR, our historic document database, in the future. As CONDOR continues to grow and become more complex (there are now over 15 titles from seven different Michigan counties - not counting all of the historic Central Michigan University documents!), using CONDOR can be a little tricky. Fortunately, Tran Longmoore of the Saline Post wrote a helpful piece full of tips and tricks to make searching in CONDOR as efficient as possible. Here is a link to Tran's article.

With these helpful ideas, CONDOR can be an even more powerful tool for all of your historical research. If you have any other helpful suggestions for using CONDOR, let the Clarke know and we might be able to share them on the Clarke News and Notes blog in the future.

Happy Valentine's Day - CM Life Personals Edition

by Casey "Chase me" Gamble

The Clarke Historical Library wishes you a Happy Valentine's Day! We LOVE being able to share historical documents with patrons from all different places! CMU students also have a "history" of showing love to each other through the CM Life Newspaper.

It seemed to begin in the 1970s, with only one or two submissions to the paper, like this one that we found particularly sweet:

The idea grew quickly, with dozens of people sending their love. We liked this column from 1975 - being worth more that a Volkswagen is pretty special...and 9 zillion years - that's a long time:

Soon the paper was inviting students to send more, filling up multiple pages worth.

It may be more convenient nowadays to express love for your significant other through Facebook or Twitter (#ValentinesDay #dinnerwithbae #ILYSM), the newspaper tradition clearly has not died down (see today's personals in the CM Life, pictured below), and we think it's more of a grand gesture. Some things have changed. The colorful print, the handcuffs. But it's all the same kind of love, isn't it?

We wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day. 

Groundhog Days of Yesteryear

By Bryan Whitledge

CM Life - Feb. 1, 1980

Waiting with bated breath on the morning of February 2 for the prognostication of the meteorological marmot has become an American tradition. In this day and age, Punxsutawney Phil and his ilk have Facebook pages and people can stream the reports of the rodents live on their tablets and smartphones. But generations of whistle-pigs past have not had the social media infrastructure to publicize their prophecies. Despite the lack of real-time coverage and live feeds from reporters on the ground to cover the ground squirrels' statements, there has been one source for all the details of the woodchuck's words - the newspaper!

In the digital newspaper holdings of the Clarke (made available via the CMU Libraries Digital Collections), we find mentions of our furry friend as far back as the 1880s. Some, such as the article in the Cheboygan Democrat of February 10, 1894 (p. 1, col. 1), give very detailed accounts and weigh the facts regarding the accuracy of relying on the rodent for a meteorological forecast.

Others are more succinct. The editorial comment of the Cheboygan Democrat of January 28, 1886 (p.1, col. 4) reads just like a 21st century tweet - "If this hog has any influence on the weather, we hope he gets stuck in his hole if it happens to be a fine day."

The following year, on February 4, 1887 (p. 1, col. 3) the Clare Press assumed that winter was over - "As near as we can ascertain, he came out but could not see his shadow." It is clear that nobody on staff spoke to an actual groundhog about his or her true and verified prediction. Why they didn't have a first hand account of this major weather-related story is beyond us. We can only hope that a reader of the Clare Press held the paper accountable for this oversight.

No oversight for the lack of a quality prediction was to blame in 1929. The reporters of the Clare Sentinel (February 8, 1929, p. 4, col. 4) went to Hatton to get the scoop, but they should have brought a shovel with them because "The Hatton hog was so completely covered with snow he did not try to look for shadows although he could be heard to grunt."

Sometimes, the papers gave a bit of history about the event, such as the Isabella County Enterprise of February 3, 1888 (p. 1, col. 2). This item in the newspaper notes that the celebration has its roots in the Germanic tradition of celebrating Candlemas.

Whether there was in-depth coverage or just a one-line mention, for over 100 years communities throughout Michigan and America have given the groundhog a forum to voice his vision for the future - are we to remain cold and frozen for six more weeks or will we see an early spring?

Michigan Digital Newspaper Grant Finalists Named

by Frank Boles and Kai Niezgoda

One of the following five cities will have their chosen newspaper digitized and placed online through the Clarke Historical Library’s Michigan Digital Newspaper Grant Program. The winning city's paper will be available on The Michigan Digital Newspaper Portal at clarke.cmich.edu.



The finalists are:

• Cheboygan (Cheboygan Democrat, 1880-1927)
• Grand Rapids (The Grand Rapids Herald, 1916-18)
• Lansing (Lansing State Republican, 1859-66)
• Marquette (Mining Journal, 1868-98)
• Muskegon (News and Reporter, 1870-99; Muskegon Record & Muskegon Daily Record, 1901-04)

You, the voters, get to decide which community will get their papers digitized and placed online. Cast your vote between April 1 and April 15 at digmichnews.wufoo.com. To keep up on the vote tally, follow us on our Facebook and Twitter.

The voting site will include a description written by the paper’s nominator and reasons the nominator believes it should be digitized. Read excerpts from the nomination applications below. To view the full applications, visit digmichnews.wufoo.com on or after April 1.

In total, 31 nominations were received, demonstrating the widespread need to make historic Michigan newspapers available online. Funding for this program is made possible through the Robert and Susan Clarke Endowment, found in Central Michigan University’s Clarke Historical Library. To see our newspapers online, visit condor.cmich.edu.

Library Application Highlights

The Cheboygan Area Public Library, who nominated Cheboygan Democrat (March 1880 to December 1927):

For many immigrant groups to this area from places such as Quebec, the Northeast, and places like Sweden, France, Poland, and Germany these newspapers provided a solid link for those for those in the present to connect with their past. Those of Native American heritage will also find valuable information in their pages. What is more, these newspapers provide what is essentially the only reliable source of information about Duncan City, a lumbering community of over 500 people that was once the seat of Cheboygan County. This town had the largest lumber mill north of Bay City; today, there is almost no trace that this community ever existed.

The Grand Rapids Public Library, who nominated The Grand Rapids Herald (1916 to 1918):

The special features or unique aspects of The Grand Rapids Herald are many. First, future Senator Arthur Vandenberg was the Editor in Chief of the Grand Rapids Herald from 1916-1918. Second, the Grand Rapids Herald was one of the two primary newspapers of the city of Grand Rapids. Third, the Grand Rapids Herald was the Society newspaper of Grand Rapids. Fourth, from 1916 to 1918, Grand Rapids saw the emergence of several important political figures who were to figure prominently in city, state and national politics. Finally, during this time period, Grand Rapids was to see its very political structure change. It is these features and aspects that are unique to the Grand Rapids Herald.

The Capital Area District Libraries of Lansing, who nominated the Lansing State Republican (January 1859 to September 1866):

The Lansing State Republican reflected the views of the Republican Party just prior to and during the Civil War. The editors and owners made their views on slavery and the abolition movement very clear in this capital city newspaper and these views were then carried throughout the state.

Marquette’s Peter White Public Library, who nominated the Mining Journal, published in Marquette (November 1868 to circa 1898):

We believe that people have an interest in the industrial age of our country. Iron mining, copper mining, and timber harvesting are a part of this history. There is a resurgence of mining in the north-central Upper Peninsula. As a country, we seem to be keenly interested in regaining some of our lost industrial might. In addition to the human side, and the local history aspect, the stories found in historic Mining Journal issues are an excellent resource to tie the past into our present and future ambitions.

The Hackley Public Library in Muskegon, who nominated the News and Reporter (1870 to 1899) and the Muskegon Record and Muskegon Daily Record (1901 to 1904):

Muskegon County has a unique and rich history in its demographics, labor migration, industrialization, logging, nautical activity and transportation. As the only Michigan deep water port on Lake Michigan and as the largest coastal city, Muskegon was very important in the development of the west side of the slate from the 1850s until after World War II.

Clare's Irish Festival

[editor's note: On Monday, March 17 at 7:00 pm in the Park Library Auditorium, the Clarke will welcome William Rapai, author of of The Kirtland's Warbler: The Story of a Bird's Fight Against Extinction and the People Who Saved It. At a time when the world is seeing many species go extinct, the Kirtland’s warbler, whose population became dangerously low in the 1970s, is not just a survivor, it’s a rock star. The story of this intriguing bird is a stirring example of how strong leadership, vision, commitment, sustained effort, and cooperation can come together to protect our natural world. A reception will be held in the Clarke following the presentation.]


Clare's Irish Festival

by Casey O'Gamble and Bryan McWhitledge

Clare Sentinel, February 11, 1976, p. 1

The small town of Clare, Michigan is more than well known for its adoration of St. Patrick’s Day and all things Irish. The weekend-long event is filled with Leprechaun contests, races, craft shows, live music, and plenty of green beverages to go around at the Doherty Hotel. But when did all of the fun begin?

Clare Sentinel, March 16, 1993, p. 1

Clare didn’t always have an Irish name; The county was first called KaykaKee after a Sauk Indian Chief. Then, in 1843, when an Irish surveyor came to the land, he decided to name the county after his homeland of County Clare in Ireland. The town took the name Clare when it was founded in the early 1870s. It would be more than 100 years before the townsfolk really began to embrace Clare’s Irish history. In 1976, the Clare Chamber of Commerce decided to adopt the Irish theme for the city. They began promoting it on billboards, in window displays, and giving Clare its official Shamrock symbol. The theme has stuck around for 42 years, and the crowd during the week of St. Patrick’s Day seems to grow bigger (and greener) every year.

The evolution of the Clare Irish Festival from the mid-1970s through today has been featured in the pages of the Clare Sentinel. Fortunately, these pages are available to researchers all over the world with just a few keystrokes into a web browser and a couples clicks of a mouse. A search of “Irish Festival” and “Clare” in the CONDOR historical newspaper database yields 334 results! You can read all about the history of the Clare Irish Festival or any other event with this website.

Clare Sentinel, March 20, 1990, p. 1

The Irish Festival is a weekend you can’t miss, especially if you are a native to Clare. People come from all over the area to join the party, don green attire, and have a grand time reminiscing about Clare’s Irish connections. Thanks to resources like the historical Clare Sentinel, the celebrations will be recorded in history and accessible to researchers from Clare County, Michigan to County Clare, Ireland.

The Clarke's Digital Newspaper Program

Today, Deborah Thomas, the Library of Congress coordinator for the National Digital Newspaper Project, is visiting Central's campus as part of the Clarke Historical Library’s involvement with the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). This evening at 7:00 pm, Ms. Thomas will present "Digitizing Newspapers in Michigan and Across America" at 7:00 pm in the Baber Room of the Park Library. This presentation, made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, is free and open to the public.

The Clarke has been working on the Michigan Digital Newspaper Program as part of the NDNP since August 2012. The MichDNP team is charged with choosing material to digitize from historically important Michigan titles. These digital copies will then be permanently maintained by the Library of Congress in the Chronicling America database. Chronicling America is targeted to any user that could possibly find access to historical newspapers useful -- teachers, genealogists, and historians among others.

Some titles from Michigan already available in Chronicling America are the Cass County Republican, Constantine Republican, the Grand Haven News, Grand River Times, Northern Tribune (Cheboygan), Weekly Expositor (Brockway Centre - now known as Yale, Michigan), and Ypsilanti Sentinel. The current digital runs of these newspapers range from 2 to 22 years and the dates of publication fall between 1836 and 1892. More issues are being processed and uploaded on a regular basis and the date ranges for each individual title will continue to expand.

The Clarke currently works with a vendor who processes the raw electronic images created by the Clarke to create derivative files and metadata. This information is then returned to the Clarke, where it is verified. It is then sent to the Library of Congress, where it is again processed and verified. Finally, the fully searchable digital newspapers are ingested into the Chronicling America repository and website.

The current project will be complete in August of 2014. The newspapers expected to be available by then are the Copper Country Evening News, the Calumet News, Dearborn Independent, Charlevoix County Herald, East Saginaw Courier, the Owosso Times, the True Northerner (Paw Paw), and the Yale Expositor.

The Clare Sentinel and CM Life digital newspaper conversion projects now complete on CONDOR

by Amber Wright

The Preservation Microfilming Department here at the Clarke has recently completed two important local projects – preserving and digitizing over 100 years of The Clare Sentinel (1896-1999) and almost 80 years of CM Life, stretching all the way back to 1919, when the newspaper was titled Central Normal Life.

These projects provided the preservation team with many interesting finds. You can view the original newspaper issue where these items were found by clicking on the link that is embedded in the date and you can enlarge the images by clicking on them:

• Some finds were important, such as the articles about small pox vaccination on the front pages of the February 8th (p. 1, col. 5) and 22nd (p. 6, col. 3), 1939 issues of Central State Life (another title by which CM Life was called (1927-41)).

• Some were quirky, like this issue from December 30th, 1965 in The Clare Sentinel, which contained a depiction of a baby in astronaut gear on page 9, allegorically symbolizing the turning of the New Year and commemorating the first spacewalk completed by a U.S. Citizen on June 3, 1965. Central State Life had its own quirky stories of the professor who spoke about the “universal language” known as Esperanto in 1930, as the August 6th article describes on page 2, column 4.

• Then there were the articles that gave us some historical perspective, such as the Central State Life front page discovery and re-concealment of the “cornerstone box” during construction in 1939, in the February 22nd (p.1, col. 2-4) issue. The box was a time capsule from decades before. Following tradition, it was replaced with contemporary objects, meant to be found again in the future. Even greater perspective was found in 1930. This January 15th (p. 2, col. 1-2) article exalts state support for student tuition with the claim that an education at Central was “[i]nexpensive, but not cheap.” The article explained that while the school charged a mere $279 per year for student tuition, the state was absorbing $270 worth. Because the state was “glad to bear such a high proportion of the cost” the bottom line for students was $9. Taking inflation into consideration, that’s $125 per year in 2013.

• Finally, there are fun cultural artifacts that can often be found in advertisements in the newspapers. For instance, in the September 19th, 1963 issue of The Clare Sentinel, (p.9, col. 1), there was a Cheez Whiz^TM ad suggesting how to use it with a baked potato. Today, there are several brands and styles of processed cheese sauces, but the narrow, tapered Cheez Whiz^TM jar seen in this 50-year-old ad was the original.

Expansion of Clarke's Digital Newspaper Holdings

The microfilming unit of the Clarke Historical Library has had a busy summer, which means that there are more digitized resources available to the public.

One project is the digitization of the historic Saline Observer. We are in the midst of uploading all of the available editions from 1880 through 1963 to the CMU Online Digital Object Repository (CONDOR). Currently, all of the editions that we hold on microfilm through 1926 have been uploaded to the Clarke Historical Library Newspaper Collection on CONDOR and we are adding more items every week. This is your source for historic Washtenaw County news.

Another project that is just starting is a National Digital Newspaper Program funded initiative to digitize 100,000 pages of local Michigan newspapers. To be a candidate for digitization, the newspaper run must date from before 1923, it must be a Michigan newspaper, and it cannot be currently digitized by another source. The final result will be the addition of the newspapers to the Library of Congress's Chronicling America site for historic American newspapers As this project kicks into high gear in the fall, we will keep you up to date with its progress.

As always, the Clarke Historical Library is working to improve the resources that we can provide to research the rich history of the State of Michigan and beyond. If you have any questions about any of our research resources, or if you would like further information about our digital newspaper initiatives, please contact us at clarke@cmich.edu.

Do You Catch On?

By Kim Hagerty
 

What do you think of when you hear the question: Do You Catch On? This is actually a title of a newspaper article from The Clare Sentinel, dated February 10, 1911. The article explains that "catching on" is a term used to refer to the practice of catching on a moving sleigh. The reason for the article was to warn against the dangers of this activity. There had been a "catch on" related fatality in Clare, Michigan, and they were urging parents and teachers to discourage children from this practice since they could be seriously or fatally injured.

Is that what you thought of when you heard that question? It sure makes you wonder how some terms we use today will have a completely different meaning in the future. Interesting how our language is forever changing. The Clare Sentinel is being digitized and put up online for everyone to use on CONDOR, CMU's online digital repository. To read articles from 1911, click the Clarke Historical Library Newspaper Collection.