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HISTORY OF NEWSPAPER PUBLISHING IN OKLAHOMA
Newspaper publishing in Oklahoma can be separated chronologically by territorial
and statehood titles. What is currently the State of Oklahoma was broken
down into two territories prior to statehood in 1907: Indian Territory and
Oklahoma Territory.
Besides what is mentioned above, the collection has maps of the region,
Indian and Oklahoma territories and the state.
Indians - Five Civilized - Official records generated by the Cherokee, Chickasaw,
Choctaw, Creek and Seminole tribes from 1858-1906.
Indian Territory was an unorganized territory of the United States which
served as the exclusive "Home of the Red Man" until 1889. It was
during this era of tribal sovereignty and the experiment in Indian self-determination
that the newspaper traditions of the future State began. It was also during
this time that the first newspaper, the Cherokee Advocate, began publication
in September of 1844. This paper migrated with the Cherokee Indians from
Georgia and was published as the official organ of the tribal government
and a dispenser of missionary and agricultural matter. It was printed in
English on two pages, with a Cherokee language version printed on the other
two pages. Only three other papers appeared in Indian Territory before the
Civil War, and all were organs of either mission schools or Indian tribes.
By the first land opening to white settlement in 1889, twenty-eight newspapers
had been published.
Oklahoma Territory was opened in 1889 to settlers, and the newspaper industry
began to boom for the pioneers. Some papers were published in the backs
of wagons and moved from town to town starting the day after the first land
run. After towns became established, papers in numbers well out of proportion
to population needs were established in scores of small towns. From 1889
to 1907, a war between towns vying for the County Seat (as the certainty
of statehood drew near), encouraged the growth of newspapers. Also during
this time, entire communities were established by groups from foreign countries
including Germans, Czechoslovakian, and Norwegian.
When these two territories were joined by statehood in 1907, more than 1500
different newspapers had appeared in Oklahoma, all within a span of less
than twenty years. Several of these early sheets endorsed minor political
parties, served large ethnic populations, or were published by non-whites.
Among the politically active people in the State were supporters of the
Socialist Party, which in a relatively brief period of time successfully
elected several local and state officials. Most communities had at least
three different papers (despite the population of the town): one democratic,
one republican, and one independent paper.
In 1910, three years after statehood, 36.5% of the non-Indian population
of the State spoke German. Concentrated in the north-central and western
portions of Oklahoma, persons of German descent formed a large and influential
ethnic group which began publishing newspapers and other periodicals in
German. At least ten different German papers appeared between 1893 and 1935.
In addition, at least one Czechoslovakian and one Norwegian newspaper were
published during this time period.
African-American newspapers were even more numerous than either Socialist
or foreign language papers. African-Americans were among the earliest settlers
in the region. After the Civil War, several American communities appeared
with their own newspapers, often in competition with each other. Curry Ballard
of Langston University has identified seventy-eight newspapers owned and
edited by African-Americans in Oklahoma between 1889 and 1930.
The variety of papers in the State was short-lived, however. Boosterism
and boomerism quickly gave way to the sobering economics of limited subscribers
and struggling advertisers. Many of the pioneering weeklies and dailies
suspended operations as rapidly as they began.
Through the years following statehood, newspapers in Oklahoma generally
followed national trends in journalism. The number of papers declined significantly
during World War I. Many dailies and weeklies quietly disappeared or were
absorbed through consolidations. Weekly editions of dailies, already declining
before the war, tended to disappear from all but the healthiest of markets.
By 1926, only 51 daily and 354 weekly newspapers continued publication in
Oklahoma. Only nine cities boasted more than one paper, and fifty-two reported
more than one weekly paper. Fifteen years later, on the eve of another world
war, the sum of newspapers had fallen from 405 to 374 papers (although the
number of daily papers increased from 51 to 62).
The number of newspapers published continued to decline following World
War II, with most of the loss occuring among weekly publications. This was
mainly due to a population shift from rural to urban communities. By 1961,
only 276 papers (including 51 dailies) continued to be published. Twenty-one
years later, the total number stood at 203, only slightly more than one-half
of the sum in 1926. According to the Oklahoma Press Association, 225 papers
are currently being published (177 weekly, and 48 daily papers). These statistics
do not include college or university newspapers.
OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The Oklahoma Historical Society has served as the centralized repository
for records dealing with the history of Oklahoma since before statehood,
and has the largest collection of newspaper titles on microfilm. The newspaper
collection currently consists of about 4000 titles on approximately 30,000
reels of microfilm (of which 25,167 reels were produced in-house). It has
the oldest, largest, and most complete collection of newspapers available
within the State.
According to the Constitution of the OHS as listed in Article II, "...the
purpose of the Society is to conduct activities in a manner which shall
serve 'to preserve and to perpetuate the history of Oklahoma and its people'...by
collecting, interpreting and disseminating knowledge of Oklahoma and the
Southwest...". The OHS maintains several Divisions for this purpose
including the Museums and Sites Divisions, the Library Resources Division,
and the Archives and Manuscripts Division.
Museums and Sites Divisions.
The Museums and Sites Divisions manage and maintain 14 museums and 16 historical
sites within the State. Artifact collections consist of approximately 520,000
items which are maintained by curators. Some of these artifacts are available
for loan to institutions for displays, or for traveling exhibits upon Board
approval. Most of the items within the collection are used extensively by
independent researchers.
Library Resources Division.
The Library Resources Division currently maintains 30,000 book titles representing
approximately 63,700 volumes. The collection consists of rare, and some
unpublished manuscripts, state and local histories, contemporary books,
etc. Strengths of the collection include Oklahoma history, the Five Civilized
Tribes, family and community histories, agriculture, industry and technology.
It also has a large collection of the U.S. Census microfilm which is widely
used by the public.
Archives and Manuscripts Division.
The Archives and Manuscripts Division consists of separate collections of
newspapers, photographs, oral histories, and documents. The photographic
collection has in excess of 400,000 images on site, with each museum and
site having approximately 10,000 each.
The Oral History collection began in 1965 and has approximatley 5000 individual
tapes of personal interviews which are available to the public and to researchers.
The strength of the manuscript collections lies in the Indian records, however,
of which there are well over 3.5 million records, and 6300 volumes of material.
This does not include individual collections (approximately 2500 cubit feet
of manuscripts) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) records.
In addition, the newspaper collection consists of over 30,000 reels of microfilm
representing approximately 88% of all newspapers published in the State
of Oklahoma. In addition to the papers on microfilm, an archival collection
of newspapers is maintained (over 8,000 individual issues) which are representative
of different historical periods and geographical areas.
NEWSPAPER PRESERVATION IN OKLAHOMA
The newspaper collection of the Archives and Manuscripts Division of the
Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS) ranks as the foremost repository of newspapers
in Oklahoma, largely as a result of a close and long-term relationship between
the OHS and newspaper publishers throughout the State. The OHS was actually
formed in 1893 by members of the Oklahoma Territory Press Association for
the purpose of preserving newspapers. They knew that Oklahoma would eventually
become a state and that the documents being printed would allow them a rare
opportunity to preserve the history from the first day of settlement.
Although the OHS became a territorial agency in 1895 and a state agency
in 1907, the relationship between the Oklahoma Press Association (OPA) was
continued under the guardianship of the first two curators: W.P. Campbell
and Will T. Little. These former newspaper editors dominated the OHS for
the first twenty or more years. As a result of their efforts and belief
in preserving newspapers, by 1950 the OHS housed over 30 million pages of
newsprint in their collection. In exchange for OHS publications, editors
mailed issues of their newspapers to the OHS, and are continuing to do so.
In 1957, the State Legislature appropriated funds to begin microfilming
the bound volumes of these newspapers. This project continued on a regular
basis, and more funds were allotted by the legislature in 1982 to maintain
the program. In 1985, a Noble Grant was procured, which allowed the production
of 336 additional rolls of film to be added to the collection. To date,
the newspaper collection of the OHS consists of 25,167 rolls of microfilm
which have been produced in-house.
In 1992, the OHS was awarded funds by the National Endowment for the Humanities
to begin the implementation phase of the Oklahoma Newspaper Project. This
project was funded for three years (with an extension of $150,000. for an
additional year) in order to locate, retrieve, microfilm, and catalog all
newspapers of the State of Oklahoma. According to the planning phase, approximately
88% of all newspapers published were already preserved on microfilm. It
is the goal of the Oklahoma Newspaper Project to retrieve as much of the
remaining 12% as available, and to preserve them before they are lost for
all time.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC CONTROL OF NEWSPAPERS
Several attempts have been made over the years to gain some type of bibliographic
control over the vast number of incoming newspapers at the Oklahoma Historical
Society. Beginning in 1957, the first two weeks of each month were spent
microfilming the most current papers, with the remainder of the month dedicated
to microfilming the oldest newspapers. These were done on a county-by-county
basis.
Inventory Cards. Master inventory cards were compiled after each
roll of microfilm was completed. The information entered on the cards was
taken from the daily worksheets of the microfilm operators. These worksheets
indicated missing issues as well as complete volumes. Hash marks were used
to indicate the beginning and ending of each roll, and dates missing were
marked on each card. After comparing the cards with the actual microfilm
during the inventory procedure over the last three years, approximately
50% of the cards correctly reflect the content of each reel.
Microfilm Catalog In 1987, the Archives and Manuscripts Division
of the OHS compiled a listing of the newspapers held in the collection.
Because no staff member could devote full-time to the project, the work
was to be completed in three stages. The first stage was to catalog the
titles published before 1911. The data was first entered into a computer
database (DBASE III), then sorted data was transferred to a document in
WordPerfect. The catalog was divided into four categories: 1) Oklahoma newspapers
by county; 2) non-Oklahoma newspapers filmed from the OHS collection; 3)
Oklahoma newspapers purchased from other repositories; and 4) non-Oklahoma
papers purchased from other repositories. In addition, an index was provided
of non-English language papers and of Oklahoma cities. Each category was
organized in alphabetical order by county, then by town, then by titles,
and then arranged in chronological order by date of publication.
Since the project's purpose was to produce a microfilm catalog rather than
to inventory the collection, titles were repeated in the catalog as many
times as there were microfilm reels containing different periods of publication.
The second stage of this project was to publish a catalog of newspapers
from 1911 to 1957, and the third stage was to cover 1958 to the current
year. The first stage was completed in 1988. The second and third stages
are expected to be superceded by the USNP Newspaper Project.
State Listings. Although there are union lists available within the
State of Oklahoma for periodicals in several formats (microfiche, hard copy,
and computer access), there was no centralized attempt to produce a state-wide
union list of newspapers until 1992. Most of the larger institutions have
produced in-house publications of their particular holdings, including the
Oklahoma Historical Society as mentioned above. In 1992, the staff of the
Oklahoma Newspaper Project began cataloging newspaper titles on the OCLC
database, and local data records have been input for over 1000 records.
National Listings In addition to these in-house catalogs, there are
several other newspaper listings which include Oklahoma newspapers. These
are listed below: a) American Newspapers, 1821-1936, A Union List of Files
Available in United States and Canada, compiled and edited by Winifred Gregory
under the auspices of the Bibliographical Society of America (New York:
H.W. Wilson, 1937), b) Newspapers in Microform: United States, 1948-1972,
issued by the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C. 1973), c) Rowell's American
Newspaper Directory, which covers newspapers published from 1869 to 1908,
d) Ayer's Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals, published from 1880 to
the present, and, e) United States Newspaper Program National Union List,
Fourth Edition, January 1993.
Subject Access In the 1930s, a Works Progress Administration project
compiled a card index of selected newspapers. This card file, which is housed
by the OHS, is arranged alphabetically, and include both subject and personal
name entries. However, they are by no means comprehensive.
The only other type of printed index available for newspapers in Oklahoma
consists of a set of annual indexes to the Daily Oklahoman from 1947
to 1972 which were compiled by the University of Oklahoma. This index is
available in the Bizzell Library at the University of Oklahoma in both its
original typewritten format, and on microfilm.
At one time, the OHS attemped to compile a computer based index to the Daily
Oklahoman and its predecessor newspapers from 1889 to 1904. Preliminary
work was done on this project, but funding ceased before it was completed.
There is a computer database available (DATATIMES) for text searching of
four Oklahoma newspapers which covers 1982 to the present. Although this
provides for text and subject retrieval, the entire paper is not indexed.
The only other subject access to newspapers for Oklahoma is being provided
by the staff of the Oklahoma Newspaper Project as each title is cataloged
after review.
PROJECT DIRECTOR
William D. Welge, Director of Archives, Oklahoma Historical Society.
Phone 405-522-5226
Oklahoma Newspaper Project Staff
Mary Huffman, Project Coordinator
Phone 405-522-5249
Angie Grimes, Administrative Assistant
Phone 405-522-5250
Francie Helm, Cataloging Assistant
Phone 405-522-5250
Mary Logsdon, Microfilm Technician
Phone 405-522-5250
John Frizzell, Microfilm Technician/www Administrator
Phone 405-522-5250
FAX Number
405-521-2492
ALL E-MAIL ADDRESSES
frizzell@keytech.com
Mailing Address
Oklahoma Newspaper Project
c/o Oklahoma Historical Society
2100 North Lincoln Blvd.
Oklahoma City, OK 73105-4997