A Treat for Halloween: More Ohio Historic Newspaper Pages Added to Chronicling America
Looking for party or costume ideas for Halloween? Interested in learning about the aftermath of local Halloween mischief? So were your ancestors. Historic newspapers like the News-Herald of Hillsboro, Ohio and the Marion Daily Mirror of Marion, Ohio, reported on Halloween activities that ran the gamut from fun to frightful, as revealed by the newspaper page images below. Through digitization efforts like the National Digital Newspaper Program, the Ohio Historical Society has been working to connect you to these stories.
Marion Daily Mirror, October 14, 1911, Section 3, Page 2
The News-Herald, November 2, 1904, Page 1On October 14, 1911, the Marion Daily Mirror provided tips for a making a Halloween party different and entertaining. From games to decorations, the author describes an event she attended the previous year. In contrast, the Hillsboro News-Herald article Shooting Affray reports how the usual custom of Halloween shenanigans almost reached tragedy: a local police officer opened fire toward the feet of a crowd attempting to tie him to a hitching post on Halloween night in 1915. Though most of the participants remained unharmed, one shot hit an unlucky young man in the leg. With the additions of the News-Herald and the Marion Daily Mirror to Chronicling America, pages from all newspapers selected for digitization under the National Digital Newspaper Program in Ohios first grant cycle are now available online. These titles join 11 others that have been digitized by the Ohio Historical Society over the past two years as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program. Now these Halloween stories of the past are easier than ever to access. Issues from the following titles are currently available and keyword-searchable on Chronicling America:
Over the coming months, the remainder of the content digitized under the 2008-2010 grant cycle will be added to Chronicling America. The Ohio Historical Society will continue to make contributions to the National Digital Newspaper Program over the next two years as well. The National Digital Newspaper Program is a partnership between National Endowment for the Humanities and Library of Congress and state projects to provide enhanced access to United States newspapers published between 1836 and 1922. NEH awards support state projects to select and digitize historically significant titles that are aggregated and permanently maintained by the Library of Congress. As part of the project, the Ohio Historical Society contributed 100,000 newspaper pages to the project over a two year period ending July 2010 and will contribute an additional 100,000 pages by the end of July 2012.
Jenni Salamon
