Annals of Cleveland

CLEVELAND NEWSPAPER DIGEST

WPA Project 16492

Introduction:

In the ANNALS OF CLEVELAND, an attempt is made to answer a need long felt by scholars; that of preserving and making readily accessible the detailed record of a city’s life and culture as contained in its newspapers. The Annals are to be a set of at least one volume per year, covering the years 1818 - 1935 and including an abstract of every newspaper story that has recorded a local event or expressed a local opinion. Abstracts are filed chronologically under subject headings alphabetically ordered. The abstracts thus arranged are numbered consecutively. A chronological index brings together by number all abstracts from the newspaper of a given date, and a proper names and subject heading index offers an additional check. The editors have sought to preserve and arrange in this series information that is nowhere else available and readily subject to control. To avoid duplication they have concentrated their efforts on one major newspaper file – the principal one for the period. This method of work leaves out of account the diversities of opinion expressed by other newspapers. In the hope that the other files may be covered in respect of opinions there expressed, the present volume is numbered Part I. Part II, when and as produced, will complete the presentation of opinion from other sources. The file of the Cleveland LEADER has been used in the preparation of this volume. In 1864 the editor of the LEADER was Edwin C. Cowles. Its policies were Republican.

In 1864 the LEADER file contained 225,360 column inches. The number of column inches properly coming within the scope of the Digest and represented in this volume is 28,170. The distribution of the subject matter in the material not digested is as follows:

  • National News 21%
  • State News 8%
  • Foreign News 2%
  • Advertising 62%
  • Statistics 3%
  • Fiction 1%
  • Legal 1%
  • Miscellaneous 2%

Reference Line – L. Dec. 5; ed: 2/1 indicates that the article following this reference was an editorial taken from the LEADER of Dec. 5, page two, column one. An “adv” in the reference line indicates that the abstract was made from an advertisement. The number in parenthesis at the end of thc abstract indicates the number of inches in the original newspaper article.

Newspaper files used in abstracting were made available through the courtesy of Mr. Wallace Cathcart, of Western Reserve Historical Society, Miss Linda Eastman, of the Cleveland Public Library, the Cleveland City Council, Mr. Louis Seltzer of the Cleveland PRESS, and Mr. Earle Martin of the Cleveland NEWS. Miss Marilla Freeman and Mr. William Lippert of the Cleveland Public Library and the City Clerk’s Office have been of great assistance.