Our first “This Day in History” comes from The Daily Freeman Journal, published in Webster City, Iowa. I pulled two segments out of the Hamilton County Community History Archive, one published on March 24th, 2009, and the other on March 27th, 2009. On March 24th, they highlighted the 1989 Exon Oil Spill in an Alaskan reef, which caused great environmental damage, impacting over 1300 miles of coast, and requiring tens of thousands of people to help clean it up. They also included the 1765 British Quartering Act, which required the American colonists to house British soldiers in their homes. This act further escalated tensions between the colonists and the British government and was part of the intolerable acts that inevitably led to the Revolutionary War. On March 27th, they reflected on that very day in 1945, when General Dwight Eisenhower announced to the media that Allied forces had broken through the German defenses on the western front as they drew closer to the end of World War II.
Our next find is from The Moultrie Observer, published in Moultrie, Georgia on March 30th, 1993. They featured a few different events from that day, some I knew about and some that I was less familiar with. First, in 1981, Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinkley Jr in an attempted assassination but luckily survived. In addition, Florida became a US territory in 1822, the Alaska territory was purchased for $7.2 million in 1867, and the 15th Amendment went into effect in 1870. Another interesting fact I didn’t previously know was that on March 30th, 1909, the Queensboro Bridge opened, linking Manhattan and Queens in New York.
Traveling back to the midwest, our next feature comes from The Gazette, published in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on March 27th, 1966. They went far back in time for the first event they highlighted, to when the east coast of Florida was discovered in 1513 by Juan Ponce de Leon, the governor of Puerto Rico. Ponce de Leon named the land “La Florida”, which means ‘feast of the flowers’ in Spanish, and claimed the land as his own. It is believed that he landed somewhere near present-day St. Augustine, Florida. Other events they mentioned are Japan’s resignation from the League of Nations in 1933, the Argentinian coup in 1962 (the fourth of seven coups that would occur in Argentina in the 20th century), and an earthquake that shook Anchorage, Alaska in 1964.
Moving further back in time, we have an article from The Quincy Herald-Whig, published in Quincy Illinois on March 24th, 1928. Four events were featured in their “Today in History” segment. First, Spain’s recognition of United States independence in 1783, which was a big step in solidifying the role of the US as a sovereign nation to other global powers. Second, union forces advanced under the direction of General Ulysses S. Grant as the Civil War was just weeks away from ending. Third, they highlight the death of Henry W. Longfellow, a name I hadn’t heard before this piece. Upon further research, I learned that Longfellow was an American poet in the 19th century who pioneered comparative literature. One of his best-known works is “Paul Revere’s Ride”. Finally, in 1883 communication between New York and Chicago via telephone was established, an important moment in the history of cross-country communication.
For my last section this week, instead of focusing on historical events that took place before 1914, I decided to summarize my best advice for successful searching in the Community History Archives. Below are a few of the best tips to get you started on improving your search results.
- Widen your search: look at dates past when it happened to account for the time it takes for news to spread and papers to be produced. Look not just in the areas where it happened, but also in the areas where it would have been reported, sometimes these are different. Don’t be afraid to do a broad search if narrowing down dates doesn’t turn up the right results!
- Utilize Search Filters: Make sure you are using the search filters to their fullest. Whether it’s excluding words that frequently appear in irrelevant results, or including ‘any’ of certain buzzwords related to the topic, filters make it easier to find what you’re looking for!
- Get Creative with Spellings: Sometimes older papers may have words spelled differently from how we spell them in the current day. Other times, the font or printing of the paper may result in the search engine incorrectly reading the text. To combat this, get creative with your spellings! For example, the word ‘titanic’ may be incorrectly read as ‘titano’ if the letter i and c are too close together, so including this misspelling may bring up previously excluded results.
- Utilize more than just newspapers: Don’t get me wrong, we LOVE newspapers and it is one of the most common kinds of documents we preserve in our Community History Archives. However, many CHAs also have valuable resources outside of newspapers, like yearbooks and atlases. These may be more helpful in specific research situations, like trying to find a specific person!
- Explore your options: Don’t be afraid to keep searching even if you find something that fits your search criteria, because you never know what else is out there. I would even suggest looking at different Community History Archives because each one has unique content that is free to access for everyone! If you want to know more, consider ‘shopping around’ and visiting multiple CHA’s.
I hope that this has been both helpful and informative for you as we reflect on this week in history and the last year of this series! Join me again next week to discover more of history’s hidden gems and timeless tales.
Explore the “Read All About It” archives to read stories that spotlight our partners and their communities, announcements from our team, updates on current projects, and so much more. Discover articles about engagement, outreach, primary sources, community, digitization, education, and other topics of interest. Delve into the happenings in this week in history and take a deep dive into the events and people who helped shape our communities, our nation, and the world.
Hear Ye, Hear Ye, READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Advantage Archives works to build strong, community-based partnerships to provide free online access to local history, making it discoverable and easily accessible to anyone, anywhere, at any time, on any device. This allows communities to understand and connect to their past in a meaningful way. Through the Community History Archive search platform, we provide the community with the means to explore, discover, learn from, connect with, and share the stories of the people, places, and events that shaped their community.
The Community History Archives are intended to serve as a “portal to the past”, allowing local primary source documents to give an accounting of history as told by the individuals that witnessed it. Advantage Archives guiding principals center around building strong community-based partnerships, which is why we enter into them with the intent of shouldering our fair share, and taking the burden off of the community for the ongoing costs associated with storage, hosting, development, and maintenance of the Community’s History Archive. We are an active participant in the community’s efforts to make their collective history more accessible. The Community History Archives are maintained for free by Advantage and do not require a subscription, seat license, annual support contract, or any other ongoing costs or expenses to the institution or members of the community.
If you would like to see more local history online, please contact your local library, newspaper publisher, genealogical society, historical society, or educational institution, and encourage them to learn more about creating a Community History Archive or have them contact Advantage Archives at (855) 303-2727
