The Arizona Sentinel (Arizona City [Yuma], Yuma County, A.T. [Ariz.])
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
2,025 issues from 1872 to 1911, published in Arizona City, Arizona, digitised for Chronicling America.
Conceived in the minds of David A. Gordon and C. L. Minor in Arizona City in 1871, the weekly independent Arizona Free Press lasted less than a year before changing its masthead to the Arizona Sentinel. In 1873 Arizona City changed its name to Yuma, and, on April 5 of that year, Minor became sole editor of the Sentinel. Minor took the separation of politics and journalism seriously, to the point that a corrupt elected official allegedly shot at Minor while he was working in the Sentinel office. After the incident, Minor declared that “the official character and condition of every man was public property and that it was the duty of every journalist to expose the unfaithful public servant.” According to William H. Lyon in Those Old Yellow Dog Days: Frontier Journalism in Arizona, 1859-1912, Minor’s statement typified the uneasy relationship between editors and politicians of the time.
Being ideologically independent came at a price. Over the next several years, the Arizona Sentinel switched editors frequently, struggling financially as it continued to depend on contributions to keep alive. This changed when the paper was bought by the Sentinel Publishing Company in 1881. Under the management of John W. Dorrington, the Sentinel flourished as a moderate Republican publication for the next 30 years. Dorrington’s editorial dominance was so commanding that Yuma became known as the “newspaper graveyard” as rival periodicals started up and then quickly died off. In 1911, the…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Arizona City, Arizona, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress