The Idaho Recorder (Salmon City, Idaho)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
637 issues from 1904 to 1922, published in Salmon, Idaho, digitised for Chronicling America.
Salmon, Idaho, like many territorial towns in the Pacific Northwest, was established for its proximity to bountiful natural resources, specifically for its mining prospects. On June 12, 1886, 81 years after Lewis and Clark passed through what would become Lemhi County, John E. Booth published the first issue of the Idaho Recorder. Booth’s goal was a newspaper that supported the mining communities around Salmon. However, his journalism was controversial in that it did not mirror popularly held anti-Mormon sentiments. He regularly published articles opposing the anti-Mormon political candidates of the day, which caused dissent and led to threats to boycott the Recorder. Booth sold the paper to Ada Merritt and O.W. Mintzer in July 1888. Shortly thereafter, Mintzer was elected to the legislature and relinquished ownership to Merritt.
Ada Merritt was the only woman editor of a territorial newspaper in Idaho. She changed the publication day from Saturday to Thursday and temporarily raised the yearly subscription from $2.50 to $4.00. Under Merritt, the Recorder was more closely aligned with the community’s anti-Mormon sentiments. Traveling to neighboring towns, she promoted her newspaper to businesses interested in acquiring advertising space. She also exchanged subscriptions for goods and services and on occasion reminded readers to pay their dues, writing “those who promised to replenish our wood pile in payment for the paper, are notified that this is a good time to remember…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Salmon, Idaho, 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