The San Antonio Light (San Antonio, Tex.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
854 issues from 1883 to 1886, published in San Antonio, Texas, digitised for Chronicling America.
The San Antonio Light was the continuation of the Evening Light, which started in 1881. The Evening Light began publication in a four-page, 11- by- 15-inch format on weekday afternoons and Sunday mornings, but it expanded to a seven-column broadsheet in 1884. By the first decade of the twentieth century, the weekday edition consisted of eight pages; the Sunday Light usually had over 20 pages and included a magazine supplement. Despite the dominance of the Democratic Party in Texas, this Republican journal had one of the largest circulations among San Antonio newspapers. Subscriptions ranged from one to five dollars per year.
As the only Republican daily in Texas, the San Antonio Light had an early reputation as a “fighting newspaper” for its aggressive political stance. Although the Light specialized in local news, it included state and national politics, and according to an assessment in the 1890s, was “energetic in promulgating its principles according to the Light that is in it.” James Newcomb, founder and editor of the Evening Light, introduced journalistic innovations to San Antonio: editorializing digests of other local papers and providing weekend supplements, poetry, biographical sketches, and personal-interest articles, among others. By the early 1900s, the Light contained an opinion page featuring an editorial cartoon; sports, society, and fashion pages; and household hints aimed at women. Classified advertisements ran daily, and comics, sheet music, fiction,…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- San Antonio, Texas, 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