The St. Joseph Observer (St. Joseph, Mo.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
418 issues from 1915 to 1922, published in Saint Joseph, Missouri, digitised for Chronicling America.
The St. Joseph Observer began publication in 1906 under the ownership of Charles Fremont Cochran and Frank Freytag. Later that same year, Cochran died and Freytag assumed control of the paper. The eight-page paper was Democratic in politics and covered developments in St. Joseph, Buchanan County, and Kansas City, as well as major state news items and national politics. One frequently published column, “News from all over Imperial Missouri,” was described as “Interesting happenings which have taken place in the greatest state of the union; the product of the scissors, the pen and a little actual labor.” The paper also frequently devoted attention to local area markets and “doings in society” and printed serialized literature and excerpts from other Missouri papers and national publications such as the Christian Science Monitor.
Frank Freytag’s editorial columns often featured colorful, direct language, admonishing readers to be more hard-working or pragmatic, particularly during World War I. An editorial advocating eating soup as a solution to wartime meat shortages was titled “Oh Soup! You Panacea.” Freytag often questioned the credibility of the St. Joseph News-Press: “Don’t you believe, Democrats, that it is about time for you to do your own thinking and not allow the Republican News-Press to do it for you?” The rivalry with the St. Joseph News-Press typically surfaced around the time of local and state elections. The Observer offered humorous brief opinion articles…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Saint Joseph, Missouri, 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