The Press (Stafford Springs, Conn.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
2,074 issues from 1883 to 1922, published in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, digitised for Chronicling America.
The Stafford Springs Press proudly traced its lineage from the first paper published in Tolland County, Connecticut. In 1883, publisher James McLaughlin described its mission as serving Stafford so that it could be rated “well up in the list of great and wealthy towns of the state.” “[F]oul excrescences … will crop out in any community,” he said, “but will flourish best when there is no paper to war against them.” The compiler of the Stafford Illustrated, an 1895 sketch of the town, described McLaughlin as a person unwilling “to attract readers by lurid appeals to morbid tastes.” Instead, the Press provided a “virtually complete” compendium of and town and county news and produced editorials on all public questions written in “the spirit of justice and fairness.” It offered commentary on issues such as tariffs, the homeless, high-profile criminal cases, claims of starving textile workers, corruption scandals, Fourth of July rowdiness, and the placement of railroad lines to the advantage of certain industries and towns.
Special features included “Forty Years Ago,” a column of great value to local historians; “Legislative Notes” which covered state lawmaking; and occasional supplements devoted to local industry. In addition, a reader of the Press could expect to find social and political news from the nearby towns of Tolland and Ellington and Hampden, Massachusetts. Large advertisements from department stores in Springfield, Massachusetts, made shopping seem like a visit to…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Stafford Springs, Connecticut, 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