Ajo Copper News (Ajo, Pima Co., Ariz.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
524 issues from 1916 to 1926, published in Ajo, Arizona, digitised for Chronicling America.
Located about forty miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border is the small town of Ajo, Arizona. On April 29, 1916, Ajo saw the debut of its first and only newspaper, the Ajo Copper News, started by Renwick White, who had published other Arizona newspapers like Paradise Record and Artesian Belt. At that time, Ajo was a mining camp for the New Cornelia mine, the first open-pit mine in Arizona, that was later owned by the Calumet & Arizona Mining Company and then by Phelps-Dodge Corporation.
The Copper News was heavily focused on mining. Typically, four to eight pages, it covered the growth of Ajo and was a booster for the mining company and the town. Ajo was described as “the humdingerest mining camp” (Arizona Daily Star, November 13, 1917) and “a mining camp deluxe” (Tucson Daily Citizen, September 28, 1929). But the camp was also segregated: the housing area for Anglo workers was “American town,” separate from Mexican workers in “Mexican town,” separate from “Indian village,” where Native American workers, primarily Tohono O’odham, lived.
The paper declared it was “independent in politics” but endorsed the Republican candidate for governor. Its reporting on labor strikes was pro-company. When New Cornelia employees went on strike, the Copper News printed a front-page editorial praising management and commenting that workers had “striked too hastily” (December 2, 1916). Another editorial reiterated that “there was no just grievance” (January 27, 1917) and that the labor union…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Ajo, 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