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Newspapers as Primary Sources

Black and white image of the frontpage of "Editor & Publisher: The Fourth Estate" with the headline: "Scripps-Howard Buys The World."

Newspapers were the primary means of communcating news during this time period; however, the Depression impacted the industry.  Patricia Dooley explains that in "early 1931, the owners of the New york World were forced by hard times to sell the paper for a mere $5 million to the Scripps-Howard chain."  In response to the economic conditions, a group of reporters and editors established the American Newspaper Guild in 1933.  Dooley writes that the Guild was "the first successful attempt to organize the nontechnical side of newspaper production."  The Guild was controversial at first, but it still exists today as The Newspaper Guild.  

Help: Analyzing Newspapers

*Dooley, P. (2009). History of journalism: 1930-1995. In C. H. Sterling (Ed.), Encyclopedia of journalism (Vol. 2, pp. 707-712).

Help finding newspapers in the UW Libraries

  • Search our Microforms & Newspapers Collection database to see which newspapers we hold in print and on microfilm. 
  • Use UW Libraries Search to locate newspapers (online or on microform) by title or place of publication. Type in the place AND newspaper. For example:  Seattle AND newspaper. On the results screen choose the Resource Type "Journals" from the left toolbar.
  • Use the databases on this page for news stories published about your topic. 

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