As a Rhode Island institution the Providence Journal is rapidly fading into ghostly oblivion. The 75 Fountain St. building will be a very" haunted " New England building indeed. A year ago I read that the Brown Daily Herald had begun a grand project of completely digitizing its archives. I don't know a single person in Rhode Island who is interested in an even more historically useful project : digitizing the Providence Journal. Way back in 1972 I could read printed back- editions of the Providence Journal ( from the 1920s ) at Brown University's Rockefeller Library. For me it was the next best thing to a time machine. I got a vivid picture of what it was like to live in Depression Era Providence in 1933. Or to be chilled by McCarthy era news headlines : " Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Executed ".... " Russia Launches Sputnik Satellite ".
Do silly copyright laws frustrate easy public access to old newspaper articles which at least REFLECT real history -even when they are mostly propaganda ? In Orwell 's " 1984 " the past could simply be " vaporized " along with any individual judged to be a threat to Big Brother.
That is not really possible in the Internet Age. Or is it ?
A Library of Congress project has made it possible to read digitized newspaper articles from 1836 until 1922. But I am particularly interested in post war decades ( 1945- 1975 )and the local perspective in Rhode Island ( also scandal and gossip that still resonates ).
Library of Congress newspaper digitization project
Do silly copyright laws frustrate easy public access to old newspaper articles which at least REFLECT real history -even when they are mostly propaganda ? In Orwell 's " 1984 " the past could simply be " vaporized " along with any individual judged to be a threat to Big Brother.
That is not really possible in the Internet Age. Or is it ?
A Library of Congress project has made it possible to read digitized newspaper articles from 1836 until 1922. But I am particularly interested in post war decades ( 1945- 1975 )and the local perspective in Rhode Island ( also scandal and gossip that still resonates ).
Library of Congress newspaper digitization project
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Ron