Revealing History – A Look at Community Through Arizona’s Historical Newspapers

The Old Trails Museum will present their 2021 Summer History Highlight online on Saturday, July 24, at 2 pm. Sativa Peterson, News Content Program Manager for the State of Arizona Research Library, will lead attendees through a free, interactive workshop called Revealing History – A Look at Community Through Arizona’s Historical Newspapers. Click here to register for this virtual program.

Using headlines, editorials, political cartoons, and photojournalism, Peterson will introduce audiences to Arizona’s historical newspapers; to the publishers, editors, and journalists who helped establish news writing in the early days of Arizona statehood; and to some of the defining moments in state history that they covered. Attendees will hear how they reported on women’s suffrage efforts in Arizona; which newspapers were published along the US/Mexico border during Prohibition; and about early African American community newspapers and the longest-running Spanish-language newspapers in the state.

Peterson will also demonstrate how to do one’s own searching using the Arizona Memory Project and Chronicling America websites, so that attendees can continue to explore historical newspapers on their own. Using journalism as a lens for reflecting on the human experience, these rich and valuable resources can show how we governed ourselves, faced conflict, and celebrated triumphs. They allow us to see how people viewed an event when it happened and to trace changing views over time. In short, historical newspapers capture the everyday life of the people and places of Arizona.

This is a grantee event and Arizona Humanities is not directly involved in the event planning or implementation. For this reason please use the links provided to confirm dates and times and contact the host organization with any questions.