Just in time for the start of baseball, the Ohio History Connection has made a new contribution to the National Digital Newspaper Program and Chronicling America. Historic newspapers, like the Democratic Banner of Mount Vernon, detailed local and national games in their reporting. This particular page from the Democratic Banner features an image of future player-manager of the Cleveland Indians, Tris Speaker, then with the Boston Red Sox. The image and brief article declare that Tris Speaker is not just a star, but a whole constellation. As seen through the pages of historic newspapers, baseball proved to be an interest shared by many Ohioans, who no doubt looked forward to this sports coverage, much as is done today. Alongside the Democratic Banner, the following papers were recently published to Chronicling America:
The Ohio Historical Society will continue to play ball and make contributions to the National Digital Newspaper Program over the coming months, a home run for both the Society and for its patrons. The National Digital Newspaper Program is a partnership between National Endowment for the Humanities and Library of Congress, and state projects to provide enhanced access to United States newspapers published between 1836 and 1922. NEH awards support state projects to select and digitize historically significant titles that are aggregated and permanently maintained by the Library of Congress. As part of the project, the Ohio Historical Society will contribute 100,000 newspaper pages to the project over a two year period ending July 2010.
