Introduce Kids to Newspapers

Have you introduced your children to the concept of a small-town newspaper?

For my children, the sight of those inked columns on paper has been rare indeed. A newspaper is simply not part of their daily life. It is more the stuff of legends. Like dial-up internet and corded phones.

But newspapers are some of the BEST places to find stories about family before the 2000’s.

If the children in your family are not familiar with old-time, small-town newspapers, consider introducing them to one.

You might show them snippets that pertain to your family. That’s awesome!

I would caution you: if your collection of clippings is quite large and their attention span quite small…It will probably be best to keep your expectations low. If you attempt to hold your youthful audience captive for hours and hours, you risk turning them off from family history and newspapers forever. (Okay, that’s probably an exaggeration. But you know what I mean!)

You might try just showing your child a paper and allowing him/her to explore it themselves. Perhaps point out what content was typical in the various sections. Ask them what they find interesting. And be a good listener!

An opportunity like this presented itself to me a few years ago.

I requested a 1940 small-town newspaper on microfilm via interlibrary loan. I was hopeful it might contain an obituary for an ancestral family member I knew little about. When the microfilm came into my local library, I took my kids with me. (I don’t pour over films for hours with my kids running amuck in a library, I promise. But I was confident my search would take me less than half an hour, and I knew they’d be happy and safe in the library’s children’s section for that length of time).

Anyway, back to my story: I sat down to the microfilm reader and barely had the film loaded when my then-nine-year-old son sat down next to me. “I found what I wanted already,” he said. “Whatcha doin?”

I told my son I was looking through an old newspaper hoping to see a short article printed about someone after they died called an obituary. I briefly considered involving him in the hunt…But something told me this was just not the time.

Instead, I handed over the reins and let my son peruse the microfilm at his leisure for a while. His interest probably lasted five minutes or less. He paused to read a comic or two. I pointed out to him the section titled, “Local Items” that I often get lost in reading. You know those sentences or two that simply report the comings and goings of locals in the past week? Juicy tidbits sometimes, those.

But it was something else on the page that jumped out to his nine-year-old eyes: a bold headline declared “MAN ESCAPES OWL IN TITANIC STRUGGLE” (The Elgin Monitor (Elgin, Minnesota), 29 November 1940,  p. 5, col. 5; citing Minnesota Historical Society microfilm 30322001548843.)  

“What the??” he cried, and proceeded to read it out loud for me.

It was the kind of tale one neighbor would relate to another over the fence, dramatized in the way of good ‘ol journals. A man had mistakenly shot, but not killed, a snow owl. He then tried to nurse it back to health in his basement. When it came time to move the animal, he tried to pick it up with a folded rug. “During the ensuing struggle one of the birds talons closed tightly on the rug, pierced both of the thick layers, went through the thumb nail on Keith’s left hand and well into the tender flesh underneath.” The article ended with the assurance that the bird “will recover. As will Keith.”

My child got such a kick out of that story, he asked me how he could get a copy. I showed him the steps and he willingly paid 25 cents out of his own pocket to walk out of the library with that article in hand.

Fast forward to today:

I brought up newspaper research with my husband after dinner, and this son just happened to be passing through the room. He heard mention of a newspaper and interjected, “Do you remember that owl story? Ha! That was a good one!” Then he walked out with a smile.

Did my child make a big family history find in a newspaper that day?

No.

I eventually snagged a copy of the obit.

But what we really came away with that day was priceless. My son got a taste of what a small-town newspaper used to be. And apparently three years afterwards, he still views that experience in a positive light.

I count that as a big win.

***Bytheway, Purdue has a great list of where you can find free digital copies of old newspapers. Check it out here.

And as always, if you have great ideas for introducing kids to newspapers or other forms of “old time” media, please comment below!