The UIUC library’s Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection currently contains digitised versions of two local papers, the Daily Illini and the Urbana Daily Courier, from 1916 to 1925. Holy mackerel.
I just took a spin through the Courier dated 11 October 1924, and here are a few highlights:
- Senator Robert M. LaFollette kicked off his presidential campaign in Chicago, with a special escort of “Fighting Bobs” (girls with bobbed hair); Jane Addams and Clarence Darrow headed the reception committee.
- An escaped convict ambushed the sherrif’s posse and “almost succeeded in getting” the chief of police.
- A $120 diamond went missing in Champaign.
- A search for stolen lumber turned up a father’s home brewing operation involving “raisin jack.”
- Two hundred coolies attempted to “escape into Brooklyn” from a steamship on fire but were herded into a stockade.
- Photos: two of the people in the “latest love triangle”
- Let’s all go to the circus and see the “Maids of the Air”!
- A letter from former attorney general Harry M. Daugherty
- Ad: “Your home may be entered any day. Be sure that you have enough burglary insurance.”
- The society section is really detailed.
- Help wanted: “White woman or girl”
- Work wanted: “Colored man”
- Comic strip: Waiting for the trolley car
- Comic strip: Hank and Pete and the gang of “reds”
I had never heard the term “coolie” before. WTF? From the article it’s hard to tell if they are people or cattle or ostriches. “Herded” into an “improvised stockade”? Jebus Christ.
Ah, the good old days, when casual racism was the norm in America. These days, it’s so much more difficult to get away with.