More Historic CT Newspapers Now Online!
As we enter the new year, CT Digital Newspaper Project (CDNP) is thrilled to share that all of the content digitized during our 2019-2021 (4th) grant cycle is now online through Chronicling America! This includes years of the historic newspapers previously announced – The Litchfield County Post, The Litchfield Enquirer, and La Sentinella, as well as new years of a newspaper also digitized in an earlier grant cycle, the Waterbury Democrat. The years now digitized are listed at the end of this post, along with direct links to the content on Chronicling America.
We highlighted La Sentinella in a previous blog post, found here, as well as The Litchfield County Post and Litchfield Enquirer in another post here. Now we’d like to share more about the final title digitized in the 2019-2021 cycle – the Waterbury Democrat.
The family of newspapers eventually known as the Waterbury Democrat was founded in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1881 by an Irish-born Cornelius Maloney. Irish immigrants began arriving in Waterbury in the 1830s and by the time Maloney started his paper they made up about half of the city’s population. Maloney initially operated a daily newspaper (under a couple different Democrat names) before he began publishing his first daily edition newspaper, the Waterbury Evening Democrat, on December 5, 1887. The Democrat began as a family affair. Cornelius Maloney and his brother, Michael Thomas Maloney, had established the publishing firm of C. & M. T. Maloney in 1882. Maloney hired Irish activist Stephen J. Meany as the first editor of the daily Waterbury Evening Democrat. An attorney and a poet, Meany actively promoted the Irish nationalist cause as well as advancing a populist, pro-labor viewpoint.
The purchase of a new and faster printing press in 1891 allowed the Maloney’s to keep up with the growing interest in their publication. Daily circulation expanded from 2,500 in 1893 to 4,851 in 1903, when the Evening Democrat was marketed as “The Peoples’ Paper.” The title of the newspaper shifted slightly over the years. After August 1895, it was called the Waterbury Democrat, after November 1897 the Waterbury Evening Democrat; after October of 1900, its name reverted to the Waterbury Democrat. In March 1903, the paper again became known as the Waterbury Evening Democrat, and in 1917 the Waterbury Democrat. The paper continued to play an important role in Waterbury life until December 28, 1946, when the Maloney family, citing increasing costs, sold the Waterbury Democrat to the American-Republican, Inc., publishers of the Waterbury Republican and the Waterbury American.
Titles Digitized in the 2019-2021 (4th) Grant Cycle:
Waterbury Democrat, 1931-1946 – To browse all digitized issues of The Waterbury Democrat, also including those from our earlier grant cycles, click here.
La Sentinella, 1931-1948 – To browse all digitized issues of La Sentinella, also including those from our 3rd grant cycle, click here.
The Litchfield County Post, 1826-1829 and The Litchfield Enquirer, 1829-1881 – To browse all digitized issues of The Litchfield County Post, click here. To browse all digitized issues of The Litchfield Enquirer, click here.
As previously announced, CDNP has been awarded a 5th grant from National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to continue participating in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) from 2021-2023. Our new grant cycle is well under way and we’re excited to share more news about title selection later this Spring – so stay tuned to this blog in the coming months!