East Hartford Gazette and Some Early CT Papers Now Online!
The Connecticut Digital Newspaper Project (CDNP) is excited to announce that the Weekly Gazette (East Hartford), the East Hartford Gazette, New-England Religious Herald (Hartford), the New-England Weekly Review (Hartford), and the Daily Herald (New Haven) are now available on Chronicling America!
The Weekly Gazette was established in 1885, but coverage available online begins in 1925, around when the Gazette began enthusiastically covering technological developments in telephones, automobiles, and televisions, alongside the usual local news coverage and farming tips. In 1929, Frederick Rentschler, head of the Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Company in Hartford, moved his operation into a plant on an enormous 1,100 acre lot in East Hartford, complete with a small adjacent air field for testing their aircraft. In 1943, to meet wartime demand for aircraft engines, Pratt and Whitney expanded from its 3,000 employees to 40,000 employees. Pratt and Whitney remains the largest employer in East Hartford, and one of the largest aerospace employers in Connecticut. The Gazette has covered details of the company’s development over its long history in East Hartford.
The Weekly Gazette became the East Hartford Gazette in 1942. The World War II years included letters by soldiers from East Hartford, news from the war, and community support for the families of people in the military including fundraisers and childcare for working women. Coverage available on Chronicling America includes the East Hartford Gazette through 1963, the cutoff year for content on the database. The Gazette remained a beloved local newspaper, and still reports on East Hartford today.
Also available online are some of the early Connecticut papers we are digitizing this cycle, including the The Religious Herald/New-England Religious Herald family of papers (1845-1856), the New-England Weekly Review family of papers (1828-1843), and the Daily Herald, currently 1833-1841, with additional years to come in future batches.
Chronicling America is currently undergoing a site migration. The papers digitized during this cycle will be available on the beta site. You can find each title here:
- The Weekly Gazette
- The East Hartford Gazette
- New-England Religious Herald (start here, succeeding related titles will be linked on this page)
- New-England Weekly Review (as above)
- The Daily Herald
Please enjoy these pages as we have, and keep an eye out for more updates from us in the coming months. Thank you for your support, and talk to you soon!