6,000,000 Pages and Counting: New Titles on Virginia Chronicle

October 5-11 is National Newspaper Week, the perfect time to highlight new titles available on Virginia Chronicle, the Library of Virginia’s freely accessible, fully searchable database of digitized newspapers.

It’s also an opportunity to celebrate that Virginia Chronicle has surpassed the six-million-page mark! Yes, Virginia Chronicle now has well over six million pages of digitized newspapers available to researchers, with more being added all the time. Recent additions to Virginia Chronicle include weekly and daily publications from throughout Virginia, as well as Maggie Walker’s St. Luke Herald, the daily edition of the German-language Richmonder Anzeiger, and the Methodist publication, the Virginia Advocate. Just a reminder that “New arrivals” are listed on the left side of the home page and updated monthly.

Before moving on to the new titles, a brief mention about a new search feature among Virginia Chronicle’s various search tools—a clickable county map. If you visit the “County Map” page, you can now click on a specific county to identify titles published within that county. You can also filter by county when doing a keyword search on the advanced search page.

Now, for the new titles you can find on Virginia Chronicle. The largest and most recent batch of newspapers added is over 400,000 pages of Norfolk’s Virginian-Pilot (also called the Virginian-Pilot and the Norfolk Landmark and the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot). As well as being Norfolk’s newspaper of record for local, state, and national news for well over a century, the Virginian-Pilot fostered the careers of several prominent journalists. One of the earliest of those was Louis Jaffe, who acted as editor for the paper from 1919 until his death in 1950. A key force behind Virginia’s anti-lynching movement, his 1928 editorial titled “An Unspeakable Act of Savagery,” earned Virginia its first Pulitzer Prize in 1929. Following Jaffe’s death, Lenoir Chambers, another notable editor, was his successor. In 1958, when Virginia’s political leaders closed public schools in some cities to avoid integration, Chambers vocally opposed the closings in a series of Virginian-Pilot editorials, earning the paper its second Pulitzer in 1960.

Another exciting addition to Virginia Chronicle has come thanks to a partnership with the Maggie L. Walker Museum. In May, the museum loaned copies of previously undiscovered issues of the St. Luke Herald and its successors, the St. Luke Fraternal Bulletin and the St. Luke Fraternal Monitor, from its collection for digitization. Originally edited by Maggie Walker and published by the Right Worthy Grand Council of the Independent Order of St. Luke, issues of the three publications spanning 1904-1970 are now available on Virginia Chronicle. Though the collection is far from complete, every page is brimming with Richmond society news; local birth, marriage, and death announcements; editorials; business reports; fraternal updates; local and state news; and advertisements for Richmond businesses. The museum also loaned new issues of the Virginia Union Bulletin and the Panther, the student newspapers of Virginia Union University, for digitization.

Three 19th-century newspapers of historic importance are also among the new offerings on Virginia Chronicle. The earliest of the three is the Woodstock Herald (succeeded by the Woodstock Herald and Shenandoah Weekly Advertiser, which was followed by the Shenandoah Herald ), published by Benjamin Lewis Bogan from 1817-1823. The Herald, a rich historical record of early America, printed regular reports on congressional and legislative activities, the “Latest from Europe,” Virginia General Assembly news, state Literary Fund reports, news from the South, reports on what it called the “Indian Wars,” and dispatches from contemporary newspapers like the Petersburg Intelligencer and the Lynchburg Press.

The second 19th-century paper of note now on Virginia Chronicle is the daily edition of the Richmonder Anzeiger, a German-language paper produced by Burghardt Hassel, who worked on newspapers in New York and Baltimore before settling in Richmond. It is notable that both the weekly and daily editions of the Anzeiger were issued until Richmond’s fall in April 1865 and while the weekly Anzeiger resumed in October of 1865, the daily edition never returned after the war. The third in the trifecta of newly digitized 19th-century titles is the daily State, published in Richmond by Confederate veteran John Hampden Chamberlayne. After selling the Petersburg Daily Index in 1873 and editing the Norfolk Virginian for a time, Chamberlayne bought the Richmond Evening Journal and renamed it the State two days after the purchase. In its introductory issue, The State explained that it would “do its best to obtain the earliest news; and whilst it will try to avoid angry discussions and attacks on individuals, it will make no pretense to a weak neutrality on any subject of interest or importance.” An entire run of the daily, which began in 1876 and ended in 1897, is now on Virginia Chronicle.

Several weekly community newspapers were also added to Virginia Chronicle this past summer. One of those is the Chincoteague Beacon, published by the Chincoteague Chamber of Commerce, which chronicled life on Chincoteague Island from 1954-1958. The first issue of the Beacon, dated May 5, 1954, announced that it would be a “hometown newspaper devoted to the interests of the people of Chincoteague and the personnel of the Chincoteague Naval Air Station.”  With the closing of the naval base in 1958, the newspaper ceased, but during its four and half years of publication it was a fascinating record of the island community. Also from Eastern Virginia, researchers can now find the Tidewater Democrat, published in Tappahannock from 1896-1923. With the 1923 Valentine’s Day edition, the Tidewater Democrat became the Rappahannock Times, a change the paper knew would be greeted with “approval on the part of some and disapproval on the part of others.” 1923-1946 of the Rappahannock Times is currently available on Virginia Chronicle and thanks to an agreement with the publisher, issues up to 2022 will be added soon.

Moving to the opposite side of the state, there is also new representation on Virginia Chronicle from Southwest Virginia with the addition of two newspapers from Richlands in Tazewell County. Established in 1930, the News Progress served the counties of Tazewell, Buchanan, and Russell with the motto, “Where there is no vision—the people perish.” Robert Guy Hankins, president and editor of the News Progress, devoted his life to newspaper publishing and played an active role in the Richlands community. The Progress’s competitor, the Richlands Press, began in 1945 and described itself as “Independent, Unbiased, Dedicated to the Best Interests of the Tri-County Area.” The Press was published every Thursday by Richlands Press, Inc. under the direction of Grady W. Dalton, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1957-1971. Though the papers were competitors, “in matters of public concern,” the Richlands Press wrote on May 21, 1964, “the two newspapers join forces to promote the good of this community. It is a happy arrangement.” In 1966, the two papers officially joined forces when they merged and became the Richlands News-Press.

Another significant collection of newspapers has been digitized thanks to a partnership with the University of Virginia. Throughout the year, the University of Virginia has worked with the Library of Virginia to digitize newspaper publications from its extensive newspaper collection for inclusion on Virginia Chronicle. Thanks to this collaboration, users can now access 1950-1989 issues of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Tribune and 1994-2011 issues of the Tribune, “The Voice of the Black Community” in Charlottesville. With nearly 12,000 pages of the Tribune now on Viriginia Chronicle, there is not only an immense amount of community news from Charlottesville, but researchers can also find reports from Orange, Shenandoah Valley, Yancey Mills, Louisa, Howardsville, Pocahontas, Keene, Cumberland, Cismont, Nelson, and other nearby towns. In addition to local updates, the Tribune contained statewide and national news, as well as weekly editorials on topics like city council elections, integration, NAACP activities, affirmative action, public housing, voting rights, minimum wage laws, and education. T. J. Sellers, prominent Charlottesville resident and integration advocate, was the paper’s early editor along with F. E. Alexander, publisher of the Roanoke edition of the Tribune.

Other Charlottesville newspapers from UVA’s collection that will soon be added to Virginia Chronicle include the Reflector, published by the abovementioned T. J. Sellers from 1932-1935, local high school newspapers Knight Time Review and Lanetime, and Our Mountain Work, a Diocese of Virginia publication.

Finally, thanks to some generous donations, 1975-2005 of the Culpeper News, published by Joseph McCaffrey; 1939-1986 issues of the Virginia Methodist Advocate (later called the Virginia Advocate and Virginia United Methodist Advocate), the official organ of the Virginia Conference of the Methodist Church; and 2008-2020 of the Yellow Jacket, Randolph Macon’s student newspaper, have been added to the growing number of titles on Virginia Chronicle. All three collections are fantastic additions to the database, and we are incredibly grateful to the donors who made the digitization possible.

Along with the many newspapers recently added to Virginia Chronicle, several more will be available in the coming year, including the Crewe Chronicle, the Eastern Shore News, the Galax Gazette, the Grayson Journal, the Buckingham Informant, the King George News, the Northampton Times, the South Hill Enterprise, the Stuart Enterprise, and the Virginia Independent Chronicle, among others.

Celebrate National Newspaper Week, which honors the importance of the newspaper industry, by visiting Virginia Chronicle and doing some newspaper research today!