School may be out for the summer, but school newspapers are in—on Virginia Chronicle, that is! Five student newspapers, totaling around 58,000 pages, have recently been added to Virginia Chronicle, the Library of Virginia’s freely accessible database of digitized newspapers. College newspapers are a treasure trove of information related to a school’s development and history and offer a rich record of the students who attended them.
Among the newly available student newspapers, you can now browse and search 1922-2020 issues of the Critograph, the “student voice of the University of Lynchburg.” Interested in finding articles from the Critograph on Jimmy Bibby, one of the University’s notable alumni? Do a search of his name in Virginia Chronicle and see what you find.
1920-2020 issues of Emory and Henry’s White Topper, are also now available on Virginia Chronicle. One of its famous alumni, professional baseball player Monte Weaver, gets 50 results in the White Topper when you do a search of his name. The student newspaper reveals various details about his college career before he became a successful pitcher for the Washington Senators in the 1930’s.
And, before Kitty Joyner was an engineer with NASA and before she was the first female graduate in engineering at UVA, she was assistant editor Kitty O’Brien with the Sweet Briar News, also now on Virginia Chronicle. The News isn’t the only Sweet Briar paper available, a later publication, the Sweet Briar Voice, has also been digitized.
Maybe you’d like to learn more about Pearl S. Buck? The renowned author of The Good Earth and 1914 graduate of Randolph Macon Women’s College (now called Randolph College) was reported on in the Sun Dial, the school’s newspaper, before she was famous and when her last name was still “Sydenstricker.” Browse issues from 1915 all the way up to 2022 of the Sun Dial on Virginia Chronicle.
It doesn’t have to be someone famous, it might be you (not that you’re not famous) or a friend you’re looking for that attended one of these schools. For example, we found several articles by Stewart Plein (Stewart Whitmore when she went to Emory & Henry), our National Digital Newspaper Program colleague at West Virginia University, who wrote music news and record reviews for the White Topper from 1980-1982.
It’s fun to explore Virginia Chronicle and see what turns up!
