In September 1901, the vast majority of Americans got their news through daily newspapers, which reported everything from extremely local news to stories from around the world. On September 5, the story of the day was President McKinley’s arrival in Buffalo and his visit to the Pan-American Exposition. It is easy to see the excitement in the local newspaper headlines; for example, the Buffalo Evening News proclaimed “President is Buffalo’s Honored Guest”. Regional newspapers included stories about McKinley’s movements throughout the day, allowing the reader to experience the president’s visit down to the smallest details. These included the President McKinley’s arrival at the fair at 10:17 am., the buildings he visited (the Agricultural Building and the buildings from Canada, Cuba, Mexico, and Puerto Rico–just to name a few), as well as the guest list and menu from a luncheon held in the President’s honor at the New York State Building.

The next day came the startling headlines like “McKinley Is Shot!” [Buffalo Enquirer] and newspapers produced multiple special editions with updates and details as they emerged. Some of those details were later found to be inaccurate, but the minute by minute reporting and frequent updates are invaluable for historians as they study the timeline of the day’s events.

For the Site’s staff, the newspapers relating to Theodore Roosevelt’s inauguration are especially useful. The Artifact-of-the-Month is the Extra Edition of the Buffalo Evening News from 5 pm on September 14th; it’s an especially good example of a newspaper that balances both major stories of the day – McKinley’s death and TR’s sudden elevation to the presidency. Below the dueling headlines, there’s an article detailing TR’s trip from the Adirondacks and his subsequent  arrival at the Buffalo train station, where he was met by Ansley Wilcox. It also includes a substantial biography of the new president. I can only imagine the harried newspaper reporter that had to write that one on such a tight deadline.

The Site’s collection contains over 100 individual newspaper editions and over 1,000 pages detailing the events of September 1901. Most are from Buffalo newspapers, but there are also newspapers from other cities. When taken together, the contemporary reporting of the events can be pieced together to get a fuller picture of what happened and the reactions of those who lived through it.

While newspapers are an excellent source for historical research, they also pose significant preservation challenges because they were printed on paper that was both cheap and thin. As a result, the paper has yellowed and become extremely brittle over the past 121 years, making them very fragile and limiting their usefulness for research – the very thing that makes them valuable. Thankfully, technology has solved that problem. The Site worked in partnership with the Theodore Roosevelt Center to work with a third-party vendor to carefully digitize the newspapers, which are quite large in addition to being fragile. The digital images are available on the TR Center’s digital library here for everyone to access while the Site preserves the original copies for the future.

— Amy Sanderson, Collections Manager