Local and regional newspapers are invaluable for research into local and family history. They are a primary source for daily news in a historical period.
Portland newspapers
For most of the 20th century, Portland residents had two or three local daily newspapers to choose from. In addition to the daily Oregonian:
- The Oregon Journal was published daily from 1902 to 1982
- The Portland Telegram (also called the Evening Telegram and the News-Telegram) was published daily from 1877 to 1939
Historically, each paper had a different editorial policy and political niche. People generally say that the Journal supported the Democratic Party, the Oregonian supported the Republican Party, and the Telegram’s editorial stance was independent.
Portland-area weekly, semiweekly and neighborhood newspapers
Non-daily newspapers have been commonly published in the Portland area, too. Some of these newspapers have been in print a long time and can be useful for historical research as well as for current news.
Today there are many weekly and semi-weekly newspapers, such as the Portland Mercury, Portland Observer, Street Roots, Willamette Week. You can also find smaller neighborhood and suburban papers like the St. Johns Review and the Gresham Outlook.
Other Portland-area weekly or semiweekly newspapers are no longer in print, but are still available at the library. Here are a few that you will not see on today’s newsstands, but are in the library’s collection:
- The New Age or Portland New Age, an African American weekly published published around the turn of the 20th century
- Northwest Defender, an African American newspaper from the mid-1960s
- Burnside Cadillac, the 1990s-era predecessor to Street Roots
- Portland Scribe, a 1970s-era underground paper