Working with Newspaper Collections at the Stillwater History Museum

As a museum intern as well as a writer, I was very excited to learn I’d be working with the Stillwater History Museum’s collection of newspapers. The SHM has a vast collection of various Oklahoman newspapers, sorted by decade, dating all the way back to the 1890s. The sheer amount of newspapers in these boxes was initially overwhelming, as my job was to separate clippings from entire issues. Leafing through hundreds of papers, making sure each individual issue was in the correct box, and taking care to be delicate with them was a significant task. The next step is even more daunting: going through every box a second time and compiling the names and dates of the issues onto a list. The goal behind this process is to organize the newspapers so I can later transfer the physical list to a digital spreadsheet. This would allow the museum to more easily search for a specific issue, if need be.

As you can imagine, I’ve gone down several rabbit holes while organizing the SHM newspaper collection. Each decade had shining moments that gained coverage from newspapers nationwide, and Oklahoma newspapers were no exception. I found that a good majority of the SHM collection, which includes newspapers from Payne County and elsewhere in Oklahoma, focused on Oklahoma State University athletics. The school’s athletic department has made quite an impact on college sports over the years, as many national newspapers placed OSU on the front page of their sports sections. The traditional sections of these newspapers also focused on significant moments of the decade. For example, most of the issues in the 1990s and 2000s collections discussed the turn of the century and its supposed complications. (Y2K was a bigger deal than I thought it was!)

Since the theme for the museum’s changing exhibits in March is paper and books, the SHM may have a section of its paper display dedicated to Oklahoma newspapers. Stay tuned for future updates!

Rachel Seitz, Museum Intern