	contact us
	visit us
	support us
	search

HISTORIC NEWSPAPERS

Search Pennsylvania Civil War Newspapers

Lesson Plan to Use The Columbia Spy Online
Examining Period Newspapers
Grades 9-12

Background

Today people receive news via the Web, television, radio, and newspapers. In the 1800s people received almost all of their news by reading newspapers, which could be purchased at taverns. Newspapers were not always published daily, though. The Columbia Spy was published weekly. Historic newspapers can tell researchers a lot about the society that lived during a certain time period and are often examples of primary sources.

Primary sources
Primary sources, often referred to as primary documents, are original documents that are recorded either at the time of an event by eyewitnesses or participants or recorded at a later date in the form of memoirs or oral histories. Some examples of primary sources include the following: diaries, journals, letters, manuscripts, newspapers, speeches, photographs, and objects or artifacts.

Secondary sources
Secondary sources are documents created by people who did not witness or participate in a certain experience and are recorded after an event occurred; these sources are often based on another person's research. An example of a secondary source is a textbook.

Examining both primary and secondary sources requires interpretation. Researchers need to look for bias and consider the authority of the writer. While not all newspaper articles were written by eyewitnesses, often journalists interviewed eyewitnesses to give credibility to their writing.

Objectives

Describe how historic papers like the Columbia Spy are similar and different to newspapers published today.
Practice different ways of searching for information in the Columbia Spy.

Activities

Explore the December 4, 1886, issue of the Columbia Spy. How does the layout of the Columbia Spy differ from newspapers published today? What types of articles are found in historic newspapers that are also found in newspapers published today? What sections are unique to historic newspapers and present-day newspapers?
Find an article on page two discussing politics or history and summarize it.
Using information from the article "The world's largest private enterprise" (page four, at the top of the third column from the left), formulate a word problem to be solved by your classmates.
On page three (at the top of the fourth column from the left) read the article "Why the shad are growing scarcer." Consider the following questions while reading the article. What makes this a primary source? Does the author offer any solutions to decrease the scarcity of the shad, and if so, are these viable alternatives? What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a healthy shad population? The author mentions many different geographic locations. Use a map, atlas, or globe to locate the Bay of Fundy.
Try using the search strategies discussed below; search terms will be highlighted. Be creative!

a. To search for information on the Susquehanna River enclose the words in quotation marks: "Susquehanna River". This is what is called an exact phrase search and means that the database looks for this phrase exactly; the words must be next to each other, however, it does not matter if letters are capitalized or not. The benefit of an exact phrase search is that it helps eliminate results that are not about the topic, for example, results where the word Susquehanna appears and the word river appears, but not together.

b. Terms can be combined with AND or OR. Using AND narrows the results and means that all terms must be present. Using OR broadens the results and means that either term and/or both terms are present. An example of an AND search is: "Susquehanna River" AND canals. An example of an OR search is: "Susquehanna River" (shad OR fish) Terms enclosed in parentheses ( ) tell the database to treat these terms first. If parentheses are not used the system could interpret this as "Susquehanna River" OR fish.

c. An asterisk (*) may be used to find variant word endings. For example, "Susquehanna River" AND transport* finds articles about the Susquehanna River and transport, transporting, transportation, etc.

Conclusion

Based on your observations of the Columbia Spy and your research on the Susquehanna River, what types of issues were people who lived during the 1800s chiefly concerned with?

Created by Elizabeth A. Young for the Lancaster County Historical Society.
Educators are welcome to duplicate and use the ideas in this lesson plan.

The digitization of The Columbia Spy
was made possible by a grant from the
Library Services Technology Act,
Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Digitization of the Civil War years (1850-1869) of The Columbia Spy was completed as part of Penn State University Libraries' Pennsylvania Newspaper Project. We extend our thanks to Penn State Libraries for their assistance in this project.