Crimes and Education

As I was looking at different newspapers from across the country I thought it would be interesting to read about the news from my hometown of Washington, D.C. The newspaper was a September 15, 1913 issue of The Washington Times, and I was immediately struck by the content on the front page. In Washington, politics dominant the news, but in 1913 this was not the case. The main article on the front page is about a murder mystery that was recently solved, and what strikes me the most is the format that is used. The paper shows photos of the victim, the murderer and the sheriff. It is really interesting to see these three photos that take up significant space on the front page of a paper. It makes sense because, unlike today when there is no need for a huge photo of George Zimmerman in the paper, in 1913 the paper is the only medium for showing the public the people involved in the crime. It is remarkable how much of the front page is filled with stories about crimes. For instance, there is a disturbing article on a priest that confessed to murdering a woman and “drank her blood to consummate the sacrifice”. Two other articles on the front page address crimes and this is something that I was not expecting to see. In a way the newspaper makes the murderers seem like celebrities, with the photos and dramatic descriptions. Do you think that crimes are pushed aside more in the newspapers today? Or are we just less sensitive to them?

In addition, something I found interesting was a section of the paper titled, “Educational”, and under it were advertisements for different Colleges and High Schools in the D.C. area. An example is a little box with the title “Friends School”, and under it lists the address and principle of the school. I really enjoyed seeing this because I played sports against this High School in D.C. The entire section was an interesting way of advertising the institutions. Today, the only advertisements I see for Colleges are for “Devry University” or “Phoenix”, and obviously in a different format. Below is the link to the article.

 http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1913-09-15/ed-1/seq-2/

--Post from Joe