How do I preserve history?

I took these photos with my cell phone so I'll bet they are rotated wrong. Sorry guys.

My farm was originally a fairly prosperous dairy. At the tail end of the depression the owners remodeled the house putting in fantastic things like whole room linoleum. I remodeled it all again about five years ago. Under the entire first floor's carpet and old linoleum was the newspapers they had laid out before installation. They range in years from 1935 to 1941. I have hundreds of newspapers completely undamaged that were laid out flat. I couldn't bring myself to throw them away so they have been flat under the bed in the spare room.

I would like to frame some of interesting ones and hang them in the stairway to the upstairs. That stairway has a window that faces north. It is brightly lit but not direct sunlight. Will I be able to do anything to keep them from fading?

I'd love suggestions. I've attached a few pictures I thought were neat. I can post more if you are interested. Of course the ones I like the most are the auto and farm ads for cars and parts for just cents. There is a color Popeye comic from 1935. I also thought the co-op newspaper was interesting. Inside it boasts (with pictures) of the new cooperatives built in places like Moundridge, KS.

That is so neat! I could sit all day reading those.

Museum might be glad to have those. I found some one day and talking to some friends it turned out that his parents were going to be celebrating their 50 th wedding anniversary and the papers dated from that time . They took the papers and made a nice display for there anniversary.

Can't help you but it did spur a memory for me.
With 9 kids in the house, mom and dad saved pennies wherever possible, so the colored
comics were always saved to be used for birthday gift wrapping paper.

Were they mine I would purchase a sheet of low reflectivity glass, and use a good 12+m pixel camera to photo them. I would store the images in a 1 Terabyte USB hard drive. Then I would donate them to the library in the town from which they came, or one that will take them, and include a copy of the digital images as well. Jim

There is a liquid spray for neutralizing the acid in news-print paper. After that, the paper must be kept out of the way of direct sunlight, preferably behind UV filtering glass or UV filtering acrylic and the mount behind must be acid free. Don't settle for an "acid neutralized" mount. Acid neutralized mounts are cheaper - and you get what you pay for. If you don't plan on displaying the papers they still need the acid neutralizing spray and must be stored flat. In the long run, it's the acid, UV, high humidity and wide fluctuations in temperature that ruin paper.

I had a paper from the late '30's, and it was fun looking at the prices. Turns out you could have bought an acre of cut-over timber land for the price of 2 dozen oranges or 3 boxes of Kellogg's All Bran.

Lots of stumps on the land after old-growth (fir) timber was cut, and not much value. Guy I knew graduated from Wishkah High School (near Aberdeen, WA, near the Pacific Coast in 1941. A local timber company owned all the timber land thereabouts, and offered any graduate a deed to 40 acres, if they just agreed to keep the taxes current. My friend was the only one who took them up on it.

Evening in Paris perfume only 55 cents. My grand mother and aunts must of bought the stuff by the gallon.Hugging them would kill you. That and the hair spray. That turned hair into a barb wire fence.

notjustair,

I can't help on how to preserve history, BUT . . .
Great pictures, gota love those prices w/no 13% sales tax.


When adding PICTURES I wish every one would put an * at the end . . . as
How do I preserve history?*
I miss so many when the title isn't to thrilling I pass, will read later maybe, then it goes to page 2-3 and I miss it.

Thanks again for a trip in time lost.

I will second the neutralizing spray and then no direct sun light.

I have several old news papers that are part of our families history.

1) The little town paper from went my Grand Parents where married. They marriage announcement is in the paper.
2) The same town paper from the week both my parents were born. It has the births in the notices. Their birthdays are only two days apart.

Those are very, very nice. Google acid free newspaper mounting and you get lots of hits. This is from the Smithsonian:

http://siarchives.si.edu/services/f...ines-resources/how-do-i-preserve-my-newspaper

I answered your question before I took a good look at your photos. The ad page is amazing! I remember a Katz drugstore back home. The ethyl gasoline ad - I've never been clear on the difference between that and modern ethanol.

CGID- IIRC, Ethyl was higher octane...usually TEL(Tetra-ethyl-lead). Hence the name 'Ethyl'.

Footnote: TEL was added to straight gasoline to increase octanes values. Regular gas, back then, even had TEL added. But, Ethyl had the higher addition of TEL added. Therefore, it was HIGH-Test gasoline or 'Ethyl'.

+1 on idea of digitzing and color reprinting from those files. Also +1 on UV protection - polycarb plastic can help (not acrylic). Lexan is one brand name. Re the other ideas (like the anti-acid spray), you might first check with museum archivists before doing anything. Raw stock paper of that age may not have been bleached and may not need acid treatment. Lastly, the idea to go ask a pro is a good one. I found that the archivists at our local state university library were a ton of help. And the other idea that some place like that may be interested in your papers is a good one.

I have a bunch of old Life Magazines, dating from the 30s through the 50s. I have found a lot of nice old ads in them. One, a Coca-Cola ad, I had framed to go with some other Coke stuff I have.

When my Grandma's house, and my Aunt and Uncles house both got bought for a storage facility, the local VFD burned them for practice.

We had gone through both places and picked them clean, or so we thought. In my Grandma's house we found a tongue and groove pine, paneled wall that had been covered and no one remembered. Dad used some of the wood we got from there to build a hope chest for my niece, (his grand daughter).

We found nothing of worth in my Aunt and Uncle's place.....until it was too late. My Mom called me after the house was nearly on the ground, and the fire had been put out. Seems the whole living room had been layered with old news papers for carpet padding, just as you describe being done under the tile.

I wound up getting some stuff off about an 8x10 area, that wasn't damaged. Based on what I found, these papers dated from the early 50's until the early 60's. It's amazing to see the differences between then, and now days.

I love the old car adds, and the adds for the movies with folks like James Dean, etc. Then there are the classifieds which are always interesting. Best of all is the seeing the local articles touting things like the new housing developments being built just 'for the coloreds', a brand new mall (the first in the area) being built, etc.

I can't remember the date, but I also remember an article in one of them where it mentions that just before Kennedy was shot, they had passed a thing in Congress that cleared up a confusion in the transfer of power in the Government, should something happen to the President, etc, etc. I can't remember the details, but prior to that, there was some question as to who actually took over from whom, at some level.

Interesting stuff to say the least. I don't know about storing them 'properly' but all of mine are in a box, and out of the sun. I figure they survived close to 60 years being walked on under a carpeted floor, and having the house burned around them, so they can survive in a cardboard box for a bit longer.

Several years ago I tore up the linoleum in one of our rental houses. Under the linoleum were newspapers from the forties, which I carefully stacked up until I could figure out what to do with them. We hired a friend to do some painting in the house, and when I returned I was dismayed to see she had used the old papers for drop cloths! Apparently not everyone has the same appreciation for history.

Yours are in nicer shape than mine. We found a bunch, many from 1929 under my flooring when I took it up. Those are interesting reading knowing what was coming Oct 24 of that year.

Currently they are flat in the attic. Not climate controlled, but at least flat and in the dark.

Your question reminded me I have wanted to do something to better protect them, at least a few of the nicer pages.

Here are two of possible interest. The headlines are from Oct 20 1929. The sports pictures from Sept 1929.

Years ago on the birthday of a lady that I was dating at the time, I drove her down to the library and pulled up the newspaper from the day that she was born and looked up her birth announcement and then got the library lady to make me a copy that I gave to her. She thought that was very special and nice and sweet, and she was very special and nice and sweet to me later that day in return and it wasn't even my birthday. Sometimes the simplest things mean plenty to all involved.

Thanks for the memory.

Mark