Welcome!

This website is devoted to telling the true stories of residents of Pulaski County in Indiana during the first half of the 20^th century.

It is drawn from articles published between 1924 and 1947 in the two competing weekly newspapers of a rural county of 12,000 in northwest Indiana.

The newspapers were the Pulaski County (IN) Democrat and the Winamac (IN) Republican.  The first years of the project, 1924 and 1925, were the birthyears of my father and mother, respectively, and the last year, 1947, was my birthyear.  So, this is part of the public world that my parents knew as children and young adults.

I accumulated almost 50,000 clippings published in these two weeklies and a few other newspapers during those 24 years.  These clippings chronicle the public lives of my family and other county residents.  This includes the “Greatest Generation”, who endured in their youth both the Great Depression and World War II.

Unlike newspapers and other mass media today, these community newspapers were relentlessly local.  They focused on news about the readers, rather than about the wider world, which was the domain of newspapers in larger cities.

To ensure wide circulation, before 1950 most small‑town newspapers filled their pages with items from amateur reporters about residents in neighborhoods and nearby communities, including their visitors and parties as well as their troubles.  Nearly everyone likes to see her/his name in print (if it’s positive) and know what the neighbors are doing (positive or not).  Very few newspapers report social news about local readers today, but this is still valuable to community newspaper readers.

The most recently-posted stories will appear in “Stories” menu item (above).  All stories are automatically archived under a Category menu sub-item, e.g., “Category Archives: Critters”.

I encourage your comments and constructive criticism.

– Jim Phillips