Hoquiam's News - A Town and Its Newspapers
The town of Hoquiam owes much of its heritage and history to the unrelenting recording and reporting of the daily occurrences, events, incidents and opinions printed on the pages of numerous gazettes and newspapers that catered to the information needs of the people of that time.
The late 1800's saw the first of a long list of publications that served the Hoquiam area and Grays Harbor, these papers picked up their numbers in the following decades with the biggest number of gazettes and newspapers being at least 200 in the middle of the 1930's with the largest number existing during the golden days of the lumber industry in Hoquiam. The papers covered various issues and concerns and the people could not get enough of the editorials and commentaries that gave them insight into issues usually reserved for industry and political leaders.
Hoquiam's main newspapers during those times were Gant's Sawyer, the Gray's Harbor Gazette, and of course the Hoquiam American as well as the Gray's Harbor Washingtonian that was established in 1889 which gained much readership and respect.
Congressman Albert Johnson was one of the first editors of the Grays Harbor Washingtonian and his fiery editorials gave Hoquiam's residents and large migrant labor force a lot to think and contemplate on. Mister Johnson's stand on issues such as organized labor and immigrant status bordered on mistrust and hatred while at the same time the same editor championed women's rights to suffrage.
Newspapers such as the Washingtonian and many others like it were basically propaganda pieces of various interest groups involved in the Hoquiam area and its major industry during that time which was lumber. The same editor of the Washingtonian, Congressman Albert Johnson also published the Home Defender which blatantly lambasted labor activism and immigrant workers.
Publications such as the Grays Harbor Washingtonian were used to spread information that was detrimental to anti immigrant sentiments and labor activism and labor unions. Such sentiments were pushed hard to the public to affect public opinion and assist in the political or ideological make up of the residents of not only the Grays Harbor area but the state as a whole.
One good thing about the big number or variation of publications available there was a good availability of dissenting opinions and information that was made available to the reading public and thus were not really handicapped in trying to understand or absorbed relevant and accurate information about certain issues, but of course it was up to the reader themselves if they were not going be satisfied with what they read with one newspaper unless what they were reading was what they wanted to believe in the first place.
The Washingtonian existed as a daily offering from 1903 to 1951 with its own brand of confrontational editorials that won it a loyal following, after which it became a weekly and after another 6 years folded up. The then Hoquiam and Grays Harbor publications opened the minds and emotions of the people of Hoquiam and the surrounding communities that were in fact socially relevant, issues that had direct impact on their livelihood and ultimately their way of life. These publications like the Washingtonian served up a healthy dose of what some sectors wanted to believe while others dreaded as falsities and black propaganda, regardless what their real intentions were, such papers drove the community to read more and raise their awareness to what was hopefully the actual reality.
The late 19th century and the first three decades of the 20th century proved to be the golden age of Hoquiam and the surrounding Grays Harbor, due mainly to the boom of the lumber industry where Hoquiam once led and was an undeniable industry giant. The whole gamut of papers and whatever they contained contributed to how Hoquiam was and now is and that going to be forever part of Hoquiam's story.
The late 1800's saw the first of a long list of publications that served the Hoquiam area and Grays Harbor, these papers picked up their numbers in the following decades with the biggest number of gazettes and newspapers being at least 200 in the middle of the 1930's with the largest number existing during the golden days of the lumber industry in Hoquiam. The papers covered various issues and concerns and the people could not get enough of the editorials and commentaries that gave them insight into issues usually reserved for industry and political leaders.
Hoquiam's main newspapers during those times were Gant's Sawyer, the Gray's Harbor Gazette, and of course the Hoquiam American as well as the Gray's Harbor Washingtonian that was established in 1889 which gained much readership and respect.
Congressman Albert Johnson was one of the first editors of the Grays Harbor Washingtonian and his fiery editorials gave Hoquiam's residents and large migrant labor force a lot to think and contemplate on. Mister Johnson's stand on issues such as organized labor and immigrant status bordered on mistrust and hatred while at the same time the same editor championed women's rights to suffrage.
Newspapers such as the Washingtonian and many others like it were basically propaganda pieces of various interest groups involved in the Hoquiam area and its major industry during that time which was lumber. The same editor of the Washingtonian, Congressman Albert Johnson also published the Home Defender which blatantly lambasted labor activism and immigrant workers.
Publications such as the Grays Harbor Washingtonian were used to spread information that was detrimental to anti immigrant sentiments and labor activism and labor unions. Such sentiments were pushed hard to the public to affect public opinion and assist in the political or ideological make up of the residents of not only the Grays Harbor area but the state as a whole.
One good thing about the big number or variation of publications available there was a good availability of dissenting opinions and information that was made available to the reading public and thus were not really handicapped in trying to understand or absorbed relevant and accurate information about certain issues, but of course it was up to the reader themselves if they were not going be satisfied with what they read with one newspaper unless what they were reading was what they wanted to believe in the first place.
The Washingtonian existed as a daily offering from 1903 to 1951 with its own brand of confrontational editorials that won it a loyal following, after which it became a weekly and after another 6 years folded up. The then Hoquiam and Grays Harbor publications opened the minds and emotions of the people of Hoquiam and the surrounding communities that were in fact socially relevant, issues that had direct impact on their livelihood and ultimately their way of life. These publications like the Washingtonian served up a healthy dose of what some sectors wanted to believe while others dreaded as falsities and black propaganda, regardless what their real intentions were, such papers drove the community to read more and raise their awareness to what was hopefully the actual reality.
The late 19th century and the first three decades of the 20th century proved to be the golden age of Hoquiam and the surrounding Grays Harbor, due mainly to the boom of the lumber industry where Hoquiam once led and was an undeniable industry giant. The whole gamut of papers and whatever they contained contributed to how Hoquiam was and now is and that going to be forever part of Hoquiam's story.
About the Author:
Learn more about Wade Entezar and the lumber town of Hoquiam and it's newspapers considers the future where. we're going.
posted by Marcondes Allen at 12:15 AM
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