Friday, April 26, 2024
Melinda Jo Ray
BRIDGE STREET HISTORY CENTER
Melinda Jo Ray is a longtime Granbury resident, writer, and a retired public school librarian. Her post retirement job has been as a writer of local history articles for a magazine, which formed the basis for her book “Limestone Legacies.” She is author of a novel, “Safe in the Arms of God,” based on the beginnings of settlement in the Granbury area.
Editor’s note: The following is from the book, “Limestone Legacies,” written by Melinda Jo Ray.
My mother used to say, quite wisely, that there are no new sins. And in the same vein, that people are just people, the same as they’ve always been. As a student of history, I basically agree. In my study of the contrasts between our fast-paced modern world and the slower-paced world of the past the assumption has often been put forth that the 24-hour blow by blow news cycle and the seeming lack of privacy brought on by CNN, Facebook, and Twitter, are a modern issue. Likewise, the voracious hunger and thirst of the populace for all this juicy detail is also derided as a fallacy of the 21st century mentality.
NOT SO! Such thinking shows a woeful disregard of the existence of those stalwart predecessors of Facebook and ALL the news, both real and fake: Community and even City NEWSPAPERS!
Frontier newspapers are a hoot to read! If your eyesight is still fairly decent and you are looking for amusement – you could do worse than checking out a site called Newspapers.com – and calling up some densely printed, usually faded microfilm images of actual copies of literally hundreds of thousands of entire newspapers from 120 or more years ago. You will be amazed at what you will find!
Most of the papers followed a particular pattern. For you avid FACEBOOK fans the fun begins right on the FRONT PAGE! Unless something REALLY major had happened, like war being declared or a presidential assassination (or the governor being involved in a gunfight or duel), the Front Page is ALL LOCAL NEWS!
Are you filled with a burning desire to know who is visiting your neighbors, what they had for dinner, how many people (and animals) came to someone’s birthday party and who they were and who they were with? — All those juicy little tidbits about our fellow citizens’ personal lives that we devour on Facebook every day…? They are all right there, on the FRONT PAGE of the local weekly or biweekly paper. Are you a fan of those Buy, Sell, Trade pages? Check out all those ads around the outside edges of the Front Page, and then look along the bottom and you will find all these notes from people around town saying things like- “I am looking to breed my prize bull. If you have a good cow, inquire at……” or “Mrs. Ben Morris says the Dr. Watkins Cherry Tonic is just the thing if you are feeling poorly. It will perk you right up!” The variety of information available is usually astounding! There is usually a whole column reporting all the goings on at all the schools and churches, all with blow-by-blow descriptions of who all were involved. And get this — The hotels published lists of the people who had checked in each day, where they were from and usually what they were in town for and for how long!
Who needs privacy, eh? There was usually a similar list of all the local folks who were away traveling out of town, including the mode of transportation, where they were going, who they were going with and who they were going to see. AND how long they planned to be gone. Another nearby bit is sure to inform the curious reader who all in town was sick, what they suffered from, how long they had been ill, and what the prognosis might be. Sound familiar?
Page TWO and THREE are right behind, and it is here that the CNN News junkies can find THEIR type of news! WORLD NEWS from all over the globe was duly reported in amazing detail, and feature articles described foreign cultures, history and customs. National Issues and Politics are also reported in GREAT detail with issues-oriented articles often going on at great length! Political cartoons also pop up from time to time, and there are usually some spots where local citizens are quoted – stating their often strongly felt opinions about the issues at hand! There’s a fair amount of sensationalism too. You’ll find SCANDALS in Washington like the duel between Andrew Jackson and the man who insulted his wife, and stories of violent acts of terror such as John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry abound, all illustrated by lurid drawings depicting dramatic versions of the same.
Further back – the FAKE NEWS folks could often get their jollies by checking out the SERIAL TALES where Outlaws and Famous Indian Fighters and Lost Gold Mines abound! The folks of Legend are found here — Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, the James Brothers, Wyatt Earp, and Butch Cassidy — real folk whose embellished exploits were turned into serialized cliff-hangers that were read aloud by many a fireside, as readers nationwide waited breathlessly for the next installment! Fifty years on those same stories became fodder for two new entertainment mediums: radio and the motion picture.
Further back there were market reports, sports reports and even puzzles and games for children and adults alike. The latest notable deaths, local and national and even international were reported in great detail on the Obituary page, and there was also usually a Religion page, with Bible lessons and excerpts from famous and local sermons. There were articles on history, and animals, and latest scientific discoveries. Sounds a lot like the lineup on your cable TV or Netflix doesn’t it?
So, we 21st century folks think we have no privacy? We think fake news and scandal are new inventions? We think that people being obsessed with the mundane of their neighbors’ lives is something new? Not hardly! Those things are as old as time itself. It is just the media that change. Another old family saying, this one from my grandmother, sums it up. “It takes all kinds of people to make the world, and they are ALL here!” It’s true! Just check out Facebook, CNN, or the Discovery Channel and see… or browse through an 1895 edition of the Granbury Tablet or Fort Worth Star! They’re all there too! Take a look and see!
www.bshc-granbury.org
