How old does a headline have to be to be featured here? I know most of the stuff is pretty obvious, but for the less obvious stuff, where (or when, I suppose) do you draw the line?
I’ve asked myself this question quite often! It’s not really a hard and fast rule, and it’s definitely changed over the years. While I like to stay around 1890 - 1949, I’d say the cut-off is about 1962.. but once in a blue moon something up as late as 1969 slips in.
When I started, my idea was to be generally from 1860-1940, with the emphasis on about 1900 to 1929. (I started posting Dear George columns from the 60s my husband was like “isn’t that cutting it a little close?!”, haha). I think John Keasler continued writing Dear George until about 1975 and I like that column so much that I’ll probably end up posting it until I run out of them!
But then, with the help of Patreon support (thank you!!!) I’ve been able to do two things:
- Expand some of the services I use, which allows me to access more papers, especially ones that are later than what’s in the public domain (1922 right now). The price difference between basic and total subscriptions was a lot bigger than I thought it would be and had been putting me off for a long time - but it’s been worth it!
- Subscribe to other services, like British newspaper archives (which is where I get almost all the photos I post lately - they have tabloids as well as newspapers, which is fun) and has also allowed me to create my secondary blog, @theroyalhistory, where I post old pictures of royalty that (I hope, anyway) aren’t seen very often.
Lately when I read through papers, page by page, day by day, I still stick to papers from around 1890 through the 1940s, and when I search for things I don’t set a start date and set the cut-off at either 1958 or 1962 (why those two years? I’ve no idea!).