Subscribe
Sign in
The Paper
p/the-paperNews from 100+ years ago, reproduced and delivered via email
Start new thread
Matthew Kochakian

The Paper - News from 100+ years ago, reproduced and delivered via email

by

The Paper is a weekly newsletter covering past events through the lens of the newspapers. Each issue covers one event from history and contains curated newspaper articles from the day it happened, reproduced in an email.

Add a comment

Replies

Best
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
UPDATE: please follow our instagram account @papernewsletter. We're going to do a series there called THEN AND NOW, where we post pictures of places today and show the exact locations 100-200 years ago. Hey everyone! Excited to share a hobby that I've enjoyed for a while now. To me, history books often paint an idealized or smoothed picture of past events. So I supplement this learning with old newspapers so that I can learn more about the public opinion on the actual day these things were happening. But this is a very time consuming hobby, as finding these newspapers is not as easy as finding today's newspapers. So now, you don't have to! It's all in this newsletter. Each week we're going to cover a different historical event, but not just the usual stuff. We'll look at events which decades and centuries have washed away. One such example is the antitrust case that the US brought against Standard Oil in the early 1900's. In that issue, we'll explore the case itself and then take a journey through the tabloids that covered it. There are a lot of parallels between that case and certain tech companies today that I've found interesting and am excited to discuss. But that's just one of our upcoming issues. We'll also discuss other topics, like various assassinations, wars, and elections, as well as more niche events like the day New York's boroughs came together to form one city. If you're a fan of history or business, or just want a fresh perspective on the world, please sign up!
Ferruccio Balestreri
@matthew_robert_kochakian love the concept, great job! I was doing something similar collecting historical sales letters!
Tracey Meagher
@matthew_robert_kochakian This is great. Newspapers tell a whole different kind of story to books. Can't wait to see where you take this.
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@frcbls Thanks Ferruccio! What kind of sales letters? I think things from the past in general are pretty cool.
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@tracey Thanks Tracey! I agree and can't wait as well 😃
Isaac Rosenberg
@matthew_robert_kochakian Incredible, I love this so much!!! Especially that article on Penn Station!
Ryan Hoover
Timehop but for newspapers 😮 cc @jwegener
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@jwegener @rrhoover a blast from the past!
Ricardo Moreira
Nice Idea. Where do you get he data?
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@mugas11 I'm just using public domain newspapers. I'm going to inquire with the NYT to see if they'll permit me to use some of their articles (which are my favorite) but otherwise I may just link to them in the future. The newspapers I'm using are all in public domain and accessible from the Library of congress's website, but what I'm doing is the work of combing through them and curating them around singular topics! That part is the thing that isn't really easy to do today.
Ricardo Moreira
@matthew_robert_kochakian Yes I belive. I have some ideas somehow similar ( for 2 different subjects) and even that most of the info is online always wonder that is not easy to gather them in one place
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@mugas11 feel free to email me at the@papernewsletter.com with topic suggestions!
John Sung Kim
Brilliant idea! Should be must-have tool for history classes and other teaching environments.
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@john_sung_kim I'm actually very surprised that this stuff is not looked at more in history classes. I went to a pretty good boarding school and even there they did not really do much with it.
JD Crabtree
I'm in, or whatever the cool phrase was in the early 1900s. Even with all the advanced email and web design over the years I still find simple text/typeface combined with a powerful image to be soothing way to digest a topic.
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@jd_yaguara 😄 totally agree and on an unrelated note I think that's why there has been quite a push towards minimalism in many aspects of culture, not just software design.
Ray
Oh wow, I love this idea. Signing-up immediately.
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@raylosophy Thank you Ray! Let me know what you think 😄
Paul de Fombelle
Excellent! Is this automated or manually curated?
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@paulodef All manual! But I'm not digging up physical newspapers– just reading online haha
Jinson Johny
Love the idea😍. Just wondering what made you come up with this idea?🤔
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@jinsoncjohny Thanks! It's just been a hobby of mine for a while now to read these types of things. I'm also the founder of a startup and I knew my reading hobby was going to get neglected, so I wanted a way to force myself to follow through with it. Nothing like a thousand people waiting on you to keep you motivated lol.
Lasse
I am so excited for this! :)
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@lassekalkar thanks mate 😉
Jakob Fricke
such a great idea!
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@jakobfricke Thank you Jakob!
Chris Crompton
@matthew_robert_kochakian Attempted to signup but the server is down 😕
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@chris_crompton1 Hey Chris my Mailchimp portal was having issues earlier too... if it still doesn't work feel free to just shoot an email to the@papernewsletter.com if you're still interested and I can sign you up manually
David Bloom

For history fans and those wanting to see how we handled notable events in the past. Without such perspective, Santayana suggest, we'll be doomed to repeat our mistakes.

Pros:

Cool look back at historical events through that period's newspaper stories

Cons:

Newspapers are only the first draft of history, and have their own flaws, but a fuller view of big events

Ross Campbell
Just signed up .. awesome, unique idea ... good job and looking forward to seeing it in my inbox 👍
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@rossc888 thank you Ross!
Matthew Vaccaro
The idea is brilliant!!!!
Ted Chen
Nice idea! Look forward to seeing other countries' newspapers!
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@teddd I would love to do this but I'm not too sure about databases / legal stuff from other countries. Maybe in the future! I was a classics student (latin and greek) for a long time and I would LOVE to do some issues from the Roman times
Rj Bernaldo
I think it would be cool if you weren't limited to a specific timeline. For example, retrieve news from user's childhood ie. 90s. Now that I think about it, it kinda reminds me of that episode from Black Mirror - San Junipero ❤️
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@rjbernaldo1 San Junipero is my favorite episode by far. I listen to the soundtrack all the time. I totally agree– I'm actually planning already to break the mold a little and do an issue with news articles from the day Julius Caesar returned to Rome after the conquest of Gaul.
Alex MacGregor
Nice idea, an Internet Archive for print. When you consider the scale of the Internet these days, makes you realize how important it is to preserve news. Services like this are a good thing.
Matthew Kochakian
Maker
@ajmcgr Thanks Alex!!