Newspaper

Chapter 1 Page 3 Newspaper - Transcript

Image: The front page of a newspaper. The newspaper masthead reads, "The Sunday Cascadian." The location is Portland, Oregon and the date is Sunday, May 2, 1937.

Front page articles include the headlines "Basque City Destroyed by Spanish Rebels," "Mayor Renews Support for Traffic Safety Campaign," "Millions Observe May Day," and "Cost of Living in Portland Continues to Rise Higher." A photograph features a 1932 Ford Model B with one wheel up on a curb and the front end crashed into a street lamp and the engine block is smashed in.

Narration: "The news is always good for making you want to forget how to read, or to forget that other people exist at all."

A back button links back to Chapter 1 Page 3.

Chapter 1 Page 3 Newspaper - Notes

The Cascadian is a fictional newspaper meant to emulate the role of the Oregonian newspaper in the story while avoiding copyright issues, even if using an image of the front page of a historical newspaper edition would arguably qualify as a fair use. It also allows me to keep the artistic style consistent rather than using a black and white scanned image of an aging newspaper edition where the text would be so small as to be illegible.

The name Cascadian is a reference to the Cascadia independence movement. The seal in the masthead features the silhouette of Mt. Hood, a Douglas fir, a river, and the Oregon state motto: Alis volat propriis, which means She flies with her own wings.

The story about the bombing of the Basque city of Guernica is historical for the time period, as well as the signing of the Neutrality Act of 1937. Apparently, the American companies Texaco, Standard Oil, General Motors, and Studebaker thought it was a good idea to make hundreds of millions of dollars selling trucks and oil to a fascist military leader. Anything for a buck (or millions of them), I suppose.

The article regarding the Let's Quit Killing traffic safety campaign is fictional, though the campaign itself is historically accurate for the time period.

Access to historical editions of the Oregonian is available through the Multnomah County Library with a current library card.