It is remarkable to look at those pages and realize that while some things change, like the paper itself, other things remain the same. The stories about strife, government, violence, taxes, business, sports and all the rest of it remain pretty consistent in their themes. Things don't change much except perhaps in the economic division in this country.
The newspaper itself has changed tremendously. The first thing that jumps out is the sheer volume of information packed into those old editions. Orders of magnitude above todays paper. Their wonderful use of multiple photographs in every section of the paper is astounding. And the amount of national and international news is quite impressive. Their editorial pages, while opinionated are certainly not skewed right wing or left wing. Just thoughtful writing, unlike today's right wing columnists by the truckload.
Frankly, it was a much better publication fifty years ago. Of course, it didn't have to compete with the internet, 24 hour so called cable news channels, cell phones chock full of information and a more apathetic public. They were the chief advertising source in those days and the amount of ads, big and small, crammed into every daily paper would make people in the news industry today drool with envy.
I had to chuckle at the movie ad page. It was advertising "Lolita" which the catholic church said was so evil that if we went to see it we would be damned to hell. I saw it.
Also look at those ads for all the drive in theaters we had. I could tell many stories about how we would sneak in to those theaters and rarely get apprehended. One time we put sunglasses on my now golf buddy Lee Otteni and told the cashier he was blind. It worked. We felt a little guilty, but then just spent the money on refreshments so they got us anyway. Click on the images for a bigger look.
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