Maine has a rich newspaper history. From the 1785 Falmouth Gazette and Weekly Advertiser to the 1995 Capital Weekly, the papers illustrate the comings and goings, the controversies and changes, and the rises and falls in the fortunes of Maine’s people and industries. They provide an account of otherwise unrecorded events of daily life. Each time a newspaper disappears from the public eye, a unique window to the past closes forever.  

Floods, fire, rodents, and time eat away at this record of our past. Many newspapers have been collected, but the acidic newsprint deteriorates quickly. Paper drives and routine disposal claim the last of other newspapers. Microfilming those papers which remain will provide copies which will last virtually forever.

The Maine Newspaper Project preserves Maine’s newspapers on microfilm and makes the location of the original collections and microfilm known to the public.  

• The MNP staff has traveled to every county in the state to find newspaper collections.

• The staff inventories and catalogs the newspapers. Then, they enter the bibliographic and location information into an international database, and onto a database that will be accessible to the people of Maine.

• Finally, the staff prepares newspapers for microfilming.

MNP staff visits historical societies, libraries, courthouses, museums, and private citizens who have newspaper collections. Some wonderful discoveries have come from individuals who have an old newspaper at home. We only learn about these special cases if people contact us to see if their paper is unique. 

Margaret Chase [Smith] is second from right in this 1925 photograph of staff members in front of Skowhegan’s Independent-Reporter office, where she worked for nine years.