Choose a Menu

Red Lake news (Red Lake, Minn.) 1912-1921 Browse the title

The Red Lake News began in 1912 as an English-language paper distributed by the Red Lake Indian School located in northern Minnesota. The newspaper was "devoted to the interests of the Red Lake Chippewa Indians." Originally issued twice a month during the school term, in 1916 it began publishing once a month throughout the year. Each issue consisted of four pages with three columns until 1921, when publication of the newspaper ended.

The superintendent and special disbursing agent for the Red Lake Agency, Walter F. Dickens, managed, edited, and wrote for the Red Lake News from 1912 to 1919. The newspaper contained local reservation news, national American Indian news, agricultural articles, and other general educational items. Dickens was also concerned about the morality of the members of the Red Lake Band, announcing the disastrous effects of intoxicating liquors and illicit drugs. His mastheads ran statements such as "Save Money and You Save Lives" and "Work is a Splendid Tonic for Dissatisfaction."

The White Earth Progress and White Earth Tomahawk were other newspapers published on Ojibwe reservations in Minnesota during the late 1800s and early 1900s. While surviving issues of these newspapers are incomplete, they nevertheless provide historical perspectives of early life on Minnesota’s American Indian reservations.

Sources

Littlefield, Daniel F. American Indian and Alaska Native Newspapers and Periodicals. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984.

Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub

The Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub is a searchable website from the Minnesota Historical Society that makes millions of pages of Minnesota newspapers available online. 

The Hub contains geographically and culturally diverse newspapers published between 1849 and today. Due to potential copyright restrictions most issues published after 1977 can only be accessed from the Gale Family Library at the Minnesota History Center.

The Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub incorporates Minneapolis Tribune titles previously found on a stand-alone website, foreign-language titles, and much more, with new titles and date ranges continuously being added.

The Minnesota Historical Society's newspaper digitization program is made possible through support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), the Legacy Amendment's Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on Nov. 4, 2008, SELCO (Southeastern Libraries Cooperating) through a grant from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund for Libraries, and many other organizations and individual donors.

Material in the Digital Newspaper Hub may be protected by copyright law (U.S. Code Title 17).

About the titles

Frequently Asked Questions

Search the Newspapers

Looking for more information on MNHS digital newspaper collections? Visit  Digital Newspapers at MNHS