The first newspaper on the Western Reserve was the Trump of Fame, published in Warren, the Trumbull County seat.   First issued on June 9, 1812, it was renamed the Western Reserve Chronicle in 1816.  To inform its readers, it featured news from Washington and around the world.  It survives today as the Warren Tribune Chronicle.

Youngstown’s earliest newspaper was founded on ‘old Jeffersonian principles’ and the advancement of Youngstown’s county seat hopes.  The Olive Branch and New County Advocate was first published in 1843 and actually published more national than local news.  Both the Mahoning Register and Mahoning Dispatch were published before the Civil War, and after it, the Mahoning Vindicator became the leading paper.  The Vindicator was one of 5 newspapers in Youngstown by 1880. 

Because of the different nationalities of the immigrants who came to the Mahoning Valley, many newspapers or journals were published in other languages: the German Rundschau (‘Review,’ 1873) was only one of several foreign-language newspapers published in the Valley for the benefit of recent immigrants.

Would you rather read local, state, national or international news?  Why?  Is it better to have several newspapers with different viewpoints, or one paper that covers everything?  To learn more about these and other newspapers, visit the Mahoning Valley Historical Society’s Arms Family Museum of Local History or the web site www.mahoninghistory.org.  Under Education, click on “What Do You Know” for a list of articles with embedded images for downloadable images.

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