Historical society digitizes more than 165 years of Sentinel editions

Editor's Notes: This story originally appeared in The Sentinel on Nov. 5, 2021. It has been updated to reflect the fact that the digital archive now includes editions through 1965. Want to know what President William Howard Taft said when he came to Keene during his four-year presidency from 1909 to 1913? But not sure when, exactly, he visited? No matter. Those records are now available online after the Historical Society of Cheshire County recently completed a project to digitize all Keene Sentinel editions from the paper's creation in 1799 through 1965. Alan Rumrill, the historical society's executive director, said the new archive — which can identify stories with any specific term and is available for free at keene.advantage-preservation.com — will help assist research projects on a wide range of local issues. (A keyword search can identify all Taft-related articles, among other topics.) Historical society staff have long been interested in digitizing the newspaper's early editions, which are held on microfilm at Keene Public Library and the N.H. State Library, according to Rumrill. However, the technology needed for that task became available only recently, he said Thursday. After working with The Sentinel and both libraries to secure funding for the digitization project, the historical society contracted with the Iowa-based firm Advantage Archives, which began that effort in 2021, Rumrill said. For both researchers and area residents, he said the new archive offers a window into the past. Those stories have largely been inaccessible, Rumrill said, with no way to search for a specific topic in the microfilm records. "The newspaper reporting, on all sorts of local activities, includes information that is not available anywhere else," he said. Founded by John Prentiss in March 1799 as the weekly New Hampshire Sentinel, the paper added a daily publication, The Keene Evening Sentinel, in 1890. It has published continuously since then, maintaining an online version of all stories written in recent years, according to Publisher Tom Ewing. Noting that it is "cumbersome" to comb through the microfilm records, Ewing said the digital copies will help people learn more about the region's past. "It's certainly going to make it easier for people who want to look at those old issues," he said. Beneficiaries of the digitization project include someone researching the history of the local Jewish community, Rumrill said. Rather than poring over individual editions of the newspaper, he said, a simple search for "synagogue" now reveals a trove of information. "The longevity of the paper itself makes it a rich record for the region," he said. Along with contributions from city and state libraries, the historical society tapped private donors to help raise more than $25,000 for the digitization project, according to Rumrill. That was enough to support a digital archive through 1945, though he voiced interest in extending the new records beyond that date if the organization's other partners agree to it and more funding is available. Rumrill said he's already benefited from the new archive. Working on his weekly Sentinel column — this one about the first airplane crash in Keene history, in July 1911 — he said Thursday that he'd come across conflicting names and dates in the existing record. He resolved the issue by browsing Sentinel stories from that time. "It tells the story of the Monadnock Region, Keene especially, for [more than 165 years]" he said of the digital archive. Caleb Symons worked as a reporter at The Keene Sentinel from July 2020 to February 2022.