The Seattle Star
Running from 1899 to 1947, The Seattle Star was a daily newspaper aimed at the young and quickly growing working-class population of Seattle, Washington. Its founder, E.W. Scripps, aimed to support the interests of laborers and the poorer classes of the city, and touted his newspaper as a “service to the working people.” The paper reported mostly local news, with out-of-state and international cases increasing with frequency as the number of pages grew from four to twenty by 1920. The Seattle Star was a sensational publication, commonly utilizing dramatic language and including details such as names, addresses, eyewitness testimonies, and court proceedings.
This project focuses only on articles in The Seattle Star that reported on the crime of assault from 1900 to 1920 to track changes over the twenty-year period. Half of the articles are from the beginning of the twenty years, starting in 1901. The other half of the articles were published at the end of the twenty years, spanning from 1919 to 1920. These articles were sourced from Chronicling America, using the keyword of “assault.” The 40 articles cover the details of one case of assault each in various stages of the legal system, from the crime itself to court sentencing. An example assault case can be found below ("AN ASSAULT." 1901).
