Evening star., 1936-07-01
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
BY MARGARET GERMOND.
OKLAHOMA IMPRINTS. BY Carolyn
Thomas Foreman. Published by the


In 1886, just half a century ago, the
first linotype machine to be placed into
practical use was installed in the compos-
ing room Of the New York Tribune.
Newspapers, like other institutions and
most individuals, oftentimes are reluc-
tant to adopt radical changes Of thought
or method. and some of them were slow
in recognizing the complicated invention
Of Ottmar Mergenthaler, which had been
developed to perfection the previous year
in Baltimore, as the agency through
which the whole procedure of newspaper
production was to be revolutionized. And
back of Ottmar Mergenthalers work of
genius is to be found the romance of
the most ancient of the arts and crafts
by which the human race has recorded
its own history.
Service to the people in this country
by the printed word is almost as old as
the first Colony, though for more than
half century after the importation of
the first printing press the output was
confined almost entirely to the Bible,
religious tracts and hymns. And when
in 1890 Benjamin Harris made the first
attempt to employ the printed word as
a medium of presenting news to the
people, his paper promptly became the
subject of legislative action and he was
forbidden to publish another edition
without submitting his material to CEN
sorship by the Government.
**
As the frontiers rolled westward and
the territory comprising the Mississippi
Valley was attracting the attention of the
white man, the newspaper was becoming
fairly well established in the East, and
the print shop was being regarded as
almost an essential of even remote
American civilization And by 1900,
Wherever the white man settled, a news
paper OF some sort soon made its appear
ance. The Mississippi region was
far-off land century and quarter ago,
when Oklahoma was part of Missouri
Territory and when Joseph Charles pub
lished the first issue of the Missouri
Gazette on a sheet of foolscap paper.
Oklahoma later became a part of the
Territory of Arkansas, and now, through
the division of the Territories and their
eventual admission to Statehood, Okla
honla has the unique distinction of being
one of the youngest of the States while
at the same time possessing an old and
fascinating history Of printing and pub
fishing.
Oklahoma 1mprints" is the handsome
product of six years of study and re-
search that began when Mrs. Foreman
was working with old newspapers and
documents in preparation for another
phase of Oklahoma history. Impressed
by the character and appearance of the
early newspapers and by the importance
of their influence upon the development
of the Territory and the welfare of its
people, she undertook the task of COM
piling book that has turned out to be
combined history and encyclopedia Of
newspapers and the printing craft in
Oklahoma. as we'll as chronicle of the
native red man through the years of his
transition under the dominion usurped
by the white invaders.
For more than fifty years before the
opening of the Territory to white settlers
missionaries were publishing religious
periodicals in tribal language, and the
early newspapers of the white settlers
were printed half and half. The appear
ance of the Cherokee Advocate. the first
of these publications. half in Cherokee
and half in English, created such an
extraordinary interest that it was sought
in exchange by the newspapers Of Lon
don. Paris and New York. From 1903,
when with crude type and q clumsy
wooden press with a stone bed, the Mis-
souri, Gazette was published in st. Louis,
to the linotype machine and the rotary
press Of today, the history of printing
and publishing is set forth. with tabloid
chronicles of each publication.
4 ~
Mrs. Foreman is particularly well
equipped for the handling of q work of
this sort. for she has lived in Oklahoma
for more than thirty years and has been
diligent student of the American
Indiar in his native heath. With her
husband, Grant Foreman, she has con-
tributed history as well as written it for
Oklahoma, and this book is one of two
commemorating the Centennial of Print
ing and Publishing in Oklahoma, which
was sponsored by the University of Okla
homa Press in October of last year.
Although she has been a resident of
Oklahoma for many years, Mrs. Foreman
is closely related to the National Capital,
and she and her husband are this week
visiting in Washington on their way for
another trip to the far corners of the
of the late John r. Thomas, who served
number of years in Congress as Repre-
sentative from Illinois and was then ap-
pointed Federal judge in Indian Ter
ritory. It was in this city during the
service of her father in the House of
Representatives that she received the
major part of her education. She is the
sister of Col. John r. Thomas, jr., who
was member of the Rough Riders under
Theodore Roosevelt and later served as
military attache at the United States
Embassies in London, Brussels and Paris.
In the periods between the writing of
histories, Mr.. and Mrs. Foreman spend
their time and their energies roaming
the earth in search of material for more
histories. Mrs. Foreman's next literary
effort will be that of editing the Fus
Fixico letters of Alex Posey, which she
describes in this present book as having
been copied from coast to coast as Posey
wrote them during his editorship of the
Indian Journal, daily which was pub
lished for two years early in the present
century at Eufaula. The letters are
written in an English-Indian dialect and
deal with the closing up of the affairs
of the Greek nation. It sounds as though
the task would be heavy one, but con-
sidering the stupendous amount of labor
that has gone into Oklahoma Imprints, +"
it would seem that Mrs. Foreman is
equal to any unusual literary enterprise.