Abstract
This dissertation reconstructs the social and cultural world of a small Midwestern city via its communication channels, and consider the role print culture played in addressing the tensions of the 1920s. During a decade frequently reduced to a series of ongoing conflicts emblematic of modernity, the expanding world of print publications allowed different entities to grapple with the questions brought on by the move toward an urban future, marked by rapid industrialization and the rise of new cultural institutions. Historical research of the decade often focuses on the impact of these trends on the small town or the large urban metropolis-neglected by the historical narrative are the places in between, the small cities with agrarian pasts but distinctly urban aspirations where the tensions of the 1920s carried seemingly greater importance. Using a case study of the port city of Superior, Wis., whose boosters promoted it as a "second Chicago," this dissertation argues that print culture operated as the primary platform to negotiate questions of identity, community, and modernity during this decade of change. Print culture was essential to the city's survival from its inception, and played a prominent role in its development beginning the mid-19th century. Superior's future destiny was, to some extent, tied to the print publications that advertised its advantages to a wide audience. By 1920, the city had only one English-language daily newspaper, the Telegram, a publication that constructed and promoted a central narrative about Superior's past, present, and future. However, other print products were in circulation, and this project pays special attention to the growing world of high school print culture and the at-times competing narratives it promoted. Conversations about the city's high schools often viewed the institution as site of struggle over a place's future, and one where educators, civic organizations, parent associations, and the students themselves were actively invested. Using yearbook descriptions and marginalia, student newspapers, school reports, newspaper archives and manuscript collections, this project draws on a variety of underexamined materials to demonstrate the importance print culture carried in constructing modern identities and defining community.