Students

Students

Fun For Newsgeeks

What was Staten Island like 100 years ago? Where would you have lived, and what would it have been like? Historical newspapers are a good place to start imagining, but it’s easy to get stumped: there’s so much information in each one. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Make It Personal

A lot of researchers start by looking at themselves. Here are some things you can try:

  • Find your street, neighborhood, or school in a historic newspaper. See if you can find out when these things were built and what was there before they were.
  • Look for your birthday in different years. Look at advertisements and events to get a sense of each era. Imagine what your birthday party might have been like. Maybe you could make it a theme this year!
  • Search for your family name. If your family has been on Staten Island for generations, you might discover something new about them.

Sharpen Your Skills

Not finding what you’re looking for? Don’t give up! Here are a few ways to narrow your search and improve your abilities:

  • Make a list of terms related to your keyword. Try adding these to your keyword, or simply searching on them by themselves.
  • Add dates in the date-range fields that could lead you to the correct historical issue.
  • Consider other sources. Look on the web and in books to find keyword terms, dates, and events related to the thing you’re searching for.


Read a Staten Island History book online


Newspapers provide information about the news of the day. If you aren't familiar with the background of a story you might want to check a general history book about Staten Island. There are many of them listed on the "Resources" page of this website.


One which is written for a student audience, with all 134 pages free to read online, is:


Note, however, this book was written in 1950 and may contain outdated information or views. There is a revised edition of this book but it is not available online.



Another choice would be Holden's Staten Island by the late Borough Historian Richard Dickenson. This includes an earlier work published by the NYC Board of Education in 1964 titled Staten Island: A Resource Manual for School and Community by Edna Holden. Most of Mr. Dickenson's additions are not yet available online but the original 1964 edition is virtually full text.