Top of page

Notice
Monday, February 16, 2026: For the President's Day holiday, The Library will open under normal operating hours.
Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper Narodni Vestnik = National Herald (Duluth, Minn.) 1911-???? National herald

View All Front Pages

About Narodni Vestnik = National Herald (Duluth, Minn.) 1911-????

Hailing from southern central Europe near the Adriatic Sea, a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Slovenes first started immigrating to Minnesota in the 1860s. They settled first in Stearns County in the central part of the state and worked primarily as farmers. Beginning in the mid-1880s, a second wave of Slovenes arrived, spurred on by the demand for workers in the meat packing industries of South Saint Paul and by the rapid growth of iron mining in the northeastern part of the state, known as the Iron Range.

In February 1911, a group of Slovenian miners and merchants living in the Iron Range incorporated the Slovenian Print & Publishing Company in Duluth, Minnesota. Formed with the specific intention of publishing a newspaper to serve the area’s Slovenian population, the Slovenian Print & Publishing Company published the first issue of Narodni Vestnik (“National Herald”) on April 13, 1911.

An eight-page, six-column newspaper, published in Slovenian, Narodni Vestnik had a peak circulation of 7,500 in 1917, covering the city of Duluth and greater Saint Louis County. Narodni Vestnik published at first on a weekly schedule, increasing in 1913 to semi-weekly. By 1914, it would become, to quote the paper’s own masthead, “The only Slovenian tri-weekly in the United States of America.” The Narodni Vestnik was one of two Slovenian American newspapers published in Minnesota. The other was the Amerikanski Slovenec (“American Slovenian”), which was started in 1891 in Chicago, but which later that year moved to Tower, Minnesota, and in 1899 to Joliet, Illinois.

Although published in Duluth, in 1914 Narodni Vestnik became the official organ of the Slovenian Catholic Benevolent Society of St. Barbara, based in Forest City, Pennsylvania. Fraternal benefit societies were common among new immigrant groups in America and were rooted in similar organizations in Europe. Their primary aim was to provide some of the basic elements of social security to their members, typically in the form of health insurance, but also to meet social and cultural needs within the communities they served.

Raymond Feigel was the first editor of Narodni Vestnik. Hewas succeeded in 1913 by John Zupan, who held the position until the following year, when William Brunschmid became editor; he was in turn followed in 1915 by Bert Lakner. Father John Smoley, a Catholic priest, succeeded Lakner becoming the paper’s last editor.

During Brunschmid’s tenure, Narodni Vestnik aligned itself with politically progressive causes, taking the side of the Allies in the early years of World War I. The paper also advocated strongly for Slovene acceptance and recognition. In a letter to rival newspaper the Virginia Enterprise, published in its February 20, 1914 issue, Brunschmid wrote “There are in Duluth and St. Louis County about 28,000 Slovenians and Croatians who are being wrongly called Austrians… we have only been subjects of Austria against our will. By this reason we feel offended by being called Austrians – call us Slovenians.”

Under the editorial direction of Father Smoley, Narodni Vestnik took a dramatically different direction, and the paper championed the cause of Austria in World War I. Once it became clear, however, that the United States would enter the war on the side of the Allies, Narodni Vestnik ceased publication in 1917.

Provided By: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Narodni Vestnik = National Herald (Duluth, Minn.) 1911-????

Other Title

  • National herald

Dates of Publication

  • 1911-????

Created / Published

  • Duluth, Minn. : Slovenian Print. & Pub. Co., 1911-

Headings

  • -  Slovenian Americans--Minnesota--Newspapers
  • -  Slovenian Americans--Newspapers
  • -  Duluth (Minn.)--Newspapers
  • -  Slovenian Americans
  • -  Minnesota
  • -  Minnesota--Duluth
  • -  United States--Minnesota--Saint Louis--Duluth

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Vol. I (August 10, 1911)-
  • -  "Slovenian." Cf. Ayer's, 1912.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  In Slovenian.

Medium

  • volumes : illustrations

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn84024585

OCLC Number

  • 11166923

ISSN Number

  • 2640-9933

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://aj.sunback.homes/ndnp/listawardees.html.

For more information on Library of Congress policies and disclaimers regarding rights and reproductions, see https://aj.sunback.homes/homepage/legal.html

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Narodni Vestnik = National Herald Duluth, Minn. -????. (Duluth, MN), Jan. 1 1911. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn84024585/.

APA citation style:

(1911, January 1) Narodni Vestnik = National Herald Duluth, Minn. -????. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn84024585/.

MLA citation style:

Narodni Vestnik = National Herald Duluth, Minn. -????. (Duluth, MN) 1 Jan. 1911. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn84024585/.