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Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper The Western Outlook (San Francisco, Cal.) 1894-1928

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About The Western Outlook (San Francisco, Cal.) 1894-1928

The Western Outlook was founded in 1894 in San Francisco, California. The newspaper was published every Saturday. The editors and proprietors Joseph S. Francis, J. Lincoln Derrick, Jesse Edward Wysinger, and Walter George Maddox focused it on the Black community in northern California and Portland, Oregon. Until the 1920s, the masthead read “A Journal Devoted to the Interests of the Negro on the Pacific Coast and the Betterment of His Condition.” This showcased the newspaper’s mission to build a strong Black community in the northern Pacific coast through publishing local, national, and international news as well as ads for local businesses, church notices, and personal news and events.

After the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, fires broke out, killing thousands and destroying most of the city. At the time, the Western Outlook was published at 425 Montgomery Street in San Francisco, which was within the fire’s burn zone. It is unclear if the newspaper continued publication for several years after the fire; the next surviving issue is from June 1911. By then, the Outlook was publishing in Oakland; however, a branch office of the paper remained in San Francisco. The overall population of Oakland doubled after the arrival of refugees from the earthquake, and the African American community also grew. The Western Outlook had competition for the Black audience in Oakland; the Oakland Sunshine was also publishing weekly Saturday issues.

The newspaper was Republican leaning, focusing on candidates for local elections and taking a strong stand against lynching and racism. On October 22, 1921, the Western Outlook wrote about the Ku Klux Klan, “We should not allow ourselves to be frightened when certain people attempt to use this bogey man to frighten us out of our rights…” On April 3, 1915, the newspaper also covered the Pullman Porters Union expansion into Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

The Western Outlook likely ended publication in 1928. Elbert Allen Daly and his wife, Lilian Daly, purchased the Western Outlook, New Day Informer, and the Western Appeal and consolidated those three papers into one as the California Voice.

Note: A portion of the issues digitized for this newspaper were microfilmed as part of the Miscellaneous Negro newspapers microfilm collection, a 12 reel collection containing issues of African American newspapers published in the U.S. throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Creation of the microfilm project was sponsored by the Committee on Negro Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies in 1947. For more information on the microfilm collection, see: Negro Newspapers on Microfilm, a Selected List (Library of Congress), published in 1953. While this collection contains selections from more than 150 U.S. newspapers titles, for further coverage, view a complete list of all digitized African American titles available in the Chronicling America collection.

Provided By: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Western Outlook (San Francisco, Cal.) 1894-1928

Dates of Publication

  • 1894-1928

Created / Published

  • San Francisco, Cal. : Western Outlook Pub. Co.

Headings

  • -  African American newspapers--California
  • -  African Americans--California--Newspapers
  • -  San Francisco (Calif.)--Newspapers
  • -  Oakland (Calif.)--Newspapers
  • -  Alameda County (Calif.)--Newspapers
  • -  African American newspapers
  • -  African Americans
  • -  California
  • -  California--Alameda County
  • -  California--Oakland
  • -  California--San Francisco
  • -  United States--California--Alameda--Oakland
  • -  United States--California--San Francisco--San Francisco

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Began in 1894; ceased in 1928.
  • -  Published at: Oakland, Calif., <1911>.
  • -  Available on microfilm from the Library of Congress, Photoduplication Service and University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library.
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 2, no. 17 (Jan. 4, 1896).

Medium

  • volumes

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn84025815

OCLC Number

  • 10328990

ISSN Number

  • 2836-8789

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:

The Western Outlook San Francisco, Cal. -1928. (Oakland, CA), Jan. 1 1894. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn84025815/.

APA citation style:

(1894, January 1) The Western Outlook San Francisco, Cal. -1928. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn84025815/.

MLA citation style:

The Western Outlook San Francisco, Cal. -1928. (Oakland, CA) 1 Jan. 1894. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn84025815/.