The past is never really past

Case Study: Our Back Pages

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel resurrects the archives to understand today through the lens of the past

Thousands of marchers honor Martin Luther King Jr. on Wisconsin Ave. four days after King’s assassination. This photo was published on the front page of the Milwaukee Sentinel on April 9, 1968, and appeared in the Journal Sentinel 50 years later in the paper’s yearlong retrospective on the year 1968.

Chris Foran, an assistant entertainment editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, digs into the archives for sections of the paper called the Green Sheet and Our Back Pages. His goal is to share photos and stories from the past that “connect, reflect and sometimes contradict the Milwaukee we know today.”

“Working on these stories,” Foran said, “I also thought about the nature of Milwaukee, where, like Mr. Faulkner’s South, the past is never really past.”

He shares his process in this Q+A.

Where do you visit to find historical/archival content? Outside of the Journal Sentinel system, do you have any favorite sources (like Library of Congress, etc)?

Most of the historical/archival stories I’ve written have drawn directly from the JS archives. The Our Back Pages feature is designed to bring back old photos and stories.

We have the papers on microfilm, and they’re also available in the Google Newspaper Archive.