Buffalo Courier-Express “Morgue”

While the quality and informative value of the Buffalo News cannot be questioned, for a long time there existed a rival paper in Buffalo, NY, the Courier-Express. The Buffalo Courier-Express newspaper was created in 1926, upon the marriage of the Buffalo Courier and the Buffalo Express, two newspapers that began in the mid-19th century. Buffalo State College is honored to house the Courier’s newspaper “morgue,” which is composed of hundreds of thousands of clippings and photos, sorted individually by topic, generally from the 1960s until the newspaper’s demise in 1982.

Though the College Archives as well as several other area repositories maintain copies of Buffalo’s newspapers on microfilm, a physical newspaper morgue is additionally informative in many respects. For example, in researching a topic on microfilm, where complete indices are usually lacking, it is necessary to scroll through what may be years’ worth of newspaper issues. A subject file from the Courier morgue, though, attempts to contain a complete series of newspaper clippings on various topics and individuals. A subject file on a Buffalo city municipal department, for instance, presents a bulk of information on the history, activities, and struggles within that agency. Similarly, a series of articles on an individual can highlight not only his or her particular achievements, but also how she or he “fits into” the overall tenor of the city. And while we can never say that any given file is totally “complete” (that is, presents every article on or reference to a group, business, neighborhood, or individual), the material can often present a fairly complete chronology of the subject’s actions or overall history.

The Buffalo State College Archives & Special Collections receives queries daily regarding information perhaps contained in the Courier morgue; and these questions emphasize genealogical research (reflected in the people and obituary files), historical research (evidenced in the subject clipping files), and photo use (found in the photo files of the city and region as well as local events, attractions, and people). Interestingly, the collection is extremely strong in its crime files — as one might expect if unfamiliar with the term “newspaper morgue”!

I am sometimes surprised by the number of questions regarding a particular topic. For instance, given the recent holiday season, the Buffalo State College Archives & Special Collections received several questions about old recipes published in the newspaper. Most of these queries reflected a personal interest, and spoke how a cherished recipe from the Courier had been lost. While the morgue does not maintain a recipe file at all, many patrons could supply an exact date or specific time span when the article was published, so referring to the microfilmed run of the newspaper was necessary. On the one hand, it is truly gratifying to be able to locate the wanted material, but it is also interesting to observe the context even of what might be considered “ephemeral” newspaper reporting. Indeed, it was personally fascinating to research this material from the 1930s, 1940s, 1970s…. It presents an interesting historical study to note how Depression-era Buffalonians created what must be hearty meals and to observe how our area citizens mitigated war rationing in their diets. Indeed, the prevalence of margarine (with all that transfat!) in later years is something of a shock; and better chefs than I must let me know if the addition of glycerin and ammonia(!) to food was borne out of necessity or something else….

Also, with last year’s 30th anniversary of the “Blizzard of ’77,” the Archives was happy to produce original prints of the snowstorm. We receive many queries for these images, and many have been published locally and around the world. Of course, maintaining these generally good-quality prints makes it possible to reproduce them for a wider audience; often microfilmed images are of poor quality and their replication can be extremely difficult, even with digital enahncement.

On a personal note, my current “favorite” image from the Courier is this advertisement for the “The American Weekly:”

The art and imagery is certainly reminiscent of its publication date of 1940; but I like to use this image in classes, too, when I ask students how much things have changed, and if we ought to start substituting the word “blog” for “diary”!

Please contact the College Archives to investigate the Buffalo Courier-Express morgue further. The articles and images are often used for professional presentations by the Buffalo State College faculty and other historians, and, as with all of Buffalo State College’s Archives & Special Collections’ material, is open to students and other scholars world-wide.