Remember your Greenbelt friends, family and events of the 2010s, 1980s or 1960s? Thanks to the Greenbelt Archive Project, you can now view and search our community’s entire history online.
The News Review office has maintained banks of metal file cabinets holding an archive of paper editions back to the founding of the newspaper, and Greenbelt itself, in 1937. But those carefully preserved copies won’t last forever and are available through appointment only. It can take hours to research by reading each issue. As decades pass, old newsprint turns to dust.
The Greenbelt Archive Project was formed in 2018 to preserve the history in the News Review and Cooperator (as the paper was originally known). Volunteers carefully selected the best paper copy of each issue. Then a University of Maryland contractor and student scanned each issue, and created Portable Document Format (PDF) files from the electronic images, with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) so their contents can be easily searched using keywords. News Review staffer and board member Deanna Dawson stepped up to coordinate the project, working with and directing the other volunteers, liaising with University of Maryland collaborators, writing grant proposals, scanning some papers, doing quality control checks of the new PDFs and generally keeping things going.
As the new electronic versions were completed, they’ve been posted to the Internet Archive at archive.org/details/greenbelt-news-review. This reporter also electronically tagged and loaded the files onto the News Review website, replacing much older and lower-quality versions. The archives are now complete from 1937 through the issue you’re reading now.
The result is a treasure trove of Greenbelt history, including the origin of many current debates as former Greenbelt residents experienced financial and health crises, housing inequity and a general striving for a better life. Go to greenbeltnewsreview.com/archives and browse any year.
In the 1940s you can read about World War II rationing of meat and sugar (in the May 25, 1945 issue). In the January 9, 1948 issue, read a farewell letter of gratitude after the war to the people of Greenbelt from resident Tom Okazaki, the Co-op Food Store manager during the time when other Japanese Americans had been taken to internment camps.
In the 1950s the federal government sold Greenbelt (September 25, 1952 issue), the success of the polio vaccine reduced fears of infantile paralysis and lifelong disability (November 15, 1956) and the Rescue Squad saved two boys buried in mud on a construction site on Northway (January 2, 1958).
In the 1960s, a dead cat in a box outside the S. Klein department store led the police to arrest a thief (January 6, 1966). Goddard Space Flight Center opened (May 5 and June 16, 1960 issues), then played a key role in the Apollo 11 moon landing (July 24, 1969).
The 1970s brought news of the News Review’s victory in a libel case at the U.S. Supreme Court (May 21, 1970). Beltway Plaza opened (December 2, 1971), and Greenbelters changed the high school’s name from Franklin to Eleanor Roosevelt (January 15, 1976). GHI denied permission to a member to complete a secret underground shelter for which a member had removed excavated dirt in the middle of the night, until discovery by GHI staff (July 12, 1979).
Many will remember the banking crises of the 1980s when certificates of deposit at our own Community Savings & Loan paid 11 percent (July 21, 1983) two years before Governor Harry Hughes froze all withdrawals during the Maryland Savings & Loan Crisis (September 12, 1985). In the December 29, 1988 issue News Review reporters wrote about the fire that gutted St. Hugh’s school.
A Greenbelter discovered a dinosaur femur near here in the early 1990s (June 20, 1991), the Greenbelt Metro station opened (December 9, 1993) and the Greenbelt Double Dutch Team won the world championship (July 3, 1997).
The search feature lets you quickly look for a person, an event, a group or a place to rapidly learn its past. Even the advertisements of years gone by reveal interesting cultural trends and reflect how much life in Greenbelt has changed. Search for the name of your team or coach to remember athletic history. If your family lived in Greenbelt, search for their names and learn more about your personal history. Or are you wondering why Greenbelt place names memorialize Buddy Attick, Frank Lastner and Fritz Schrom? Type any name into the box at the top of greenbeltnewsreview.com and find out!