[HN Gopher] Georgian African American newspapers from 1886-1926 ...
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Georgian African American newspapers from 1886-1926 now available
freely online
Author : DoreenMichele
Score : 175 points
Date : 2021-03-20 07:33 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.dlg.galileo.usg.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.dlg.galileo.usg.edu)
| artembugara wrote:
| A bit off-topic but I recently wrote a blog post about how you
| could get historical online published news articles:
|
| https://blog.newscatcherapi.com/an-ultimate-list-of-open-sou...
| jollofricepeas wrote:
| It's interesting to see the difference in how African Americans
| were depicted and covered.
|
| It is well-known that the "white" press of that time often
| demonized its black citizens and escalated tensions that helped
| prolong the period of white terrorism, voter suppression and
| lynching throughout the Reconstruction period.
|
| - https://tulsaworld.com/news/tulsa-race-massacre-1921-tulsa-n...
|
| - https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article247928045.html
|
| This sadly continues even today both in the US (to a lesser
| degree) and internationally.
|
| We see similar treatment of minorities in the Chinese press (Hong
| Kong residents, Uyghurs) and in the US conservative press about
| migrants and immigrants.
| rexpop wrote:
| > This sadly continues even today both in the US (to a lesser
| degree) and internationally.
|
| To a lesser degree? I am inclined to believe that this[0]
| Vietnamese-language paper publishing an entirely fabricated
| story about Black men (and representing a photograph of
| tragically murdered Ahmaud Arbery to identify a fictitious
| perpetrators) was intended to prey upon the incredulity of
| Vietnamese-Americans.
|
| 0. https://tuoitrexahoi.vn/truy-na-4-ke-da-mau-cuop-
| hiep-2-me-c...
| cambalache wrote:
| Are the journals made by White people called "Georgian European
| American"? Why white must be the vanilla and default and every
| other option must be exotic/spicy/different so it requires an
| additional qualifier?
| pessimizer wrote:
| I think it would be a lot clearer if they did. I'd love if they
| renamed the years of segregated baseball "White Major League
| Baseball" or started calling it "The White Constitution of the
| United States."
| bobthepanda wrote:
| White is a complicated term. Definitely before the 1920s, it
| wasn't necessarily European, because it excluded, for example,
| non-Protestants like the Irish, Italians, and Russians.
| cocacola1 wrote:
| I don't think 1886-1926 Georgia was known for its willingness
| to include Black people at major, lily-white newspapers.
|
| https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeo...
|
| > Georgia's toll of 458 lynch victims was exceeded only by
| Mississippi's toll of 538. During the 1880s and 1890s,
| instances of lethal mob violence increased steadily, peaking in
| 1899 when twenty-seven Georgians fell victim to lynch mobs.
| Between 1890 and 1900 Georgia averaged more than one mob
| killing per month.
| ceratin6 wrote:
| How should one distinguish Georgia as U.S. State vs. eastern
| European country?
|
| It's one of the few contextual proper names I've not ever seen
| have to be differentiated, though it seems it would need to be
| when speaking to a global audience.
|
| For that matter, as an author, under what circumstance should you
| need to differentiate, if all audience is global?
|
| Is it adequate to assume that since Google filters and has been
| filtering content by language for years, that Georgia in search
| results and relevant pages is almost always the Georgia they
| seek?
| fortran77 wrote:
| Well, in the context of "Georgian African American" I didn't
| have any trouble. I'm surprised you did, as the other Georgia
| isn't currently, and has never in the past, been "American"
| [deleted]
| gt_grc wrote:
| I've lived in Georgia (the U.S. state) my whole life, and when
| I read "Georgian" as an adjective, I usually assume it means
| Georgia the country. People here typically use "Georgian" only
| as a noun to refer to a resident of the state. In adjective
| form, you usually just hear "Georgia" (e.g., Georgia coast,
| Georgia pines).
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Yeah, had it said "Georgia" instead I would not have had the
| same confusion OP had.
|
| I guess it's one of those unspoken rules we don't know we
| know.
| abrowne wrote:
| Agreed, as an midwestern American. Hearing "Georgian", I
| would think of the country, then the Georgian era (especially
| regarding architecture) and only then the state.
| js2 wrote:
| I wrote this elsewhere as an expanded form of my other
| comment here:
|
| In the pictured headline, if "Georgian African American
| newspapers" is using "Georgian" as a demonym, then it means
| newspapers published by African Americans from Georgia.
|
| But if the headline is using "Georgian" as an adjective, then
| lacking hyphenation, it's ambiguous whether it means
| newspapers published by African Americans from Georgia /or/
| newspapers published in Georgia by African Americans.
|
| We rarely use the adjectival form of U.S. states ("Georgia
| Peaches", not "Georgian Peaches"), so I found the headline a
| little garden path and initially started parsing it as if it
| were referring to the country of Georgia.
|
| Then, right below the headline, the text reads "Georgia
| African American newspapers" which isn't ambiguous and means
| newspapers published in Georgia by African Americans. That's
| confirmed by the rest of the article.
|
| Of course, the African Americans in question were likely also
| from Georgia, so to be pedantic, it's Georgian African
| American Georgia newspapers.
|
| (I doubt any African Americans from Georgia emigrated to the
| Russian Empire at the time, otherwise we could be talking
| about African American Georgian Russian Georgia newspapers
| ... or something.)
|
| Anyway if I were the headline writer, I think I would have
| used "African American Georgia newspapers..."
| Macha wrote:
| As someone in western europe, if it's non-US media it's
| probably Georgia the country, which is merely mentioned
| "rarely" as opposed to "only in us election week". If it's US
| media, it's probably Georgia the state. That said, countries
| are generally considered more important, so if it's not obvious
| you're talking about the US, I think the onus would be on
| people referring to Georgia, USA to specify.
|
| Most countries are just not interested in internal divisions of
| other countries so it doesn't come up often. Just like I don't
| have the need to distinguish Munster (Ireland) and Munster
| (Germany) even though the latter often loses its umlaut in
| English text, or run into confusion between Northern Territory
| (Australia) and Northwest Territory (Canada). And the English
| language isn't short context sensitive words in other areas
| too, the most frequent example being "read" vs "read".
| JackFr wrote:
| So imagine my surprise when staying with friends of my wife
| in Munster, they had never heard of Muenster cheese. They
| assured me that it must come from Munster in Ireland because
| Americans commonly confuse the two. But I was not convinced
| because the 'ue' in the spelling indicated a transliteration
| from 'u'. It was pre-Wikipedia, but luckily our hosts had a
| copy of 'Das grosses Buch vom Kase' which let us know we were
| both wrong. Apparently there is also an Alsatian village
| named Munster with a distinctive cheese recreated by
| emigrants to the US.
| azepoi wrote:
| In the EU the Munster cheese you'll find is generally from
| Alsace, it's protected (PDO).
| [deleted]
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I did think about that issue. In this case, the word _Georgian_
| is immediately followed by the phrase _African American_ in the
| title. That should be sufficient to make it clear it 's the US
| state we are talking about, not the country.
| js2 wrote:
| I found it a little garden path. I think "African American
| Georgia newspapers from..." is slightly clearer.
|
| That slightly alters the meaning by not using the demonym:
| newspapers published by African Americans from Georgia vs
| newspapers published in Georgia by African Americans.
|
| I guess you could also go with African American Georgian
| Georgia newspapers to be explicit that it's newspapers
| published in Georgia by African Americans from Georgia.
|
| Sorry, I guess I have Georgia on my mind now.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| That's good feedback. I also stumbled a bit on the word
| _Georgian_ and I am originally from Georgia.
|
| To me, that calls to mind _Georgian architecture_ , not
| _stuff from the state of Georgia_.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_architecture
|
| But the reality is that HN has some guidelines concerning
| titles (plus a character limit). So I did the best I could
| within the constraints as I best understand them, but I
| will certainly keep your remarks here in mind for any
| future titling challenges.
| StavrosK wrote:
| > That's good feedback. I also stumbled a bit on the word
| Georgian and I am originally from Georgia.
|
| WHICH GEORGIA?! I swear people in this thread are writing
| specifically to make the rest of us mad :P
| js2 wrote:
| The one with the Tybee bomb.
| [deleted]
| ceratin6 wrote:
| There may have been African Americans or at least some of
| African heritage in Georgia of eastern Europe during that
| time period[1] and a little later[2].
|
| [1]- https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/black-
| prese...
|
| [2]- https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/black-skin-red-
| land-a...
| Macha wrote:
| Right, but I would bet that even today African Americans
| make up a very small miniority of people of African
| heritage in the country of Georgia and African Americans
| were certainly not numerous enough there in the 1890s to
| have their own newspapers.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| This is not wrong if you consider Abkhazia part of Georgia.
| There are definitely recorded African descent families
| speaking Abkhaz and pictured in Abkhaz clothing. You are
| being unfairly downvoted.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhazians_of_African_desce
| n...
| fortran77 wrote:
| Are they American ex-patriots?
| selimthegrim wrote:
| No but their going to America was not out of the realm of
| possibility if they had Russian documents. I'm just
| saying it's not as facially impossible as it sounds
| pessimizer wrote:
| I've noticed that in desperately searching for the polite
| term to refer to local black people, a lot of Europeans
| and Asians accidentally and humorously land on "African-
| American."
| easytiger wrote:
| Georgian to me especially in this context originally meant the
| period.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_era
| williesleg wrote:
| They weren't all from Africa. They're called Negroes back then.
| aaron695 wrote:
| AI is going to take over the world they say, but we still don't
| have an easy to use and free high end OCR available.
|
| Australia's Trove is getting humans to translate them!? -
| https://trove.nla.gov.au/help/become-voluntrove/text-correct...
|
| Anyway, very cool, the world needs more of these out of copyright
| newspapers online. History has been lockup up by historians for
| to long.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Are you sure we don't have decent OCR today? I just pulled out
| a pen, wrote "Pie for breakfast" with my non-dominant hand so
| it looks like trash, then I scanned it with Google Translate
| (on an obsolete iPhone, almost in the dark) and it picked it up
| perfectly. It seems dramatically better than the state of the
| art 20 years ago.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Where can I get something like that that I can use as a
| library in my own program? I don't care if costs money or is
| open source, just that it works.
|
| The closest I can find is Tesseract which was developed in
| the '80s, and for handwriting it gets maybe two thirds of the
| letters right. Doesn't work on cursive.
|
| I want something that gets 99 point something right and works
| on cursive, that I can use as a library, offline. Plus flying
| cars, and a pony.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| google translate is proprietary, not free.
| yorwba wrote:
| > we still don't have an easy to use and free high end OCR
| available
|
| There is Tesseract: https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract
|
| > Australia's Trove is getting humans to translate them!?
|
| Your link clearly refers to _correcting_ an existing
| transcription:
|
| "While viewing digitised newspaper and gazette articles, you
| may notice that the text transcript doesn't always match the
| text in the article. You have the power to fix this by editing
| the transcript to match the article text."
|
| Most likely they used OCR software to generate the initial
| transcript, but allow users to correct the OCR output because
| they know the software is not perfect.
| acdha wrote:
| Tesseract is great in certain situations but a lot comes down
| to having a robust preprocessing pipeline and a correction
| flow. I wrote about this a few years back:
|
| https://chris.improbable.org/2014/3/17/content-search-on-
| a-b...
|
| https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2014/08/making-scanned-
| conte...
|
| Basically the big problems are getting the content deskewed
| (even a slight rotation will cause accuracy to plummet, which
| is a problem if there was page curl or a flaw in the original
| printing process), breaking text into clean segments (non-
| trivial in newspaper layouts), and dealing with noise from
| dust or content from the other side of the page bleeding
| through. The collection I've worked the most with
| (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/) also had a lot of
| problems due to many collections having been scanned from
| microfilm first. Tesseract 4 is better but in my testing you
| aren't going to see revolutionary improvements without
| investing in tooling to identify segments and clean them up
| before passing them to Tesseract.
|
| Since that entire collection is public domain and freely
| available for download
| (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/ or s3://ndnp-
| batches), researchers have used various ML tools on it and
| that definitely looks promising but is not a silver bullet by
| any means. There are some trained files available here along
| with a large public S3 dataset:
|
| https://news-navigator.labs.loc.gov/
| aaron695 wrote:
| Tesseract makes me feel like we've gone backwards in 20
| years.
|
| I know there have been improvements, and probably impressive
| ones, but they are not being implemented in any sort of
| unison in anything easy to use.
|
| If computers can't even read newspapers, which only have a
| certain amount of fonts and letters/words to chose from how
| can we think they can do much else.
|
| Test of -
| https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/151059024
|
| Tesseract starts really well here but then stops after a few
| lines. No idea why, it just frustrates me.
|
| _" FEMALE PIRATE LEADER. HONG KONO, Sunday. After no sign of
| activity in Bias"_ - Then Stops.
|
| Trove is below and doesn't get much.
|
| _" FEMALE PIRATE LEADER. HOHCrKOiro. SanOV. After
| twiigiiJofswUTlty In >>>> Xay far ? jux. pirates, lei br a
| woman, aged 28, EagUA tpio^K, attacked the JspaBMe steaiktr
| TM1 Slant ? betwsan jbaojr and"_
|
| ABBYY Finereader is OK -
|
| _" FEMALE PIRATE LEADER BOKO KOHO, Sunday, After no ties of
| activity la Bin Bay for a year. pirates. lad by a woman, aged
| 28. English speaking attacked the Japanese steamer"_
| guepe wrote:
| I used tesseract for something that sounded extremely simple:
| OCR a date tag and a few characters identifying a large list
| of photos. The tag is of very high quality, white over black,
| a 6yo would read it flawlessly. I had to use the "old"
| tesseract (the new one uses ML), probably because the ML-
| based one was "inventing" characters or swapping them, and
| could not reliably identify numbers. Even with the old
| solution, I had to resize, apply some filters and was barely
| reaching 99% recognition. For something extremely clean ! So
| we have ways to go...
| [deleted]
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Reading through the front pages, one would never know this was an
| 'African American' newspaper, as it is no different from any
| other. It is quite racist to even mention that fact that it is
| 'African American'.
| mrzimmerman wrote:
| You may not be familiar with US history, but it was an
| extremely segregated society back then with many lynchings
| occurring for any black people who stepped out of line. Black
| Americans frequently had to make parallel systems just for
| their communities since they were often not served by services
| run by white Americans.
|
| So in this case the skin color of the people who created these
| newspapers is an important historical contextual point.
| Additionally, it's simply a fact of the matter being discussed
| and as such it isn't racist to mention a basic fact.
| ku-man wrote:
| Wonder why black Americans chose to be called "African
| Americans". As far as I know, black Americans have zero interest
| in Africa.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2021-03-20 23:02 UTC)