Processed in November of 2013
These materials were donated to Special Collections and Archives in April 2005 by Emily Titus. Titus stated that she found the documents in her garage and that Gunnar Rasmuson was a former owner of the home.
No restrictions on use, except: not available through interlibrary loan.
It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain any necessary copyright clearances.
Permission to publish material from the Gunnar Rasmuson papers must
be obtained from the
Nils Gunnar Rasmuson was born June 10, 1889 in Ystad, Sweden, and immigrated to the United States in 1905. He worked for four newspaper companies throughout his life: The Provo Post, The Provo Herald, The Cache Valley Herald, and The Logan Herald Journal. When The Provo Herald was purchased by The Scripps League Newspapers, Inc. in 1926, Rasmuson was named chairman of the board. In 1928 The Scripps League Newspapers, Inc. purchased the Cache Valley Herald, and Rasmuson was asked to supervise newspaper operations in both Provo and Logan. In 1929 Rasmuson moved to Logan where he competed with another Logan newspaper, The Logan Journal, which claimed that The Cache Valley Herald was being run by out-of-state interest. However, two years later, the rival newspapers merged into The Herald Journal, a member of The Scripps League Newspapers, Inc.
The bulk of this collection consists of instructional newsletters from The Scripps League of Newspapers, Inc. to its subsidiaries. Entitled “Improving Our Newspapers,” these materials are divided into “chapters” written weekly by E. W. Scripps and mailed from Seattle, Washington. Although the collection is incomplete, a majority of the chapters from 1935 to 1936 are present. From 1937 to 1938 E. W. Scripps also sent five letters with instructions to his editors, which would have included Rasmuson and others. Like the newsletters, this correspondence provides guidance from Scripps to the newspapers under his purview.
Individual items include a personal letter from Louis Gilman, who appears to have been a national representative for Scripps League Newspapers, to Rasmuson dated Oct. 8, 1942, and an undated obituary written by Gunnar Rasmuson for Frank Dusenberry. Present are a draft copy with notes and a newspaper clipping.
The materials in this collection cover topics from the mundane (writing styles and editing) to the politically charged (fascism and communism). For this reason they should be of interest to anyone researching early 20th century journalism.
This collection is arranged chronologically.
For related materials see General Book Collection (LL) Autobiography of Nils Gunnar Rasmuson: More About Gunnar, 920 R184. Also, see COLL MSS 43 BOX 1 BOOK 4 for a talk given by Gunnar Rasmuson before the Cache Valley Historical Society, entitled, “Providence and Her People”.
Separated from this donation were the C.J. Struthers Aaronic Priesthood Award (Item Mss 283) and the Camp Davis, North Carolina, Antiaircraft Artillery School training book (Item Mss 284)