A sign of the times: Looking back at front pages
Lantern editors placed stories ranging from whimsical to weighty on these 12 front pages, selected from nearly 139 years of The Lantern archives.
January 1881
In their first edition, the editors vowed to dedicate the publication to telling the stories of student life: “All we promise, is to represent the interests of our institution and student life and opinions as we find them, reserving the right to peep now and then over college walls at what the riper world is doing.”
October 3, 1906
A scathing editorial cartoon dominates the front page, assailing the student body (depicted as a wailing baby) for its poor response to an offer of discount football tickets. Cartoons appeared on the front page about as frequently as photos at this time.
December 4, 1907
Football season previews have appeared on the front page for 120 years, at first under the label “Foot Ball Number.” All the usual suspects appear on this particular front page: a heroic photo of the team, season predictions, player profiles.
June 21, 1929
The paper reports breathlessly about a former veterinary medicine professor’s confession to the brutal murder of a student with whom he’d had an affair. Take a look at the left side of the page for news of the dedication of a laboratory on Gibraltar Island in Lake Erie, the gift of Julius Stone.
December 11, 1933
The death of William Oxley Thompson, the fifth university president, at the age of 78 is depicted with gravity and respect — a banner headline, a tribute in photographs and multiple stories. One story notes Thompson was the 20th prominent university figure to die in a 2-year span.
December 11, 1941
The day the United States joined World War II, university President Howard Landis Bevis addressed students. “Stay in school and do your work,” he told a capacity crowd assembled in the University Hall chapel. “This training will enhance your value to your country both during and after the war.”
December 7, 1960
“A maverick bossie yesterday caused the greatest bovine excitement on the campus since Maudine Ormsby, a four-year-old national champion cow, was elected Homecoming Queen in 1926.” The story, loaded with puns, details the cow’s misadventures on campus and her eventual capture.
November 25, 1963
Editors reported John F. Kennedy’s assassination in stark terms and few words. “This issue of The Lantern represents our attempt to capture this story for you in words and pictures,” they wrote. “We suggest you may want to keep your copy for its living history.”
April 30, 1970
Scenes of protest punctuate the front page after students and police clashed on campus, resulting in arrests and injuries. The editors deplored the violence in a front-page editorial: “The byproducts of a violent confrontation are always hate and alienation.”
October 2, 1991
Editors mount a protest against university moves to formalize faculty review of Lantern stories prior to publication. The protest culminated in the extraordinary resignation of Editor Debra Baker and nine others. Read Baker’s recollections of the protest, in her own words.
October 12, 2006
The iPod is proving a major distraction for students at Ohio State, reports this front-page story. But education applications were just around the corner: Universities were experimenting with “course casting, a means for students to download lectures directly to their iPads.”
November 29, 2016
The Lantern threw its resources completely toward reporting a knife attack by a student who then was killed by police. Editors expended the entire news section on the attack and student reactions, doing their utmost to fulfill the mission first vowed in 1881.
