'Front Page News' — 100 years' worth

In his long career as a page designer/writer/copy desk chief at The Day, John Ruddy has overseen the creation of lots of newspaper front pages. Myriads, even.Over the summer, though, Ruddy took it it upon himself to go through 100 YEARS of archival Day newspapers. And why?He was researching the thematic core of his latest book: "Front Page News — a Century of Big Stories in The Day, 1881-1981," which will ship on Nov. 1 and is available for advance purchase — all just in time for thoughtful holiday gift-giving.The book will contain replications of over 130 Day front pages in chronological order, covering a wide range and blend of notable events with local, national and global focus. Each page also contains Ruddy's succinct descriptions."If you think about it, looking back, the front page of every day's newspaper had a souvenir," Ruddy said in a conversation last week. "They're each like a work of art. Some are memorable and some aren't, but it's fun to go back and look at them and get that sense of immediacy and what people were reading right after something happened."It's an intriguing premise, and a look at an advance copy of "Front Page News" suggests readers will be fascinated by the book on many levels. There are moments of solemn contemplation when seeing real-time coverage of the Hurricane of '38, World War II or submarine tragedies. There will be plenty of "I'd forgotten that" or "I had no idea" observations that resonate as the book follows the developmental course of our region.And there are aesthetic revelations when noting the evolution of page design and the gradual change in lexicon and patterns of conversational writing and speech."I want this to be a record for history and, in a sense, there are even a few pages in there you literally can't find anywhere else," said Ruddy, who's been at The Day 37 years. "With this book, you can dip in at any page, but I tried to make it something you'd want to read from front to back because it's kind of a continuous story."The birth of a conceptThe idea for "Front Page News" came about one day last spring when Ruddy and Day president and publisher Timothy Dwyer were about to attend a committee meeting to discuss The Day's relocation. The two were contemplating that a lot of historical material would have to be discarded during the move to the new building.To illustrate, Dwyer opened a cabinet door under a counter in the conference room and they discovered a pouch of old editions of The Day. After the meeting, the two looked through them."It surprised me because I thought I knew where all the stored newspapers were," Ruddy said."It made me think. I mentioned that The Boston Globe and The New York Times had both done books on their front pages, and I could tell John was interested," Dwyer said."When Tim told me about those books, I said, 'I could do one of those,'" Ruddy remembered. "I was half joking. Tim said, 'Do it,' and he wasn't joking."Ruddy has a lot of experience at this sort of project. He's the author of three other books: "New London" (1998, Arcadia Publishing), "Reinventing New London" (2000, Arcadia Publishing) and "When Disaster Strikes: Shipwrecks, Storms and Other Calamities in Southeastern Connecticut" (with Dirk Langeveld, 2017, Pediment Publishing)."John is an amazing resource," Dwyer said. "He loves history, and he writes about it with incredible feeling and empathy. He was perfect for this project because it's something that means a lot to him. And he was already familiar with so many of these pages because he's a page designer with extensive knowledge of The Day and the region."Ruddy was given the green light — and it was to be a solo enterprise."It was all me," Ruddy laughed. "Tim said, 'You're turned loose.'"It's all in the organizingGiven the vast amount of material he had to consider, Ruddy established his criteria for which front pages would be included."I wanted it to be about the news, first and foremost," Ruddy said. "I wanted it to be mostly local and about The Day to a lesser degree because The Day is its own kind of history. There were any number of national stories I could have included, and I paid attention to World War II, the Kennedy assassination and obvious stories where it's interesting to see local reaction."Ruddy said he was familiar with most of the pages from the source material; over his career he's spent countless hours going through Day archives and microfilm. Still, there were surprises as well as Ruddy making new realizations about material he already knew. He described, for example, coverage of the Hurricane of '38."The Day had two extras sections that ran the day after that storm," he said. "But it wasn't until I looked at them with the eyes of someone who does this for a living did I realize how those sections reflect on the total chaos that was going on."He also described what he called "The Perkins Case," an incident at Kelly Junior High School in Norwich in 1969. It involved a police stakeout after a tip suggested two brothers were going to commit a burglary. The police shot and killed the siblings — who were unarmed. So a fake crime scene was established with planted weaponry. "I was 5 years old at the time and didn't know anything about it," Ruddy said. "But I remember hearing about it after I started at The Day because (former Day reporter/editor) Stan DeCoster covered that case and would talk about it in the newsroom."Ruddy also went looking for certain stories — the opening of Ocean Beach Park, when and how Millstone came to be, and so on — and cheerfully admitted, "I'd be searching for something specific and fall into a rabbit hole. That happened a lot." He smiled. "I'm easily distracted, but I found some important stuff that way."The march of timeAs Ruddy moved chronologically forward, the personal connections increased. A long ago obituary referenced a pallbearer — who turned out to be Ruddy's childhood barber."That was a case of someone old and someone young. The bylines started becoming more and more familiar," Ruddy said. "I started wondering about the nature of history. I mean, my first clear memory is of Watergate. I'd find our coverage of it and think, 'There it is!' And then think, 'Is it history if I can remember it?' I'm not sure."Ruddy said it wasn't as difficult going through a century's worth of front pages as maybe people would think."I knew it was within my capabilities to do it," he said. "But I knew where a lot of the big stories were and how to find them. And the introduction of newspapers.com made a huge difference."Ruddy was referring to a subscription website that hosts digitized microfilm of newspapers from all over the country. The Day joined the network in 2023. Newspapers.com is also linked to ancestry.com, so the service provides a wealth of information at top speed — a tool that took a lot of old-school legwork out of Ruddy's routine and enabled him to turn the book around in less than half a year.The service also helped Ruddy write the cutline descriptions for each page."If a reader is looking at the page for the Kennedy assassination, well, you know what you're looking at," he explained. "But if you're looking at something that happened in 1920, you might not know what it is. With the cutlines, I wanted to provide context and subtext. Hopefully, with my three lines of text, readers are informed enough and they can move forward with some understanding."Ruddy said he had a great time researching and writing "Front Page News.""I tried to include material from all the towns in our readership area, and sometimes there just wasn't enough going on in some places. There's an understandable focus on New London, Groton and to a lesser extent Norwich. But I made sure everyone's represented at some point."Given that "Front Page News" only takes readers up to 1981, is Ruddy contemplating a sequel?"I'd be open to it," he smiled. "Let's see how this one goes. There's certainly plenty of material. And it becomes even more important given the digital age we're in. As someone said to me recently, 'The internet doesn't have a quality like the front page of a newspaper. You don't save a homepage.'"r.koster@theday.com