Scope and Contents:
Oldham Paisley was editor of the Marion, Ill., Republican during the violent years caused by striking miners, gangsters, the Ku Klux Klan, and prohibition enforcers in southern Illinois.
This collection contains a microfilm of Paisley's four scrapbooks, which include clippings from a variety of local newspapers. Paisley used some of these clippings for his anonymously published book The Life Story of Charlie Birger (1927). Paisley originally donated his scrapbooks to the Marion Carnegie Library in 1945, but they were taken to the Chicago Historical Society (Chicago History Museum) by Paul M. Angle during his research for Bloody Williamson: A Chapter in American Lawlessness (1952). Copies of the scrapbooks and other research materials can be found in the "Bloody Williamson research collection, 1875-1951" at the Chicago History Museum (see finding aid at http://chsmedia.org/media/fa/fa/M-A/AngleP-B.htm).
The Library acquired the microfilm in 1963.