To help you think about newspapers as artifacts, Isabelle Lehuu's  
Carnival on the Page: Popular Print Media in Antebellum America,  
University of North Carolina Press, 2000, might be helpful.  
Unfortunately, her findings might not be relevant for a later period.  
Nonetheless, in thinking about print media, she covers, for example,  
papermaking, printing, and distribution. Maybe a post to H-Net's H- 
MATERIAL-CULTURE would help point you to similar resources for the  
early twentieth century? Or you might find relevant resources by  
looking at history of journalism or printing resources?

Tim Mancl, RPA
Heite Consulting
Little Creek, DE

On Jan 20, 2007, at 2:00 AM, HISTARCH automatic digest system wrote:

> From: Morgan Blanchard <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 1/18/2007 6:21:45 PM
> Subject: Looking for bibliographic sources on printed material as  
> artifacts
>
>    I am currently processing a very large collection of periodical  
> material
> excavated from a frozen privy in the interior of Alaska.  I am  
> still doing the
> data entry, and assigning artifact numbers, but we already have  
> more than 1,700
> diagnostic pieces representing more than 50 different titles dating  
> from 1902
> to 1909.  I am estimating more than 3,000 diagnostic pieces by the  
> end and tens
> of thousands of non diagnostic fragments.
>
>   I am looking for (and so far not finding) sources dealing with  
> printed
> materials as artifacts rather than purely as historical sources or  
> works
> dealing with printed material found in an archaeological context.   
> I would
> appreciate any leads in this direction.
>
> Morgan Blanchard
> University of Nevada, Reno