The Santa Cruz Local Item

Santa Cruz: H. Coffin, 1880. Very good.. 8 issues, [8]pp. each, plus two broadsheet supplements. Folio newsprint. Contemporary sales agency ink stamps. Light wear and chipping at top edges; a few nicks and minor wear to other edges. Light toning and dust soiling to regular newspaper issues; broadsheets moderately toned and slightly brittle. An excellent group of eight issues, plus two broadsheet supplements, of this rare California newspaper. The Local Item was one of two newspapers, along with the Courier, published, in Santa Cruz in the late 1870s; the two papers merged in 1880. The present group contains five issues and two broadsheet supplements from April and May 1879, which contain much news and debate over the ratification of the new California state constitution, which was eventually approved by popular vote on May 7, 1879. Among the many issues debated are the apportionment of local and state power, the judicial and educational articles, powers of taxation, and clauses prohibiting Chinese residents from the vote and many types of employment. The two supplemental broadsheets print opinions on the new Constitution from various California and eastern newspapers, as well as excerpts from speeches of California politicians Thomas Laine and Creed Haymond. On the whole, the view put forward and reprinted by the newspaper take a fairly negative view of the new Constitution. The final three issues present here from the end of 1879 and the beginning of 1880 contain a mix of local, state and national news, developments in San Francisco markets, and stories of human and more fantastical interest, such as an account of Colorado ranch life, updates on Yellow Fever epidemics, reports of a sea monster, and a lengthy exposé on a woman who had posed as a man for a quarter-century.

A rare periodical, and a good document of an important political moment in California state history. OCLC locates only a run at Berkeley, and a group of early issues at AAS.