Stone: An Illustrated Magazine

The dataset, or corpora, for the project is the publication Stone: An Illustrated Magazine, a monthly journal of the stone quarrying industry first published by the D.H. Ranck Publishing Co. in Indianapolis, Indiana. The first issue of the journal was published in May 1888. In 1898 publication of the journal was transferred to a series of publishers located in New York City. The journal continued to be published through the early 1970s. Its original byline was “A Journal for Producers, Workers and Users of Stone, Marble and Granite.” Advertisements in the journal show that it was mostly aimed at quarry owners and managers and stone dealers – not workers. The majority of ads are for machinery to make the quarrying and stone finishing process easier and faster. Other ads, for stone suppliers and different stone materials, appear to be aimed at potential customers.

The first (May 1888) issue laid out the kind of material that that would be published in the journal. This variety of materials in each issue remained consistent through the 1920s:

  • Contributions of a reliable and interesting character on technical topics. These topics range in scope throughout the journal and include articles on stone cutting techniques, construction methods, travelogues of stone producing regions around the world, descriptions of specific stone types, and analysis of architectural styles that used stone as a primary material.

  • Descriptive matter applying to mechanical devices which have to do with quarrying, cutting, handling and working stone; and articles relating to trade conditions.

  • Designs in any detail of stone working. These articles provide details for work such as arch construction, monument designs, and decorative cutting patterns.

  • News matter which would apply to any branch in our field. This includes regulatory information; news about new techniques or machinery; items relating to labor disputes (almost always as a negative occurrence); announcements about new quarry openings, new stone products, and markets; and obituaries for important figures in the industry.

  • General correspondence and short news items. These were provided by subscribers and published in a monthly “Notes from Quarry and Shop” section.

  • Reference statistics and stone testing information.

  • Contract News. A section with information on upcoming projects that might be looking for stone suppliers.

  • Current stone price lists.

  • Other: Not mentioned specifically, but present in the journal, are original short stories and poems along with reviews of recently published books that might be of interest to readers. The last few pages of each issue consisted of a “for sale/help wanted” section.

While never explicitly mentioning an affiliation with any union or association, the journal’s article topics, advertisements, and editorials suggest it was most closely aligned with various stone trade dealer and contractor associations. Early issues list associations that “officially recognized and commended” the magazine, including the National Marble and Granite Manufacturers’ and Dealers Association of the United States and Canada, The Retail and Wholesale Marble Dealers’ Association of New England and the Provinces, and the Marble and Granite Dealers’ Association of Nebraska. In the 1920s the journal began running a section dedicated to essays from the International Cut Stone Contractors’ and Quarrymen’s Association, Inc., indicating a close relationship with that group. If not directly sponsored by these trade associations, the journal certainly reflects their viewpoint, being primarily dedicated to the manufacture and marketing of stone as a product.

Stone: An Illustrated Magazine (with some publication and digitization interruptions) has been digitized by the New York Public Library and is available up until 1922 through HathiTrust. HathiTrust has plain text versions available for Volumes 1, 2, 4-6, 14-19, 24, 26, 28-33, 35-43 covering the years 1888-1922. Most of the missing volumes are unfortunately within the 1890-1910 timeframe, as the journal’s publication was suspended between March 1904 and March 1907. While the issues of Stone from 1922 and earlier are in the public domain, the “digital copy” (the scan and OCR-generated text) is owned by Google with HathiTrust as the distributer. Gaining access to the text files involved submitting a formal research proposal to HathiTrust and a legal agreement between my institution (Northeastern University) and Google that the text would be used only for research and not made public.

The text files for Stone are representative of the kind of OCR-produced text that is available for historic journals whether via HathiTrust, Google Books, Internet Archive, or other sources. While the image quality of the scanned PDFs is typically high, the successful conversion from image to readable text in the OCR process is variable. Some sections are relatively clear while others have multiple errors. Misspelled and nonsense words are present throughout the text, and some sections of some issues are completely unreadable. For the most part, the scanned text in all the issues of Stone is legible and there are not too many sections where the OCR process completely failed. (Note, these are mostly for pages where the image in the PDF is also not clear.) A few of the volumes contain repeated sections.