A Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign – initiated Aug. 1 by historian, Gus Frederick, and a group referring to themselves as the “Silverton Freethinkers” – has succeeded in raising over $2,500 to fund the digitization of The Torch of Reason, a weekly newspaper published by the Liberal Oregon University from 1896 to 1903.
“It was a prominent voice during the ‘Golden Age of Freethought,’ advocating for secularism, science, and reason in a time when religious conservatism dominated American society,” Frederick wrote. The funds will be used to digitize the paper’s 2978 pages to make them accessible at www.oregonnews.uoregon.edu in six to nine months.
