[Alaska]:

$2,250 · Offered by William Reese Company

THE ALASKAN. VOLUME I, NUMBER 1. [with:]...VOLUME I, NUMBER 2. [with:]...VOLUME I, NUMBER 24. Three early issues, including the first and second, of one of the first newspapers published in the District of Alaska and by far the most enduring of those early printing efforts. Preceded only by the short-lived Sitka Times and Sitka Post in the 1870s, The Alaskan ran from this first issue in November of 1885 until 1908. Though preceding the Klondike gold rush proper by over a decade, these issues discuss much related to prospecting and mining in addition to local events and politics.From the outset, The Alaskan purported to be a strictly non-partisan paper with the admirable goal of "advocacy and defense [for] the best interests of Alaska and its people." In pursuit of this goal, the paper sought circulation stateside and made considerable efforts to impress outsiders, correct misconceptions about the territory, and to vociferously argue for self-government. Since 1884, Alaska was administered as a District, meaning that the governor and most officials were appointed directly by the President. Alaskan citizens were well aware that they had little to no capacity for "home rule," let alone representation in Congress, and a number of articles in these issues revolve around that discontent. An article in the second issue, for example, laments that as there are no counties in Alaska, and therefore no elected County Superintendents to administer public schools – everything instead is ma

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