Henry Livingston came to Babylon in 1869 and founded the South Side Signal. He made an immediate splash advocating for Babylon to split from the town of Huntington and went on to lead the paper into the 20th century.

On this episode, Babylon Town Historian Mary Cascone relates the history of the paper: it’s influence, evolution, and style. We also trade stories of newspaper research, microfilm readers, and the glory of digitized collections. Luckily, the South Side Signal has gone to newspaper heaven and can now be fully searched through the New York State Historic Newspapers site.

As a little side experiment – help us document the noble yet forgotten microfilm machine. Send us a picture of a microfilm reader to longislandhistoryproject [at] gmail.com

Further Research

• South Side Signal at NYS Historic Newspapers
• Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn Public Library)
• Town of Babylon Historic Services
• Mary Cascone Amazon Author Page