Richard G. Suthers papers

Collection

Identifier: Midwest-MS-Suthers

Staff Only

Content Description

Photographs, brochures, clippings, invitations, correspondence, and realia documenting the career of Richard G. (Dick) Suthers, who was a pressman in the production department of the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times from 1945 to 1985. Realia includes special rulers and slide rules for measuring type and columns, as well as a paper pressman's hat. Collection also includes the rotogravure plate of the front page of the Chicago Daily News's last edition, March 4, 1978.

Also included in the papers is a detailed notebook containing tables, mathematical equations, and diagrams kept by Suthers to estimate amount of paper needed for runs of newspapers, as well as other calculations.

Dates

Creation: 1950s-2004

Creator

Suthers, Richard G. (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

The Richard G. Suthers papers are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 1 box at a time (Priority III).

Conditions Governing Use

The Richard G. Suthers papers are the physical property of the Newberry Library. Copyright may belong to the authors or their legal heirs or assigns. For permission to publish or reproduce any materials from this collection, contact the Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections at reference@newberry.org

Biographical / Historical

Chicago newsprint manager for the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times from 1945-1985.

Richard G. Suthers (also known as R.G. Suthers or Dick Suthers) was born in Chicago in 1928. He grew up in Chicago and Palatine, Illinois, and his first job involved cleaning out the dirty press inkwells for the Chicago Daily Times. Suthers left Chicago and was stationed in Japan during the Korean War for two years. Afterwards, he returned to Chicago with a high school equivalency degree and certificates in Newspaper Presswork and Apprentice Pressman from the Technical Trade School Correspondence Course. He became the Chicago Daily News's pressroom foreman in 1957, and in 1961 became newsprint traffic manager, later known as newsprint manager.

When the Chicago Daily News folded in 1978, Suthers went on to work for the Chicago Sun-Times, where he stayed until his retirement in 1985. Suthers deid of complications from prostate cancer at the age of 75 in 2004.