Bainbridge Review 1941-1946

The Bainbridge Review, a weekly newspaper edited and published by Walt and Milly Woodward, has earned national recognition for its coverage of the forced removal of more than 200 Bainbridge Island residents of Japanese descent. The Woodwards editorialized against the removal and devoted space in the newspaper to reports about their lives in the camps.

Online access to the World War II era editions of the Bainbridge Review is Kitsap Regional Library's first special digital collection.

Kitsap Regional Library thanks the Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, Sound Publishing, and the countless volunteers whose hours of dedication resulted in the accurate digitization of the contents of the 1941-1946 editions of the Bainbridge Review from microfilm.

How to Search

Explore the Bainbridge Review, opens a new window scanned issues are available from 1941 through 1946. The text of the Bainbridge Review is searchable by keyword. To learn tips and tricks for searching, please visit the help page, opens a new window. In addition, you can search for a topic by clicking on one of the subject terms below:

Saving Our History

In the late 1940s, a devastating fire destroyed the Pleasant Beach printing plant of Milly and Walt Woodward's The Bainbridge Review. Fire struck again in 1962 as Walt (my father) and I were getting ready to go home for dinner. The long, two-story wooden building, where the Bainbridge ferry holding area is now, housed several Island businesses: John Rudolph's architecture, Steve Wilson's photography, an art studio, a dance studio, and The Review in the basement. Very little was saved.

With the second fire, I witnessed Islanders' resourcefulness and generosity as bags and boxes of newspapers appeared. More concerned immediately in finding a way to publish the next edition, Milly and Walt Woodward only later examined those gifts: back issues of The Review, five or six in one bundle, several months' worth in a second, several years in another!

Careful archiving of back issues each week since 1940 had turned to ash twice and left my parents with no physical record of "The Only Newspaper in the World That Cares about Bainbridge Island." Now their neighbors came to the rescue and, for the second time, shared their carefully maintained archives.

No one saves newspapers today. Why did they do this in the '40s and '50s? Because every week, the Woodwards searched out and published the news that mattered to Bainbridge. "Week in and week out, the Woodwards got our names right, our events, the Little League scores and standings, the school bus schedules and lunch menus, the tide schedules, the direction of the economic, social, and political winds," wrote Bainbridge High School grad and fellow journalist Pat Dillon.

Carefully recording the details of the weeks, Milly and Walt Woodward also chronicled the history of Bainbridge Island mid-20th century. It's all here. It's our history. Well worth saving.

- Mary Woodward, daughter of Walt and Milly, and author of "In Defense of Our Neighbors: The Walt and Milly Woodward Story."

Help Us Find Missing Issues

A total of 11 issues are missing from the microfilm record of the Bainbridge Review from the war years. The missing issues are:

If you have a copy of one of these issues, please contact the Library so we can include it in this collection.

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Bainbridge Review 1941-1946

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