I'm not sure I have a complete grasp of what the phrase "copyright-awesome" implies, but here is my attempt at answering the question.

Posting stuff from old periodicals to random websites is a fuzzy subject in terms of copyright infringement.  Let's use this particular case as an example, knowing it doesn't apply across the board.

Port Cities Inc., publisher of what is now called Lake Superior Magazine, holds the copyright on the article above. Port Cities does not allow full copying of its pages online, but in this case will allow PDD to show two of the four pages of the article. (And David, I will put you in touch with LSM editor Konnie LeMay, who is willing to help you with what you might need for classroom purposes.)

Usually on PDD we link to articles when they exist on the copyright holder's website, or we use an excerpt when appropriate. Often we publish whole articles because they do not exist elsewhere on the internet and by our interpretation are in the public interest. That doesn't mean we are on firm legal ground in any of those particular cases, but rather that we can't reasonably establish any potential harm to the copyright holder when we publish, for example, a newspaper clipping from 1928.