Library Guides: Newspapers: Historical--United States

Online--General

Accessible archives This link opens in a new window
Provides selected text and full images (of varying quality) from 18th and 19th-century American newspapers and newspaper collections including: Pennsylvania Gazette (1728-1800); The Civil War: A Newspaper Perspective (Nov. 1860-Apr. 1865); nineteenth-century African American newspapers; The Liberator (1831-1865); The Virginia Gazette (1736-1780), the nineteenth-century women's movement, and others. This is a growing collection.
America's historical newspapers This link opens in a new window
A growing collection allows users to search more than 1,000 U.S. historical newspapers published between 1690 and 1998 (and beyond) from all 50 states. Created through partnerships with the American Antiquarian Society, Library of Congress, Wisconsin Historical Society and others.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
The Library of Congress's portal, for newspapers from 1789 through 1922.
Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers
Features full-text content and images from newspapers from urban and rural regions throughout the U.S.
Paper of Record
Archive of full-page newspaper images created from newspaper collections on microfilm, preserving the original format of the paper. Includes U.S., Canadian and foreign newspapers.

Newspaper source plus This link opens in a new window
Provides full text for more than 40 national American and international newspapers, and selected full text for more than 200 regional American newspapers. Full text television and radio news transcripts are also included.
Proquest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Contains English language newspapers primarily from the United States (including some American Jewish newspapers) but has some non-American English language newspapers, including The Guardian (1821-2003) and The Observer (1791-2003), and Irish Times (1859-2011).

Richmond Daily Dispatch, 1860-1865
Searchable HTML text only.

Online--Topical

African American newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
Online access to approximately 270 U.S. newspapers chronicling more than a century and a half of the African American experience.
American Indian Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Includes periodicals produced in the United States and British Columbia, from 1828 to 2016.
American Prison Newspapers 1800-2020 This link opens in a new window
Includes women's-only institutions. New content added regularly.
American Religion: Denominational Newspapers This link opens in a new window
More than 320 rare newspapers from over 30 states published between 1799 and 1900.
Caribbean Newspapers. Series 1 (1718-1876) This link opens in a new window
The largest collection of 18th and 19th-century Caribbean newspapers. Colonial history, the Atlantic slave trade, New World slavery and more a comprehensive resource for studying the development of Western society.

The Catholic News Archive
Part of the Catholic Research Resource Alliance, this growing collection focuses on digitizing Catholic newspapers during the Vatican II years (1958-1970). The site offers thousands of newspaper pages, from different cities, over multiple years. Includes newspapers editorials, pictures, and advertisements.

Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Full text articles from newspapers and periodicals published by the ethnic, minority and native press in the U.S.
Hispanic American newspapers This link opens in a new window
Access to a compilation of Spanish-language newspapers printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries, many published bilingually in Spanish and English.
Independent voices This link opens in a new window
A collection of the magazines, journals, and newspapers of the alternative press it includes sources by feminists and the GI press, small literary magazines, underground newspapers, LGBT periodicals, some Latino, Black, and Native American news sources, and the extreme right-wing press.

On Microfilm

Catholic Newspapers in Microform: A Directory of Works at Notre Dame
An online list of Catholic newspapers in microfilm, held at Hesburgh Library. Most of the newspapers are American, but a few are from Canada, the UK, and the Vatican.

The library holds many newspapers on microfilm. Use OneSearch to find these by newspaper title.

In Print

The Hackenbruch Collection of American and British Newspapers is available in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. The Hackenbruch Collection contains 2,247 newspaper issues whose front pages were of historical import. The earliest were printed in London in the late seventeenth century. While most are single issues, there is a run of The London Chronicle for the last four months of 1774 and a run of The Kentish Post, or Canterbury Newsletter from July 28, 1733, to January 23, 1742, with gaps. The rest were printed in cities around the United States from the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. The collection is searchable online.

There are many newspapers in print format, often incomplete runs or scattered issues that can be located through Catalog Classic by clicking on the yellow tab More; selecting link Newspapers, then Advanced search. Use the drop down menu for Format, select Serials (journals newspapers, etc.) and from drop down menu for Location, select Hesburgh.

Further Resources

American Newspapers 1800-1860
From the University of Illinois' History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library, a guide to understanding and using antebellum American newspapers.
Center for Research Libraries (CRL)
CRL is an international consortium of university, college, and independent research libraries. It supports original research and inspired teaching in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences by preserving and making available to scholars a wealth of rare and uncommon primary source materials from all world regions.
U.S. Newspaper Directory
1690 - present
The Wisconsin Historical Society Newspapers
The Wisconsin Historical Society holds the US's second-best newspaper collection and they have created several guides to help researchers access it, including the Cuban Refugee Camp Newspaper Collection and the Wisconsin Ethnic Newspaper Collection, 1833-2004, among others.

Newspapers

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Online--General

Online--Topical

On Microfilm

In Print

Further Resources