Guides: Primary Sources: Newspapers/Magazines

In This Guide

American Newspapers General

American Antiquarian Society [AAS] Historical Periodicals Collection (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Access to newspapers, bulletins, reports, and other periodicals from the United States, providing coverage from 1691-1877.
Chicago Tribune, Historical This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time, from 1849 - 2014.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.

Early American Newspapers (Readex) This link opens in a new window
More than 290 significant 18th- and 19th-century newspapers from every region of the United States. This collection focuses on the period between 1820 and 1860, when the number of American newspapers rose dramatically. Part of the Readex America's Historical Newspapers collection.
New York Times, Historical plus Index (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: the New York Times provides the full image of articles published in the New York Times from its first issue in 1851. It is searchable by keyword, author, article title, and first paragraph (abstract). You can browse issues by clicking Publications at the top of the screen. It includes illustrations and advertisements. The title changed from the New York Daily Times to the New York Times in 1857.

Newspaper Navigator (Library of Congress)
Primarily searches photographs and illustrations from American newspapers, 1900-1963.

Magazines

American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Includes: American Periodicals Series Online (APS Online) and American Periodicals from the Center for Research Libraries
Art and Architecture Archive Collection II (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Contains the digitized backfiles of many of the foremost art and architecture magazines of the twentieth century, and includes sub-disciplines such as fine and applied arts, interior design, industrial design, and landscape gardening.
Economist Historical Archive (1843-2015) This link opens in a new window
The Economist Historical Archive ('EHA') is the fully searchable complete facsimile edition of The Economist, the weekly paper which is essential reading for anyone engaged in politics, current affairs and all aspects of business and trade worldwide. Containing every issue since its launch in 1843 and more than 600,000 pages, EHA offers full-color images, multiple search indexes, topic and area supplements and surveys. Altogether this is an unrivaled multidisciplinary primary source for researching and teaching the 19th and 20th centuries.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive Collection 2 (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Includes essential primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to 2000. The core US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theater are included, together with film fan magazines and music press titles.
Independent Voices This link opens in a new window
This collection chronicles the transformative decades of the 60s, 70s and 80s through the lens of an independent alternative press. Independent Voices provides access to over 1,000 titles of publications from feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Latinos, gays, lesbians and more.
Life Magazine Archive (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Life Magazine Archive presents an extensive collection of the famed photojournalism magazine, spanning its very first issue in November, 1936 through December, 2000 in a comprehensive cover-to-cover format. Published by Time Inc., the magazine has featured story-telling through documentary photographs and informative captions.
Periodicals Archive Online (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Includes around 800 periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, including over 150 foreign language titles.
Religious Magazine Archive: 1845 - 2015 (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Archive of magazines devoted to religious topics, spanning 19th-21st centuries and a range of religions/denominations.
Time Magazine Archive (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
The Time Magazine Archive presents an extensive collection of the prominent weekly news magazine dating back to its first issue in March 1923 through December 2000, presented in a comprehensive cover-to-cover format.

International Newspapers

Times Digital Archive (1785-2013) This link opens in a new window
The Times Digital Archive is an online, full-text facsimile of more than 200 years of The Times (London), one of the most highly regarded resources for eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century news coverage, with every page of every issue from 1785 through 2013. This historical newspaper archive allows researchers an unparalleled opportunity to search and view the best-known and most cited newspaper in the world online in its original published context.
Economist Historical Archive (1843-2015) This link opens in a new window
The Economist Historical Archive ('EHA') is the fully searchable complete facsimile edition of The Economist, the weekly paper which is essential reading for anyone engaged in politics, current affairs and all aspects of business and trade worldwide. Containing every issue since its launch in 1843 and more than 600,000 pages, EHA offers full-color images, multiple search indexes, topic and area supplements and surveys. Altogether this is an unrivaled multidisciplinary primary source for researching and teaching the 19th and 20th centuries.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chinese Newspaper Collection (1832 - 1953) This link opens in a new window
Contains full text coverage of English language newspapers published in China, between 1832-1953.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Times of India (1838 - 2010) This link opens in a new window
Contains full text coverage of this English language daily newspaper from India, from 1838-2010.

African American Primary Sources

AFRO Archives
Digitized collection of black newspapers, including Afro-American National Edition, Afro-American Ledger, Baltimore Afro-American, and Washington Afro-American.

Chicago Defender (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
A Chicago-based weekly newspaper, serving a primarily African-American audience. This collection covers issues published from 1910-1975.

Black History resources page (NARA)
Online resources from the National Archives and other government and education sites relating to African American history, including digital archives, digitized papers, oral histories, speeches, newspapers, and more.
Black Past
This resource contains three main areas: African American History, African American History in the West, and Global African History. Under each of those headings you will find a vast array of resources, including encyclopedia entries, full text primary documents, major speeches, and historical timelines.
Navigating the Green Book
The Green Book was a travel guide published between 1936 and 1966 that listed hotels, restaurants, bars, gas stations, etc. where black travelers would be welcome. NYPL Labs is in the process of extracting the data from the Green Books themselves and welcomes you to explore its contents in new ways.
African American History Online (Library of Congress)
Over 400 years of the African American experience is documented through primary source materials at the Library of Congress.
Samuel J. May Antislavery Collection
Numbering over 10,000 titles, May's pamphlets and leaflets document the anti-slavery struggle at the local, regional, and national levels.
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Much of the May Anti-Slavery Collection was considered ephemeral or fugitive, and today many of these pamphlets are scarce. Sermons, position papers, offprints, local Anti-Slavery Society newsletters, poetry anthologies, freedmen's testimonies, broadsides, and Anti-Slavery Fair keepsakes all document the social and political implications of the abolitionist movement.
Slave Stories
Tales of American slaves written in their own words. Open source project featuring public-domain slave narratives in easily accessible ebook form.

Regional Newspapers

Daily Iowan Historic Newspapers
Digitized collection of The Daily Iowan (Iowa City, IA) newspapers. Opportunity to search for how major civil rights events were covered here in comparison to national newspapers or the black press.
Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub
The Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub is a searchable website from the Minnesota Historical Society that makes millions of pages of Minnesota newspapers available online. The Hub contains geographically and culturally diverse newspapers published between 1849 and today. Due to potential copyright restrictions most issues published less than 95 years ago can only be accessed from the Gale Family Library at the Minnesota History Center.

Winneshiek County Newspaper Archives This link opens in a new window
This collection includes several newspapers published in Winneshiek County, with earliest content beginning in 1857. A 2-year embargo is maintained for currently-published titles included in the collection. Notable titles include "Calmar Courier," "Decorah Journal," and "Decorah Public Opinion." The resource is a joint project between Luther College and the Winneshiek County Historical Society, with support from the State Historical Society of Iowa's Historical Resource Development Program.

International Sources

The Human Rights Documentation Initiative
Human Rights Documentation Initiative (HRDI, hosted by the UT Libraries) is committed to the long-term preservation of fragile and vulnerable records of human rights struggles worldwide, the promotion and secure usage of human rights archival materials, and the advancement of human rights research and advocacy around the world.

U.S. Government

National Security Archive
Founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy, the National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions: investigative journalism center, research institute on international affairs, library and archive of declassified U.S. documents, leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information, global advocate of open government, and indexer and publisher of former secrets.
1963: The Struggle for Civil Rights
Bringing the pivotal events of the civil rights movement in 1963 to life through more than 230 primary sources ranging from film footage of the March on Washington and letters from youth advising the president to JFK’s landmark address to the American people and secret recordings of behind-the-scenes negotiations on civil rights legislation.

General Primary Sources

Library of Congress
Digital Public Library of American (DPLA)
A platform for searching across the public domain collections of museums, libraries, and archives. Browse photos, documents, and other artifacts by collection, date, location, and more.
Europeana Collections
Over 50 million items, including artwork, artifacts, books, videos, and sound files from across Europe.