Library Guides: Finding Newspapers: Historical Newspapers (2023)

ProQuest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window

An archive of 14 major historical U.S. newspapers that can be searched collectively or individually. Every issue of each title includes the complete paper, cover to cover.

Proquest Historical Newspapers: U.S.North Central Collection This link opens in a new window

Provides access to:
Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD) - 1886-2009
The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA) - 1871-2008
Fort Collins Coloradoan (Fort Collins, CO) - 1972-2012
Great Falls Tribune (Great Falls, MT) - 1885-2011
Iowa City Press Citizen (Iowa City, IA) - 1965-2008
Springfield News-Leader (Springfield, MO) - 1987-2011
St. Cloud Times (St. Cloud, MN) - 1928-2011

American Prison Newspapers - 1800-2020 (NEW! )

This freely available resource contains "nearly 100,000 pages of a planned 250,000 pages representing at least one prison in 30 states. With the help of JSTOR Daily, many users are finding this material who might not otherwise know it exists"

Iowa Historical Newspapers (UNI)

A comprehensive list of Iowa historical newspapers compiled by the University of Northern Iowa's Rod Library.

International Herald Tribune 1877 - 2013

"The International Herald Tribune Historical Archive 1887-2013 features the complete archive of the International Herald Tribune from its origins as the European Edition of The New York Herald and later the European Edition of the New York Herald Tribune. The archive ends with the last issue of the International Herald Tribune before its relaunch as the International New York Times. The International Herald Tribune Historical Archive 1887-2013 charts the history of the 20th century from luxury travel and opulent entertainment, to international conflicts, the spread of American culture abroad and globalization."

Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new window

Provides access to primary source newspapers from the 19th century, featuring full-text content and images from numerous newspapers throughout the U.S. The collection encompasses the entire 19th century.

Times Digital Archive This link opens in a new window

As the "world's newspaper of record," The Times (of London) has covered all major international events from the French Revolution to the conflicts, crises and changes of the 21st century. The Times Digital Archive makes more than 200 years of this highly regarded resource available for students and researchers.
Click "Publications" tab then search "The Times"

Global Press Archive This link opens in a new window

This collection currently has material from the first half of the twentieth century which began with the demise of China’s last imperial dynasty, the Great Qing, and ended with the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in October 1949. By 2022, it will provide full text access to over 2,000 predominantly foreign-language newspaper titles ranging in coverage from the late 19th century to present times.

HarpWeek This link opens in a new window

Provides a continuous record of what happened on a weekly basis from 1857 through 1912 from the pages of Harpers Weekly, one of the important American newspapers in the 19th century.

American Underworld : the Flash Press This link opens in a new window

The Flash Press covers half a century (1826 to 1876) of the seamier aspects of urban life in New York. Characterized by humor and satire, the publications targeted “low-life” characters even though journalists were often accomplished upper class writers. Topics covered in this collection include crime, scandal, brothels, sporting events and reviews of theatrical performances.
Click here for tutorial

African American Newspapers: the 19th Century This link opens in a new window

This is a collection of some 19th Century African American newspapers. Contains information about cultural life and history including early biographies, vital statistics, essays, editorials, advertisements, poetry, and prose all of which embody the African American experience.
Click here for tutorial

Daily Iowan Historic Newspapers

"Dating back to 1868 the Daily Iowan Newspaper Collection provides access to digitized versions of The Daily Iowan and its predecessors: the University Reporter (1868-81), the Vidette (1879-81), the Vidette-Reporter (1881-1901) and the University Mirror (1881). The newspaper editions are full text searchable. Though not yet comprehensive, issues will continue to be added up to 2006"

Iowa Digital Newspaper Project

The State Historical Society of Iowa in partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, offers access to select digitized Iowa newspapers online through Chronicling America.

Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window

African American publications that can be found under the "Historical Newspapers" tab include: Chicago Defender, Cleveland Call and Post, and The Pittsburgh Courier.

Chronicling America

"The Chronicling America website contains digitized newspaper pages and information about historic newspapers to place the primary sources in context and support future research." It is maintained by the Library of Congress. Can be searched by state using the drop-down menu.

American Historical Periodicals This link opens in a new window

This extensive collection includes hundreds of American periodicals from the late 18th century up to 1923 and is an excellent source of high quality primary resources.

Newspaper Search on "Quick Search"

Newspaper Search is a dedicated, separate search box that returns results exclusively for newspaper articles, magazine articles, and news items. This meets the expectations of users who prefer not to mix newspaper articles with other scholarly content. Articles in many historical publications are also retrievable. Simply launch a search then filter by "date" to the time period you are interested in.

Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press Collection This link opens in a new window

This database includes historic full-text facsimiles of historic Mexican & Mexican American regional newspapers from Tucson, El Paso, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sonora, Mexico from the mid-1800s to the 1970s, plus national magazines such as Américas. Most publications are in Spanish; coverage is 1800s-1970s.

International Coalition on Newspapers (ICON)

"The ICON database is the most comprehensive source of information about significant newspaper collections in print, digital and micro formats. The database currently has 47,606,790 issues from 171,610 publications dating from 1649–2015." Please NOTE that the information is mainly bibliographic.

Accessible Archives

This databases contains material found in leading historic periodicals and books. Eyewitness accounts of historical events, vivid descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, commerce as seen through advertisements, and genealogical records.

Elephind: World Newspaper Archives

Contains full text access to nearly 3,000 newspapers throughout the world going back more than a hundred years.

Community History Archive

This archive is available courtesy of the Griswold Public Library. Contains historic Iowa newspapers such as the Griswold American (1885-2015), Elliott Graphic (1893-1942), Lewis Standard (1901-1918), Lewis Weekly Standard (1918-1933), Griswold Advocate (1880-1885) and Standard (1899-1901)

Google News Archive

Includes full text access to hundreds of older newspapers from around the world.

Online Historical Newspapers

This site provides access to historical digitize newspapers from around the world. The site is still underdevelopment, but content is added frequently.

American Indian Newspapers

This subscription-based resource presents the publications of a range of communities, with an extensive list of periodicals produced in the United States and Canada, including Alaska, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Nevada and Oklahoma, from 1828 to 2016. You can sign up for FREE TRIAL.

Newspaper Archive

A subscription-based newspaper archive with collections dating back to 1607. Contains more than 13,539+ different titles from every US state and twenty-eight other countries around the world. Every newspaper in the archive is fully searchable by keyword, date, place, and title. ISU does not currently subscribe to this resource. Allows for a 7-day free trial.

The British Newspaper Archive

This is an ongoing partnership between the British Library and "findmypast" to digitize up to 40 million newspaper pages from the former's vast newspaper collection. ISU does not currently subscribe to the platform. However, individual subscription with unlimited access goes for about US$8.71 per year.

British Library Newspaper Collection

The national archive collection in the UK of British and overseas newspapers and magazines.

Library of American Broadcasting (University of Maryland)

This site provides access to their collection of audio and video recordings, books, pamphlets, periodicals, personal collections, oral histories, photographs, scripts and vertical files devoted exclusively to the history of broadcasting.

Vanderbilt Television News Archives

Providing access to an extensive archive of television news broadcasts.

Ad* Access

Provided by Duke University this web site provides access to digital images and information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955.

The Stars and Stripes: The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919

Published for the American Expeditionary Force in France during World War I the newspaper's mission was to provide these scattered troops with a sense of unity and an understanding of their part in the overall war effort.

Historic German Newspapers and Journal Online

Access to digitized historic newspapers including online regional newspapers, Jewish newspapers, and historic periodicals.

Farm, Field and Fireside: Agricultural Newspaper Collection This link opens in a new window

A free repository of historically significant US farm weekly newspapers documenting a time of transition in American agriculture, politics, family life and technology. Covers late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries.

JSTOR Daily

"An online publication that contextualizes current events with scholarship. All of our stories contain links to publicly accessible research on JSTOR. We’re proud to publish articles based in fact and grounded by careful research and to provide free access to that research for all of our readers."

Caribbean Newspaper Digital Library

A digital repository of current and historical newspapers from the Caribbean. A part of the Digital Library of the Caribbean.

Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC)

Links to online newspapers from all Latin American and Caribbean countries. Last updated in 2015.

Southeast Asian Newspapers (Open Access - East View Global Press Archive/CRL)

"The Southeast Asian Newspapers collection chronicles the changes that took place throughout the region during this period, and the challenges of early statehood. Covering several countries from the region, including Myanmar (formerly Burma), Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, and featuring multiple languages such as Dutch, English, French, Javanese, Spanish, and Vietnamese, the collection incorporates a wealth of coverage and perspectives on major regional and global events of the late 19th and 20th centuries."

Independent and Revolutionary Mexican Newspapers (Open Access - East View Global Press Archive/CRL)

"The Independent and Revolutionary Mexican Newspapers collection traces the evolution of Mexico during this pivotal period. Comprising nearly 1,000 titles from Mexico’s pre-independence, independence and revolutionary periods (1807-1929), the newspapers in this collection provide rare documentation of the dramatic events of this era and include coverage of Mexican partisan politics, yellow press, political and social satire, as well as local, regional, national and international news."

South Asian Newspapers (Open Access - East View Global Press Archive/CRL)

"The collection covers several countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan), India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, and features multiple languages such as Bengali, Dari, English, Nepali, and more. With reportage dating as far back as the 1850s, the South Asian Newspapers collection provides a wealth of coverage and perspectives on major regional and global events of the 19th and 20th centuries."