LibGuides: Newspapers, Broadcast News & Popular Magazines: Historical Newspapers: United States & Canada

Availability of Articles

Although many of these resources are described as "full text" it is possible that not all articles will be available, especially for very recent materials. If you are having trouble finding what you need, please contact Karen_Bouchard@Brown.edu or another subject librarian for assistance. If you have full citation information, you can also use your ILLiad account to request scans of articles that we don't have.

Historical American Newspapers: General

Everett Shinn. Park Row, Morning Papers. ca. 1900. Private Collection. Luna Insight collection.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers
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These historical newspapers offer full text and full image articles for newspapers dating back to the 19th century. Use the list below to search each newspaper individually.
Brown University Library subscribes to:
Early American Newspapers. Series 1 and 2. 1690-1900.
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1690-1900; this expanding digital collection of early American newspapers is the most extensive resource of its kind. Currently featuring more than 2,000 titles from all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Note: The Providence Journal is covered in this resource from 1829-1982.
Nineteenth (19th) Century U.S. Newspapers
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Provides access to approximately 1.5 million pages of primary source newspaper content from the 19th century, featuring full text content and images from numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S. The collection encompasses the entire 19th century, with an emphasis on such topics as the American Civil War, African-American culture and history, Western migration and Antebellum-era life among other subjects.

Chronicling America (National Digital Newspapers Project)
A partnership formed by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities. A public repository of internet-accessible full text, searchable digital newspapers from across the nation. Covers the period from 1862 through 1922, with the bulk of the material falling between 1880 and 1910.
Directory of Newspapers: 1690 to Present
From Chronicling America project: a directory of newspapers published in the United States between 1690 and the present (not all available online).
Historical Newspapers Online: By State
List of links to freely accessible newspapers online. Not always easy to use but includes newspapers not found elsewhere.

Service Newspapers of World War Two
This digital resource reveals the story of war as told by the newspapers that brought information, entertainment and camaraderie to the forces at home and overseas.

Historical American Newspapers: Ethnic / Alternative Press

Note: Besides those listed below, additional ethnic communites are represented in Chronicling America. Go to the main guide and search by Ethnicity to find them.

Chronicling America (National Digital Newspapers Project)
A partnership formed by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities. A public repository of internet-accessible full text, searchable digital newspapers from across the nation. Covers the period from 1862 through 1922, with the bulk of the material falling between 1880 and 1910.
Historical Newspapers Online: Special U.S. Collections
List of links to freely available historical newspapers. Scroll down the page to the Special U.S. Collections section where you will find collections for many different ethnic and other groups.

Ethnic NewsWatch
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1959-present; Ethnic NewsWatch is an interdisciplinary, bilingual (English and Spanish) and comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press beginning in 1990. This includes ENW: A History, which covers the years 1960-1989. The experiences and contributions of African Americans, Hispanics, Native Peoples, Asian Americans, European Americans, Jewish Americans and Arab Americans illuminate three critical decades in U.S. and world history.

Underground Newspaper Collection
Filmed copies of almost 600 underground newspapers from around the world. Accompanied by guide entitled "Underground newspaper microfilm collection. Table of contents."
For list of newspapers by title, scroll down in BruKnow, below the search interface.

African American:

Atlanta Daily World
1931-2003. Founded in 1928 as one of the earliest African-American newspapers.
Baltimore Afro-American, 1893-1988
The longest running African-American family-owned newspaper in the United States.
Chicago Defender, 1909-1975
Important African-American newspaper and forum for attacking racial injustice.
Los Angeles Sentinel
1934-2005. Weekly newspaper founded in 1933 as one of the oldest African-American newspapers in the western United States.
New York Amsterdam News, 1922-1993
One of the oldest African-American newspapers in the United States.
Chronicling America: African American Newspapers
As part of a comprehensive project to digitize American newspapers, this Library of Congress site now allows the user to sort titles by ethnicity. You cannot search in this interface but can take note of the titles and then go to Advanced Search to search a specific title.

Asian American:

Japanese-American Relocation Camp Newspapers: Perspectives on Day-to-Day Life
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One of the darker chapters in American history and one of the lesser discussed events of World War II was the forced internment, during the war, of an important segment of the American population-persons of Japanese descent. This collection, consisting of 25 individual titles, documents life in the internment camps.
Rafu Shimpo
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1914-present; digital archive of Rafu Shimpo, the longest running Japanese American newspaper in the United States. The Rafu Shimpo Digital Archive contains all obtainable published issues from 1914-1917. The archive will grow with an additional years worth of content added annually.

Jewish American:

Jewish Newspaper Project
1895-2010. Searchable full text in digitized facsimile of the originals. Includes four Pittsburgh newspapers.
Occident and American Jewish Advocate
1843-1850. The earliest American-Jewish newspaper in the United States.

Latinx:

Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980
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1808-1980; created in cooperation with the University of Houston, this digital resource represents the single largest compilation of Spanish-language newspapers printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries. The distinctive collection features hundreds of titles, including many published bilingually in Spanish and Englis

Native American and Indigenous Peoples:

Chronicling America: Newspapers of Indigenous Peoples of North America
Searchable digitized copy of newspapers produced by native peoples of North America between 1829 and 1921 You cannot search in this interface but can take note of the titles and then go to Advanced Search to search a specific title.

American Indian Newspapers
From historic pressings to contemporary periodicals, explore nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism from the US and Canada.

Chronicling America: Native Hawaiian Newspapers
Currently two newspapers published by and for native Hawaiians are included in the database, Hawaii Holomua and Hilo Tribune. You cannot search in this interface but can take note of the titles and then go to Advanced Search to search a specific title.
Hoʻolaupaʻi: Hawaiian Nupepa Collection
1834-1948. Searchable full text. Newspapers in the Hawaiian language.

Other Ethnicities:

Swedish American Newspapers
1857-2007. Searchable full text newspapers published across the United States. Available from the Minnesota Historical Society.

Historical American Newspapers on the Internet

A selection of resources freely available online, in alphabetical order by state. For states not included here, please check the Library of Congress's Chronicling America site above.

Alabama Civil War and Reconstruction Newspapers
Made available by the Alabama Department of Archives & History.
Alaska: Tundra Times
1962 -1997, searchable full text. The "voice of Alaskan Natives."
Arizona Historical Newspapers
1859-1937. Searchable and browsable collection of newspapers from across the state, with varying coverage.
California Digital Newspaper Collection
Searchable full text back to 1846. Material is also made available through the Chronicling America site
Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection
1859 -1923, searchable full text in digitized facsimile of the originals.Includes 147 newspapers, representing 60 cities and 40 counties. Titles published in English, German, Spanish and Swedish.
Florida Digital Newspaper Library
Includes historic and current Florida newspapers. Searchable full text. Also includes sub-collections of Ethnic Newspapers from Florida and Florida Jewish Newspapers.
Georgia Historic Newspapers Information
1763-2017. Searchable full text in digitized facsimile
Hoʻolaupaʻi: Hawaiian Nupepa Collection
1834-1948. Searchable full text. Newspapers in the Hawaiian language.
Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections
1831-2011. Searchable full text. Contains 129 titles with varying coverage.
Indiana: Hoosier State Chronicles
1804-2011. Searchable full text. Includes newspapers from across the state with varying coverage.
Iowa Historical Newspapers
1837-2017. List of searchable full text newspapers from many sources compiled by the University of Northern Iowa.
Kansas Historical Open Content
1873-1922. Searchable full text. Includes three newspapers. Others available through Chronicling America site.
Louisiana: New Orleans Bee / L'Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orléans
1827-1923. Non-searchable full text in pdf format. French language newspaper with an English section and briefly (from 1829 to 1830) a Spanish section.
Maine Newspaper Project
1829-2016. Searchable full text. Compilation of digitized Maine newspapers from a variety of different sources.
Michigan: Digital Michigan Newspaper Portal
List of searchable full text newspapers from many sources compiled by Central Michigan University.
Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub
1850-Present. Searchable full text. Most issues published less than 95 years ago are not accessible online.
Missouri Newspaper Project
1808 -1994. Searchable full text in digitized facsimile of the original. Includes newspapers from counties across the state, covering varying time periods.
Montana Newspapers
1883-2017. Searchable full text. Includes newspapers from across the state with varying coverage.
Nebraska Newspapers
1854-1987. Searchable full text. Includes 66 Nebraska newspapers with varying coverage.
New Jersey: Atlantic County Digitized Newspapers
1860-1923. Searchable full text in pdf format. Includes ten titles from Atlantic County (including Atlantic City)
New Mexico Historical Newspapers
1852-1948. Searchable full text. Newspapers from across the state of varying coverage, hosted by the University of New Mexico.
New York: Brooklyn Newsstand
1841-1963. Searchable full text. Includes the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Brooklyn Life.
New York: Suffolk County Historic Newspapers
1822-Present. Searchable full text of newspapers published in Suffolk County, New York (Long Island), in digitized facsimile of the originals.
New York State Historic Newspapers
1725-2018. Covers many newspapers, varying years for each. Searchable by county.
North Carolina Newspapers
List of searchable full text newspapers from the University of North Carolina. Titles from across the state, including student newspapers.
Oklahoma Digital Newspaper Program
Searchable full text newspapers across the state, covering varying time periods. Currently includes 749 titles.
Oregon: Historic Oregon Newspapers
1846-2019. Searchable full text of newspapers from across the state, with varying coverage.
Pennsylvania Civil War Era Newspaper Collection
1831-1880. Searchable, full text digital facsimile of the originals. Can also be browsed by issue.
Includes titles from across the state, with varying years of coverage.
Rhode Island Online Historical Newspapers
List of searchable full text newspapers available largely through Google News.
South Carolina: Historical Newspapers
Full text newspapers from across the state. Searchable by county.
Texas Digital Newspaper Program
Searchable full text of newspapers from across the state, with varying coverage.
Utah Digital Newspapers Project
1850-2018. Searchable full text in digitized facsimile of the originals. Includes many newspapers from across the state, with varying years of coverage. This project also contributes to the Chronicling America project
Virginia: Richmond Daily Dispatch
1860-1865. Searchable full text but non-facsimile format.
Virginia Chronicle
Searchable full text newspapers from across the state, with varying coverage.
Virginia Gazettes: Williamsburg Newspapers
1736-1780. From Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Browsable but not searchable.
Washington: Historic Newspapers
1852-1892. Searchable full text. Includes newspapers from across the state with varying coverage. Also offers broad subject browsing.
West Virginia Newspapers
1840-2009. Links to newspapers from across the state, available through different resources. From the Potomac State College Library of the University of West Virginia.
Wyoming Newspapers Project
1849-1970. Searchable full text. Includes over 340 titles, with varying coverage.

Historic Canadian Newspapers on the Internet

Early Canadiana Online: Periodicals
"The Early Canadian Periodicals collection includes over 1,000 magazines, totaling over 65,000 issues. It covers a wide range of topics such as political satire, agriculture, religion, medicine and health, as well as many men’s, women’s and children’s popular magazines. This collection even includes the first magazine ever published in Canada, The Nova Scotia Magazine (1789-1792)." Freely available.
Connecting Canadians: Canada's Multicultural Newspapers
Includes ethnic newspapers in Croatian, Estonian, Latvian, Finnish, Ukrainian, Serbian, Hungarian, Lithuanian and Polish.
The British Colonist (Vancouver, Canada)
1858 -1980. Searchable full text of the leading regional newspaper for Vancouver Island and British Columbia.
Alberta Online Historical Newspapers
Listing of links to Alberta newspapers from across the province, with varying years of coverage.
British Columbia Online Historical Newspapers Summary
Listing of links to British Columbia newspapers from across the province, with varying years of coverage.
Canadian Territories Online Historical Newspapers
Listing of links to newspapers from the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon, with varying years of coverage.
Manitoba Online Historical Newspapers Summary
Listing of links to Manitoba newspapers from across the province, with varying years of coverage.
New Brunswick Online Historical Newspapers
Listing of links to New Brunswick newspapers from across the province, with varying years of coverage.
Newfoundland and Labrador Online Historical Newspapers
Listing of links to Newfoundland and Labrador newspapers from across the provinces, with varying years of coverage.
Nova Scotia Online Historical Newspapers
Listing of links to Nova Scotia newspapers from across the province, with varying years of coverage.
Ontario Online Historical Newspapers
Listing of links to Ontario newspapers from across the province, with varying years of coverage.
Prince Edward Island Online Historical Newspapers
Listing of links to Prince Edward Island newspapers from across the province, with varying years of coverage.
Quebec Online Historical Newspapers
Listing of links to Quebec newspapers from across the province, with varying years of coverage.
Saskatchewan Online Historical Newspapers
Listing of links to Saskatchewan newspapers from across the province, with varying years of coverage.