Finding U.S. newspapers at Princeton  

Newspapers are extremely useful for historical research, as well as for following current events. Princeton University Library holds extensive collections of newspapers in print, microfilm and digital form. This guide aims to give the reader some orientation to Princeton's holdings of U.S. newspapers, and to disentangle the variety of formats in which they may be found.

The history of the newspaper begins with privately circulated manuscript news sheets in the 16th century, and the newspaper as we understand it today dates from the 18th century. Because newspapers were generally printed on inexpensive paper that quickly deteriorates, libraries have been microfilming old newspapers for preservation since the 1950s. More recently, some libraries and commercial services have begun digitizing old newspapers. And many current newspapers have both print and digital editions. This history accounts for the diversity of formats in which newspapers will be found in Princeton's collections.

See also US Historical and Current Newspapers for a list of newspapers held in microform at Princeton.

Google News Archive
Google's News Archive drew heavily on Proquest Historical Newspapers, but there was some material that is not in Proquest. Coverage is best for the 20th century United States. It also included some newspapers formerly in the Paper of Record collection. As of Summer 2011, Google stopped adding to or enhancing the News Archive. The News Archive search page has been redirected to the Google News search page. However, it is possible to use the Advanced Search page to limit your results to the Archive content.

• New Orleans Times-Picayune 1837-1978
• Cleveland Plain-Dealer 1845-1981
• Oregonian 1861-1972
• Mobile Press Register (1970-1983 + more to come)
• Seattle Daily Times 1923-1984
• Trenton Times
• Dallas Morning News 1885-1980
• Augusta Chronicle (Georgia) 1793-1996
• Springfield Republican (Massachusetts) 1877-1946

The single question I am asked most frequently is whether a particular paper has been digitized.  There is not a simple, easy way to answer this question. Here's my approach:

If the paper was published before 1920, check

• America's Historical Newspapers
• Nineteenth Century U. S. Newspaper Digital Archive
• ProQuest Historical Newspapers Online (see below for list)
• Google News Archive (includes some newspapers formerly in the Paper of Record collection -- for a list of all Google News papers, see http://news.google.com/newspapers)
• NewspaperARCHIVE.com
• Newspaper digitization projects (ICON: International Coalition on Newspapers) OR Wikipedia: list of online newspaper archives

If the paper was published between roughly 1920 and 1990, is it in Proquest, America's Historical Newspapers, or NewspaperARCHIVE.com? (see below for lists)

If the paper was published after 1990, check the Current newspaper sources (Lexis, Newsbank, Factiva).

If you don't find your paper, check the Main Catalog and then Worldcat to see if microfilm is available, then place a request through Interlibrary Loan.

Attention: there are a few digital newspaper collections that are not available through an institutional subscription:

• footnote.com includes a SmallTownPapers collection; however, you need to create an individual account to access this material, and that can only be done from an off-campus computer. See http://www.footnote.com/using-footnote/
• Ancestry.com includes a newspaper collection that is not available in the Library Edition.
• There are some individual papers with digital archives that are available only to individual subscribers. In most cases, the "archive" does not include pre-1990 content, so before subscribing, make sure that what you want is actually included, and check to see if Princeton subscribes to that paper through one of the collections above.

Atlanta Constitution (1868-1945)
Baltimore Sun (1837-1985)
Boston Globe (1872-1979)
Chicago Tribune (1849-1987)
Christian Science Monitor (1908-1996)
Indianapolis Star (1903-1922)
Los Angeles Times (1881-1987)
New York Times (1851-2006)
New York Tribune (1841-1922)
San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1922)
St. Louis Dispatch (1874-1922)
Wall Street Journal (1889-1992)
Washington Post (1877-1993)
Arizona Republican (1890-1922)
Detroit Free Press (1837-1922)

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Black Newspapers

Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003) 
Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988)
Chicago Defender (1905-1975)
Cleveland Call & Post (1934-1991)
Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005)
New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993)
Norfolk Journal and Guide (1921-2003)
Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001)
Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002)