Librarian for History and African American Studies
609-258-0496
steven.knowlton@princeton.edu
Make an Appointment
https://steven-knowlton.scholar.princeton.edu/
Where to start
For foreign historical news, see the guide at http://libguides.princeton.edu/worldnews
A WORD OF CAUTION: Just because a newspaper is digitized, or is well-known in the 21st century, does not mean it was the most prominent or popular newspaper of its day. To learn about the circulation figures of newspapers, you may consult one of the following publications:
Rowell's American newspaper directory, 1869-1908 (online or in print)
N. W. Ayer and Son's American newspaper annual, 1869-1919 (online)
N. W. Ayer and Son's American newspaper annual and directory, 1910-1929 (online or in print)
The IMS Ayer directory of publications, 1936-1984 (in print)
Now, if what you need in an American paper published before about 1990, is it in one of the large collections of historical newspapers?
- America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowThis includes a number of subsets:
African American Newspapers
Agricultural Newspapers
Campaign Newspapers
Caribbean Newspapers
Denominational Newspapers
Ethnic American Newspapers
Hispanic Newspapers
Mercantile Newspapers
American Gazettes -- Newspapers of Record - ProQuest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowIncludes about two dozen U.S. papers, covering roughly 1830 to 2000. Features a strong collection of African American newspapers and Jewish newspapers, as well as communist newspapers from the United States.
- Associated Press Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Archive of published Associated Press news agency reporting, wire copy, and internal correspondence, memos, and documentation from AP bureaus worldwide. Also includes personal papers of some AP staff journalists. Covers roughly the second half of the 20th century.
- NewspaperARCHIVE.com This link opens in a new windowIncludes newspapers from the United States, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Suriname Sweden, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, and the U.S.Virgin Islands. Coverage varies by paper. Varies.
- Newspapers.com World Collection This link opens in a new windowHistorical international newspapers collection. 1700s-2000s
- Nineteenth Century U. S. Newspaper Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
Digital archive of U.S. newspapers from the 19th century.
- Chronicling America (1836-1922)Digitzed newspapers hosted by Library of Congress. Also includes a directory of all newspapers published in the U.S.; from that directory, used Princeton catalog or WorldCat to identify holdings in microfilm
- Footnote.comContains a number of digitized newspapers, including Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Tribune, London Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, and smaller papers from Indiana, Kentucky, and Virginia
- Amateur Newspapers from the American Antiquarian SocietyNewspapers produced by grass-roots enthusiasts, including children and teenagers.
A few historical newspapers have stand-alone online archives. Check the Quick Guide to Major Papers.
Didn't find what you need? Check to see if it has been digitized:
Newspaper digitization projects (ICON: International Coalition on Newspapers)
Wikipedia: list of online newspaper archives
Historical U.S. Newspapers Online (libguide at the University of Pennsylvania, lists papers by state)
If you can’t find digital, you probably can find microfilm. There is a list of newspapers held at Princeton in microfilm, arranged by state, at http://library.princeton.edu/collections/microforms/newspapers/countries/united-states. If we do not have what you need, check Worldcat, then place an Interlibrary Loan request.
If you don’t know what newspapers were published in a particular time/place, check Chronicling America: Newspaper Directory at the Library of Congress. This site also links to many digitized local papers from 1836-1922.
Attention: there are some digital newspaper collections that are not available through an institutional subscription:
- Fold3 includes a SmallTownPapers collection; however, it is not part of the library subscription.
- Ancestry.com includes a newspaper collection that is not available in the Library Edition.
- NewsInHistory.com is a subset of the content from America's Historical Newspapers, repackaged for individual subscribers.
- 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.
If you need information about a paper, try Wikipedia. There are good articles on many historic papers.
If the paper was published after 1990, go to the guide to Current newspapers (Nexis Uni, Newsbank, Factiva).
- Newspapers.com World Collection This link opens in a new windowContains hundreds of historical newspapers from the United States
- Amateur Newspapers from the American Antiquarian SocietyNewspapers produced by grass-roots enthusiasts, including children and teenagers.
- Left of Liberalism: Marxist-Socialist Newspapers, 1900-2015Newspapers published by communist, socialist, and Marxist organizations in the English-speaking world, addressing issues such as labor conditions, the working class, McCarthyism, labor unions, the and civil rights
- KKK newspapers : hate in America : the rise and fall of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920sNewspaper published by the KKK, in support of the KKK, or in opposition to the KKK
- Indigenous Peoples: North AmericaContains issues of 21 newspapers published for a Native American audience
- Community History ArchivesDirectory of open-access digitized newspapers, hosted by public libraries
- New Jersey Digital Newspaper ProjectA directory of historical newspapers from New Jersey that have been digitized.
- Accessible ArchivesIncludes newspaper collections such as African American Newspapers, World War I American Military Camp Newspapers, Civil War Newspapers, Women's Suffrage Newspapers, Frank Leslie's Weekly, Godey's Lady's Book, Anti-Slavery Newspapers, South Carolina Newspapers, Virginia Gazette, Pennsylvania Gazette
- ElephindA search engine currently linking to 29 other websites that have digital indexed newspaper collections. Its two largest links are to the Trove collection of the National Library of Australia and to Chronicling America of the U.S. Library of Congress.
- American Indian NewspapersCollection of print journalism from Indigenous peoples of the US and Canada, 1828-2016
- Georgia Historic NewspapersDigitized newspapers from the state of Georgia
- American Underworld: The Flash Press, Crime, Scandal, and Blackmail Papers of the Nineteenth Century This link opens in a new windowSensationalist newspapers focusing on prostitution, gambling, urban gangs, illicit sporting activities, and sensational crimes, from 1826 to 1876.
- ProQuest Digitized Newspapers: U.S. Midwest Historical This link opens in a new windowNewspapers from Battle Creek, Michigan; Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin; Chillicothe, Ohio; Green Bay, Wisconsin; and Lansing, Michigan
- ProQuest Digitized Newspapers: U.S. North Central Historical This link opens in a new windowNewspapers from Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Springfield, Missouri; Great Falls, Montana; Des Moines, Iowa; Fort Collins, Colorado; Iowa City, Iowa; and St. Cloud, Minnesota.
- ProQuest Digitized Newspapers: U.S. Northeast Historical This link opens in a new windowIncludes various newspapers from Delaware (Wilmington), New Jersey (Asbury Park, Bridgewater, Cherry HIll, East Brunswick, Millville, Morristown, New Brunswick, Plainfield, Vineland), New York (Binghamton, Elmira, Ithaca, New York, Nyack, Poughkeepsie, Rochester, Rockland, West Nyack, White Plains, Yorktown), Pennsylvania (Allentown, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh), and Vermont (Burlington) from the 19th century forward.
- ProQuest Digitized Newspapers: U.S. South Central Historical This link opens in a new windowIncludes various newspapers from Alabama (Montgomery), Louisiana (Alexandria, Lafayette, Monroe, Opelousas, Shreveport), Mississippi (Hattiesburg, Jackson), and New Mexico (Albuquerque) from the 19th century forward.
- ProQuest Digitized Newspapers: U.S. Southeast Historical This link opens in a new windowIncludes various newspapers from Florida (Brevard County, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach, Pensacola, Tallahassee, Tampa, West Palm Beach), Maryland (Salisbury), North Carolina (Asheville), Tennessee (Jackson), and Virginia (Newport News, Staunton) from the 19th century forward.
- ProQuest Digitized Newspapers: U.S. West Historical This link opens in a new windowIncludes various newspapers from California (Palm Springs, Salinas, San Francisco, Tulare, Visalia), Nevada (Reno), Oregon (Salem), Utah (Hurricane, St. George), and Washington (Spokane, Spokane Falls) from the 19th century forward.
- NewspaperARCHIVE.com This link opens in a new windowThis database includes the following issues of Stars and Stripes:
ALGERIA
Algiers, 1943
Oran, 1943
BELGIUM
Liege, 1945
EGYPT
Cairo, 1943-1945
FRANCE
Besancon, 1944
Grenoble, 1944
Marseilles, 1944-1945
Nancy, 1944-1945
Nice, 1944-1945
Paris, 1944-1946
Strasbourg, 1943-1945
GERMANY
Altdorf, 1945-1946
Darmstadt (European Stars and Stripes), 1948-1999
ITALY
Livorno, 1944
Naples, 1943-1945
Palermo, 1943-1944
Rome, 1943-1946
JAPAN
Tokyo (Pacific Stars and Stripes), 1948-1999
MOROCCO
Casablanca, 1943-1944
TUNISIA
Tunis, 1943-1944
UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast, 1943-1944
London, 1942-1945
- Texas Borderlands Newspaper CollectionSpans the years 1859 to 2010. The titles represent counties on or near the Texas-Mexico border.
- Rafu Shimpo Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
"The Rafu Shimpo" (羅府新報, L.A. Japanese Daily News) is the preeminent Japanese American newspaper in the United States. This digital archive contains content from 1914 on, with an additional year’s worth of content added on an annual basis.
- Campus Underground collectionOver 75 publications that originated from college and university campuses and surrounding communities in the 1960s and 1970s.
- Florida Digital Newspaper LibraryHundreds of ethnic newspapers, including current issues, from Florida
- Portal to Texas HistoryHundreds of Texas newspapers
- Virginia Chronicle—Library of VirginiaHundreds of digitized newspapers from Virginia
- California EagleLos Angeles African American newspapers, 1879–1964
- Catholic News ArchiveDozens of Roman Catholic newspapers from the United States, mostly in 20th and 21st century
Where to start (if you're not at Princeton)
If you are not a Princeton student, faculty or staff member, you will not able to access most of the fee-based resources listed here from these links. If you are a student somewhere, ask your librarian what your library can provide. If you're a member of the general public, check with your public library, or see the excellent list of papers available for free on the Internet, prepared by Carol Singer at Bowling Green State University: Historical U.S. Newspapers Online
Shortcut: U.S. papers in ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Atlanta Constitution 1868-1984
Arizona Republican 1890-2007
Austin American Statesman 1871-1980
Baltimore Sun 1837-1998
Barron's: National Business and Financial Weekly (1921-2010)
Boston Globe 1872-1993
Chicago Tribune 1849-2015
Christian Science Monitor (1908-2011)
Cleveland Call and Post (1934-2010)
Detroit Free Press (1831-1999)
Harford Courant (1764-1998)
Indianapolis Star (1903-2004)
Los Angeles Times (1881-2015)
Nashville Tennessean (1812-2009)
New York Tribune/International Herald Tribune (1841-1962)
Newsday (1940-1995)
New York Times (1851-2020)
Philadelphia Inquirer (1860-2001)
Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2010)
San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1922)
Wall Street Journal (1889-2012)
Washington Post (1877-2008)
Shortcut: 20th c. U.S. papers in America's Historical Newspapers
- America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowSearchable full-text of historical newspapers including titles from all 50 states. Now includes select coverage of some major papers after 1922 through the mid 1990s.
Augusta Chronicle (Georgia) 1792+
Charlotte Observer (North Carolina) 1892+
Cleveland Plain-Dealer 1845-1981
Dallas Morning News 1885+
Jersey Journal (Jersey City, New Jersey) 1867-1977, 1999+
Miami Herald 1911+
Mobile Press Register (1970-1983 + more to come)
New Orleans Times-Picayune 1837+
Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) 1845+
Portland Oregonian 1861+
Richmond Times Dispatch 1903+
Sacramento Bee 1857+
San Francisco Chronicle 1923+
Seattle Daily Times 1895+
Springfield Republican (Massachusetts) 1861-1946, 1988+
State (Columbia, South Carolina) 1891+
Trenton Times 1883+
Washington Evening Star (District of Columbia) 1923-1981
Archives of Printed Newspapers
Sometimes, you may need to access a printed newspaper. Directories of such collections are available.
- American newspapers, 1821-1936 : a union list of files available in the United States and Canada byCall Number: Trustee Reading Room Oversize Z6951 .A498 1967qPublication Date: 1967
- History and bibliography of American newspapers, 1690-1820 byCall Number: Trustee Reading Room Z6951 .B86Publication Date: 1947-1961