- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Research Guides
- Introduction to Historical Research
- Newspapers and other periodicals
Introduction to Historical Research : Newspapers and other periodicals
This guide is an introduction to selected resources available for historical research. It covers both primary sources and secondary materials.
Overview
Newspapers can be found in a variety of formats from around the world, but they can sometimes be very difficult to locate. This research guide will walk you through the newspaper collections both in print and online available on campus.
Other periodical literature such as magazines or journal articles can be found in number of different ways, here are a few databases that will be helpful in finding periodicals.
- Readers’ Guide RetrospectiveReaders' Guide Retrospective is a database containing comprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America.
- American PeriodicalsAmerican Periodicals Series Online™ (APS Online) includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the middle of the 20th century. Titles range from Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine and America's first scientific journal, Medical Repository; popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal; regional and niche publications; and groundbreaking journals like The Dial, Puck, and McClure's.
- Ulrich's Periodical DirectoryUlrich's Periodicals Directory, or ulrichsweb.com, provides detailed information on serials published throughout the world.
Historical Newspapers Collections Online
- 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection NewspapersNewspapers, pamphlets, and books gathered by Reverend Charles Burney (1757–1817) represent the largest and most comprehensive collection of early English news media. Almost 1 million pages, approximately 1,270 titles.
- 19th Century British Library NewspapersSearchable archive of 50 newspapers originating in England, Scotland and Ireland selected by an editorial board from the British Library.. Most comprehensive digital collection of national and regional newspapers in Victorian Britain ever made available.
- 19th Century U.S. NewspapersProvides access to approximately 1.7 million pages of primary source newspaper content from the 19th century, featuring full-text content and images from more than 200 newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S.
- African Newspapers (1800s–1900s)40 searchable African newspapers covering the period from 1800 to 1922. Coverage is largely of English-language papers but a few in African languages are also included.
- America's Historical Newspapers (1690-1922)Series 1-5 offers more than 140 significant 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century newspapers from all 50 present states.
- Chronicling America: Historic American NewspapersThis site allows you to search and view newspaper pages from 1880–1922 and 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 as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Dates of coverage will be gradually extended to eventually cover the historic period 1836–1922.
- Eighteenth Century Journals: A Portal to Newspapers and Periodicals, c1685-1815Selected digitized English-language scholarly journals and newspapers from the years 1699-1812 including 76 journals at Oxford U.'s Bodleian Library and 70 journals and newspapers at the U. of Texas, Austin's Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.
- Ethnic News Watch: A HistoryProvides coverage of newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press for 1960-1989.
- Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980Spanish and English language newspapers from the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project at the University of Houston. 350 titles dating from the 19th and 20th centuries from throughout the United States.
- Irish Newspaper ArchivesIrish newspapers from 1763 to the present, in a fully-searchable format that includes images of the actual newspaper.
- South Asian Newspapers (1864-1922)World Newspaper Archive-South Asian Newspapers provides more than 400,000 fully searchable pages of newspapers published in South Asia dating from the 19th century. South Asian Newspapers features titles published in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka and languages include English, Bengali, and Gujarati.
- ZEFYS: Historische Zeitungen: ZeitungsinformationssystemDeveloped by the Berlin State Library (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin), ZEFYS is the portal for accessing digitized German historical newspapers, as well as full-text and selected web resources and databases relevant to this publication type.Currently, it provides more than 81,000 issues of 86 historical newspapers originating from Germany and other countries publishing in German. It offers a full-text search in 3 newspapers of the Prussian Press, Amtspresse Preussens, and a comprehensive web guide for finding databases and information about newspapers on the web. A bibliographic search feature assists with finding international newspaper titles within the world's largest bibliographic database for serial titles, the Zeitschriftendatenbank (ZDB).
Historical Newspapers Online
Historical Newspapers collections are listed below:
- Palmer's Full Text OnlineProvides an index to the London Times. Indexing exists for October 1790 to December 1905, the full-text component spans only the years from 1800 to 1870.
- Times (London) Digital Archive, The, 1785-1985Page facsimiles of all the issues of the London Times. Search by keyword and date and limit search to sections such as: Advertising, Pictures, People, News, Editorials. Sundays are not included.
- Illustrated London News 1842-2003Digital access to the entire run of the Illustrated London News from its first publication on 14 May 1842 to its last in 2003. Each page has been digitally reproduced in full colour and every article and caption is full-text searchable with hit-term highlighting and links to corresponding illustrations
Alternative Press
These resources provide sources of alternative viewpoints and perspectives to complement and challenge mainstream media coverage.
- Alt-Press WatchA full text database of newspapers and periodicals from the local, national and international alternative and independent press focusing on politics, government, art, the environment, labor, and religion.
- Alternative Press IndexAlternative Press Index indexes more than 300 alternative, radical, and left publications. Subjects covered include social and cultural theory, socialism, ecology, democracy, anarchism, feminism, organized labor, indigenous peoples, and gays & lesbians (LGBT), among others.More than 344,000 citations are listed, referring to articles from magazines, newspapers, and journals. Ninety per cent of the publications indexed in API are unique; they are not covered in more mainstream indexes. The coverage is both international and interdisciplinary.
- Ethnic NewsWatchEthnic NewsWatch features newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives.With titles dating from 1990, ENW presents a comprehensive, full-text collection of more than 1.8 million articles from more than 315 publications offering both national and regional coverage. While the content may mirror mainstream media coverage, the viewpoints are decidedly unique. Ethnic NewsWatch delivers hundreds of important ethnic press publications. The voices of the Asian-American, Jewish, African-American, Native-American, Arab-American, Eastern-European, and multi-ethnic communities can be heard. Titles include Kurdish Life, Asian Week, Jewish Exponent, Seminole Tribune, Appalachian Heritage, The Boston Irish Reporter, Chinese America, The Filipino Express, Hmong Times, and many more. A majority of this content is exclusive to ENW and not available in any other database. Of the more than 1.8 million articles contained in the collection, nearly a quarter are presented in Spanish, making ENW an unmatched bilingual diversity database. Dozens of major Latino publications are featured, including El Nuevo Herald, and El Andar. As a complement to this wealth of untranslated titles, help options and screen assists are also available in Spanish. Ethnic NewsWatch: A History provides older years of newspaper coverage from 1960-1989.
Newspapers on Microfilm
Memorial Library has back issues of the New York Times, 1966-1992, and some international newspapers on microfilm. Microfilm is located in the Microforms Media Center, Room 443.
The Wisconsin Historical Society Library has the complete holdings of the New York Times on microfilm as well as other US newspapers on microfilm.