The sources on this page provide information about  historical editions of U.S. and international newspapers valuable for research. Available papers range from the 18th to the 21st century.

The Libraries have recently purchased the archive of the Baltimore Sun, covering from the paper's founding in 1837 to 1999. The Baltimore Sun’s history is among the most distinguished in American journalism. It represented this bustling port city by reporting on pivotal issues and events of the 19th and early 20th centuries: immigration, the slave trade, commerce, the Civil War, Washington D.C. politics (The Baltimore Sun began publishing 40 years before the Washington Post), Americana, and literature. Famously, H.L. Mencken, the “Sage of Baltimore” and one of the most influential American writers of the early 20th century, wrote for this renowned newspaper.

Taken together with the archive of the Baltimore Afro-American, the Baltimore Sun archive will offer the news articles, photos, advertisements, classified ads, obituaries, cartoons, and more.for researchers interested in all aspects of American life in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

The Libraries now offer access to Early American Newspapers: Series I, a collection of papers published from the colonial era to the mid-nineteenth century.  Early American Newspapers, Series 1, 1690-1876 offers 340,000 fully searchable issues from over 730 invaluable American newspapers. Focusing largely on the 18th and early 19th centuries, this online collection is based on Clarence S. Brigham’s “History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820” and other authoritative bibliographies. Providing unprecedented access to the nation’s early periods, Early American Newspapers, Series 1, enables researchers to explore essential newspapers from 23 states and the District of Columbia.

There are two different strategies for working with historical newspapers:

Locating articles on specific topics

For this technique you will need:

• a digital version of a paper
  see these lists of historical newspapers available to campus or freely available to all
• an index to a specific paper
• the patience to browse through a paper in a specific time period.

Locating entire papers from specific places or time periods

For this technique you will need:

• to search OneSearch for a place and keyword "newspaper" together
  example: chicago newspapers
• to consult directories or catalogs of papers.
  Once you identify papers of interest, you can look them up under journal title in OneSearch or request them on Interlibrary Loan (ILLiad), You can then browse them for local news and events.

The following resources are listed in roughly chronological order, from oldest to most recent.

The Libraries offer many historical newspapers on microfilm or microfiche as well as online.

How to find newspapers

• by title
• by place
• by time period
• by audience