Newspapers

How to find current and historical newspapers at the Libraries and beyond.

New and Noteworthy: Early American Newspapers: Series I

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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.

About This Page

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.

Historical Newspapers - Research Strategies

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.

Historical Newspapers Online - UofA Only

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

Historical Newspapers Online - Free to All

Historical Newspapers in Microform

The Libraries offer many newspapers of historical and research on microfilm or microfiche.

Some noteworthy collections of newspapers on microfilm include: