LibGuides: Types of Resources: Historical newspapers

Historical Newspaper Databases

Looking for a historical newspaper? When searching for newspapers prior to 1980, you will need to search individual databases directly. Visit our Databases A-Z page for a full list of our historical news databases.

This page lists recommended historical newspaper databases and provides important search strategies for searching historical newspaper articles.

Major historical newspaper databases

AAS Historical Periodicals Collection (American Antiquarian Society): Series 1-5

This extensive collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1877 includes over 8000 titles. Video tutorials.
America's Historical Newspapers
Multi-database search including Early American Newspapers, Series 1: From Colonies to Nation, Caribbean Newspapers, & Hispanic American Newspapers. Tutorial.
American Periodicals Series 1740-1940

Contains over 1,100 historical American periodicals published between 1740 and 1940. Tutorial.
New York Times(1851-Present)

Provides coverage of the politics, society and events by the premier U.S newpaper. The Historical New York Times (1851-2020) provides search capability using subject terms and topics for focused and targeted results in combination with searchable full text, full page, and article-level images. NYT Index covers 1851-1993. Tutorial.
Newspaper Power Search - ProQuest
Includes all ProQuest current & historical newspaper databases: ABI/INFORM, American Periodicals Series 1740-1940, Black Newspapers, Ethnic NewsWatch, GenderWatch, LA Times Historical (1881-1993), New York Times Historical (1851-2019) and Global Newsstream (1980-current). Tutorials for historical and current newspapers.

California historical newspapers

California Digital Newspaper Collection
Digitized California newspapers from 1846 to the present. Search help.
Los Angeles Times Historical (1881-2000)
Contains full page and article images from every available issue.
NewspaperArchive: California Collection
NewspaperARCHIVE.com provides access to California newspapers from around 1774 to the present. California newspapers in the archive is fully searchable by keyword and date.

Ethnic and international historical newspapers

African American Historical Serials Collection
Features 173 periodicals spanning from 1816 through 1922, including newspapers and magazines, reports and annuals from various African American churches, educational, and service institutions. FAQs and video tutorials.

AsianWeek
From 1979-2009, America's first and largest English-language print and on-line publication serving East Asian Americans.

Black Newspaper Collection
Includes historical African American Newspapers: Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003); The Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988); Chicago Defender (1910-1975); Cleveland Call & Post (1934-1991); Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005); Michigan Chronicle (1936-2010); New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993); The Norfolk Journal and Guide (1916-2003); The Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001); Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002). Tutorial.
Caribbean Newspapers 1718-1876

Contains 66 Caribbean newspapers published between 1718-1876. Tutorial.
Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980
Contains hundreds of digitized newspapers published in the United States by Hispanics between 1808-1980. Tutorial.

Hoji Shinbun Digital Collection
From the Hoover Institution, the world’s largest online archive of open-access Japanese American and other overseas Japanese newspapers in Asia and South America.

Indigenous Newspapers in North America
Discover North American Indigenous journalism from a range of communities, includes 45 titles dating from 1828 to 2016. Tutorial.
Japan Times Archives
English-language Japanese newspaper archive delivering over 100 years of Japanese perspectives on news, history and world affairs.
Latin American Newspapers 1805-1922
Searchable newspapers from Latin America published between 1805-1922. Tutorial.

Pacific Citizen
Originally called the Nikkei Shimin (Japanese American Citizen), Pacific Citizen has been the leading national newspaper for the APA community since 1929.

Tips for searching historical newspapers

Searching historical newspapers (or other primary sources) can be tricky. Here are some tips to get you started, also check out the library's Primary Source guide for more advice.

Search Terms

Terminology and language changes over time. When searching primary sources you will need to think of language used at the time.
For example, if researching historical newspapers for the Great Chicago Fire from 1871, I would want to think of how it was described at the time it happened. While using "Great Chicago Fire" will yield successful search results in seeking secondary sources, in 1871 when newspapers published about the fire, they were not yet calling it the "Great Chicago Fire." For primary source searching a more strategic approach would be to search "Chicago" and "fire" and specify the date range of October 1, 1871 to December 31, 1871.

Personal Names

As you search for people in old newspapers or newsletters you may notice that they frequently only use a persons last name, especially before the 20th century. In these situations where you can only use the last name, filter by time period and/or add supporting search terms to help find articles related to the individual you are looking for.
Additionally, if the individual you are searching for immigrated to another country the spelling of their name may have changed. In some cases, you may need to search both spelling.

Time Period

Using the advanced search function in primary source databases will allow you to select the time period you want to search, which can help eliminate secondary source content.
You will also want to think about how the information you need might have been documented at the time.

Perspective

History often has different perspectives. When you are researching it will be important to think about the different perspectives that might be present for your topic, and consider this when you select your primary sources. For example, when researching an event in Latin America, a diary of a person present during the even might have a very different perspective than an American newspaper writing about the event from the U.S. perspective.