Reference Librarian Manager and University Archivist
Joseph Coates
He/Him
Getting Started
Newspapers can serve as useful primary sources for historical research.
They reflect the time period in which they were created, and provide a glimpe into society at the time.
Though some local newspapers are available digitally or on microfilm, many others are available only in their own local regions.
Keep in mind, newspapers can be BOTH primary or secondary sources depending on the purpose of the article and how it was written. If it is a factual account, recording the events as they happened, it is a primary source. If the article is interpreted or has opinion interjected, it is considered a secondary source.
News Bias
Newspaper Resources
- Amateur Newspapers from the American Antiquarian Society This link opens in a new windowThe amateur newspaper occupies an unusual place in the history of journalism. An amateur journal is a periodical created to afford pleasure to its readers as well as to its editor and its publisher. The rage to publish, rather than profit, is the motive that most often induces people to become amateur journalists; and, throughout the history of the genre, most but not all amateur journalists have been juveniles.
- Associated Press Collections Online This link opens in a new windowAssociated Press Collections Online is a publishing program focusing on making the varied treasures of the Associated Press Corporate Archives, AP Images, and AP Archive available to libraries worldwide. Exploring the history and back story of the venerable Associated Press—decades' worth of wire copy, correspondence, memos, internal publications, and more—the Associated Press Collections Online meets the research needs of a variety of disciplines, and offers a cutting-edge platform designed to support that research.
- British Newspapers 1600-1900 (Gale) This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive digital historic newspaper archive includes 3 million pages of historic newspapers, newsbooks, & ephemera including national and regional papers from British Isles.
- Daily Mail Historical Archive This link opens in a new windowDescribed by the New Yorker as "the newspaper that rules Britain," the Daily Mail has been at the heart of British journalism since 1896, regularly changing the course of government policy and setting the national debate. Its website is among the most visited news sites in the world. The Daily Mail Historical Archive includes more than one hundred years of this major UK national newspaper, viewable in full digital facsimile form, with copious advertisements, news stories, and images that capture twentieth-century culture and society.
- Economist Historical Archives This link opens in a new windowThe Economist Historical Archive delivers a complete searchable copy of every issue of The Economist from 1843 to 2014. Full-colour images, multiple search indexes, and the facility to browse each and every issue - all combine to offer a unique primary source covering the 19th and 20th centuries.
- Financial Times Historical Archive, 1888-2016 This link opens in a new windowThe Financial Times began as a City of London news sheet and grew to become one of the best-known and most-respected newspapers in the world. Along the way, the Financial Times—printed on its distinctive salmon-colored paper—has chronicled the critical financial and economic events that shaped the world, from the late nineteenth and entire twentieth centuries to today. This historical archive is a comprehensive, accurate, and unbiased research tool for those studying economic and business history and current affairs of the last 120 years.
- Global Newsstream (1980 - current) This link opens in a new windowGlobal Newsstream enables users to search the most recent global news content, as well as archives which stretch back into the 1980s featuring newspapers, newswires, blogs, and news sites in active full- text format. It pulls information from other databases including: Canadian Newsstream, Global Breaking Newswires, International Newsstream, and US Newsstream.
- NewsBank This link opens in a new windowThe electronic editions of record for valuable local, regional, and national newspapers--all in one easy-to-search database. Each paper provides unique coverage of local and regional news, including companies, politics, sports, industries, cultural activities, and people in the community.
- Newspaper Source Plus This link opens in a new windowNewspaper Source Plus includes more than 860 full-text newspapers, providing more than 35 million full-text articles. In addition, the database features more than 857,000 television and radio news transcripts
- Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new windowThis database Provides access to approximately 500 U.S. newspapers, published between 1800 and 1900. It includes titles from throughout the United States, many published in what were, at the time, only territories. Newspapers selected on their immediate value to researchers on the press and on the century in general. Papers selected cover a broad spectrum, with a comprehensive geographical and chronological range.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003) This link opens in a new windowThis historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Defender (1910-1975) This link opens in a new windowThis historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851 - 2013) This link opens in a new windowThis historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Wall Street Journal (1889 - 1999) This link opens in a new windowThis historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
- ProQuest US Newsstream This link opens in a new windowThis database detailed indexing helps users quickly find the news information they need. Each issue of each newspaper is indexed thoroughly, so researchers have access to not only top news stories but also the information contained on the various sections of the papers. The indexing covers not only complete bibliographic information but also companies, people, products, etc.
- Wall Street Journal via ProQuest Newsstand This link opens in a new windowSearch the Wall Street Journal, full-text coverage available from 1984-present.
- Regional Business News This link opens in a new windowRegional Business News provides comprehensive full text for regional business publications (including titles from Crain Communications). This database has full text for more than 50 sources.
- The Times (London) Digital Archive, 1785-1985 This link opens in a new windowThe Times Digital Archive provides convenient access to an extraordinary library of back issues of this renowned newspaper online. By taking the microfilm collection of The Times (London) and producing a high-resolution digital format with searchable images, The Times Digital Archive represents unprecedented access to one of the most highly regarded resources for the study of 18th century history and onward.
- Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive This link opens in a new windowThis rich, easy-to-navigate database is ideal for students and researchers of English literature and other humanities or social science subjects. Unparalleled opportunities for tracking the literary activity and critical opinion makers of the 20th century are now possible in a powerful digital environment. More than 250,000 reviews, letters, poems and articles in more than 5,000 issues of the TLS are available, and-for the first time-the identities of anonymous contributors are disclosed.
- Wall Street Journal via ProQuest Newsstand This link opens in a new windowSearch the Wall Street Journal, full-text coverage available from 1984-present.
- Web News This link opens in a new windowNews Harvester provides near real-time access to thousands of top news feeds from around the globe. These feeds are monitored by EBSCO and relevant results are provided when users enter searches in EBSCOhost. This collection includes over 5,000 feeds across a range of business and general news topics.
- 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection This link opens in a new windowThe newspapers and news pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757 - 1817) represent the largest single collection of 17th and 18th century English news media. The 700 or so bound volumes of newspapers and news pamphlets were published mostly in London, however, there are also some English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, and a few examples from the American colonies, Europe and India.