HIST 2200: Sharing Stories: Historical US Newspapers

To see if the GSU Library provides access to a particular periodical (newspaper, magazine, or journal), follow these steps:

• From the library's homepage, click on Library Catalog under Shortcuts.
• Click on Advanced Search (to the right of the main search box)
• Click Title in the dropdown menu under Any field
• Select Journals in the dropdown under Format
• Type the periodical title in the search box (selecting starts with instead of contains is a more effective search if you know the periodical's name)

Click to enlarge image.

WorldCat is a database that searches libraries worldwide, including books, audiovisual materials, periodicals (magazines and newspapers), and archival materials. You can request many of the items in WorldCat using Interlibrary Loan.

Use Advanced Search to limit searches by author, title, and/or format.

WorldCat will also indicate if a digital version of the newspaper is available. More often than not, it will be available behind a paywall (and the GSU Library may or may not provide access) and/or only be limited to recent issues. But WorldCat may also link to a freely available version, so it's worth clicking to see whether the digital version is free or not. 

If you are looking for periodicals, look for records including the word "microform" or "microfilm." Most libraries will not lend out bound copies of periodicals, but many will lend microfilm versions.

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Requesting Microfilm via Interlibrary Loan

When requesting microform copies through Interlibrary Loan, use the "Book" request option and include periodical title, dates needed, and note that you are requesting microfilm.

Wikipedia has an extensive list of newspapers available online. Some of them are not freely available (i.e must be paid for), but many of them are. A useful starting point! Click here to see the list.

Search the International Coalition on Newspapers (ICON) (a project of the Center for Research Libraries) for digitized international newspapers.

ICON lists newspapers by country and US state.

The University of Georgia Library has the Underground Press Collection available on microfilm.

For a list of the titles included in this collection, click here and then click on "1963-1985." You will be asked to sign in, first by selecting "Georgia State University" and then signing in with your Campus ID and password.

You can request reels of this collection via Interlibrary Loan. Request using the "Book" request option. Include:

• the name of the newspaper
• dates needed
• that you are requesting microform (this is important!)

Note: GSU's Digital Collections includes a searchable, digitizezd version of The Great Speckled Bird, a local alternative paper published from 1968-1976.

Newspapers and indexes that are available online through the University Library are designated by the name of the database that contains the newspaper/index, for example, "ProQuest Central". To locate and access a database, go to the List of Databases located at http://research.library.gsu.edu/az.php and use the database locator.

Note: this is NOT a comprehensive list of every newspaper held by the GSU Library. Use the "Journals" tab on the library's homepage to search for holdings of a particular newspaper. Keep the "All Journals" button selected—this will tell you if we have the journal in paper or in microfilm.

When you search in newspaper databases, it's important to keep in mind that there isn't a way to search by subject (or "about" a topic). Instead, you have to think about what words/language would be used in a newspaper article title and/or article text for that time period.

This means that you may well come across language that is uncomfortable or even offensive.

James P. Danky, ed., African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography (1998) is a good starting point for identifying titles of historical African-American periodicals.

• Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988)
• Cleveland Call and Post (1934-1991)
• Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005)
• New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993)
• Norfolk Journal and Guide (1921-2003)
• Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001)
• Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002)

Freely available digital newspaper collections.

• Historical Jewish Press, 1943-1988. Includes Jewish newspapers from various countries, including the US.
• The Center for Research Libraries (CRL)holds extensive runs of more than 6,000 foreign newspaper titles and 500 U. S. ethnic newspaper titles. GSU users can get these materials via Interlibrary Loan.
• Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press. Includes publications fom Tucson, El Paso, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sonora, Mexico from mid1800s to 1970s.

GSU library databases which index a range of alternative newspapers and periodicals.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has created the US Newspaper Program for the preservation of local newspapers, state by state.

Scroll through this site to find relevant websites by state.