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Rutgers University Libraries

Black Studies: Interdisciplinary Archival Research: News Media

Why Newspapers?

You can use historical newspapers to find out how issues and events were reported during a specific time in history.

African American & Ethnic Press

African-American Newspapers Rutgers-restricted Access
Full-text database of historical newspapers published by and for African-Americans. Includes:
  • Christian Recorder (Philadelphia: 1861-1902 [excluding 1892])
  • Colored American (New York: 1837-1841)
  • Douglass' Monthly (Rochester, NY: 1859-1863)
  • Frederick Douglass' Paper (Rochester, NY: 1851-1855; continues The North Star)
  • Freedom's Journal (New York: 1827-1829)
  • National Era (Washington, D.C.: 1847-1860)
  • North Star (Rochester, NY: 1847-1851)
  • Provincial Freeman (Chatham, Ontario): 1854-1857)
  • Weekly Advocate (New York: 1837)
    • Chicago Defender
    The Chicago Defender was the most influential African-American newspaper of the 20th century. With the majority of its readership outside the Chicago region, it served as the de facto national black newspaper in the U.S. Search and display the full text of articles published between 1910 and 1975.Rutgers-restricted Access.
    Ethnic NewsWatch
    Full text collection of articles from newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press back to 1960. Rutgers-restricted Access.
    Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey
    Search a collection of translations of nearly 50,000 newspaper articles originally published in Chicago's ethnic press between 1855 and 1938. 22 ethnic groups are represented.
    Historic Mexican & Mexican American Press
    Search or browse Mexican and Mexican American publications, primarily daily and weekly newspapers, published in Tucson, El Paso, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sonora, Mexico from the mid-1800s to the 1970s. A project of the University of Arizona.

    Newspapers

    Historical New York Times
    Allows you to search and display the full image of articles published in the New York Times back to 1851. The two+ most recent years are not included, use Factiva.Rutgers-restricted Access.
    Historical Washington Post
    Search and display the full image of articles published in the Washington Post between 1877 and 1993. Rutgers-restricted Access.
    Historical Philadelphia Inquirer
    Search and display the full image of articles published in the Philadelphia Inquirer between 1860 and 2001. Rutgers-restricted Access.
    Historical Wall Street Journal
    Search and display the full image of articles published in the Wall Street Journal between 1889 and 1995. Rutgers-restricted Access
    Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers
    Full-text database of 500 newspapers published between 1800 and 1900. Rutgers-restricted Access.
    America's Historical Newspapers: Early American Newspapers, 1741-1922
    Full text access to 1,500 newspapers published between 1741 and 1922.

    Contemporary Accounts: U.S. Media

    Access World News
    Access to the full text of over 600 U.S. and over 700 international newspapers. Includes the Newark Star-Ledger back to 1989.Rutgers-restricted Access
    Westlaw Campus Research
    "News" portion indexes the full text of many newspapers including The New York Times, Boston Globe, and the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Rutgers-restricted Access
    Factiva
    A vast archive which includes the full-text of 8,000 leading newspapers, magazines, trade journals, newsletters, and television and radio transcripts. Ten to twenty year+ backfile for many titles. Rutgers-restricted Access.

    Alternative Press

    Independent Voices
    Full text access to alternative press newspapers, magazines, and journals published in the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century, including periodicals produced by radical student organizations; LGBT, African-American, Native American, and Latino activists; feminists, dissident military personnel, and others.

    Understanding Hate in America

    Understanding Hate in America
    Full text access to eleven Ku Klux Klan newspapers, six pro-Klan newspapers, and two anti-Klan newspapers published between 1921 and 1932.

    The Media

    American History in Video
    Digitized documentaries, newsreel films, and archival footage.   Rutgers-restricted Access
    TV-NewsSearch: The Vanderbilt Television News Archive
    Online access to NBC and CNN news broadcasts from August 1968 to the present. In addition, the database provides indexing for nightly news programs broadcast by the other national television networks, ABC and CBS; abstracts of each story within a regular news program are fully searchable. Rutgers-restricted Access
    Television News of the Civil Rights Era 1950-1970
    "Films from the nightly news from two local television stations in Virginia--WDBJ (CBS) Roanoke and WSLS (NBC) Roanoke...Includes full speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, the governors of the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as original footage of school desegregation, public meetings, local debates over civil rights matters, and interviews with citizens."

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