Skip to Main Content

World History: Newspapers

This guide covers general or world history.

International

  • For newspapers from other countries see the appropriate Area Studies Subject Guide
  • 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers
    17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers provides full-text access to the British Library's collection of the newspapers, pamphlets, and books (1757-1817)
  • 19th Century British Library Newspapers
    The 19th Century British Library Newspapers collection contains full runs of newspapers specially selected by the British Library - includes national and regional newspapers.
  • Times digital archive 1785-1985
    Search The Times (London) in full-text; provides facsimile reproductions of full pages or specific articles. Provides the entire newspaper including all advertisements and illustrations.
  • Trove: Australian Newspapers Online
    Wide selection of Australian newspapers spanning the period from 1803-1950s.
  • Guardian and The Observer
    The Guardian (1821-2003) and its sister paper, The Observer (1791-2003) provide online access to facts, firsthand accounts, and opinions of the day about the most significant and fascinating political, business, sports, literary, and entertainment

U.S. Newspapers

Newspapers can provide great insights into current events, business history, cultural trends, and individual accomplishments.  The Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library does not generally house original newspapers published after 1870.  An exception to that rule are the newspapers comprising the American Newspaper Repository Collection, 1856-2004.  These are housed in the offsite Library Service Center, so please use microfilm facsimiles if they are available.  If you need to see the originals, please request them from a Special Collections staff member.

The Perkins Library system houses many newspapers on microfilm.  Search the library catalog by title to find the microfilm number or browse through the list of African-American Newspapers.  The microfilm collections are housed on the ground floor of the Bostock wing of the library.

More and more newspapers are available electronically.  Searching by title allows you to link directly to the online version.  If you do not know a particular title, search one or more of the following:

African American Newspapers 19th Century, which provides the full text of articles from Freedom's Journal, The Colored American, The North Star, The National Era, Provincial Freeman, Frederick Douglass Paper, and The Christian Recorder.

America's Historical Newspapers, comprised of U.S. historical newspapers published between 1690 and 1922, including titles from all 50 states.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers:
Newspapers we hold: Atlanta Constitution (1868-1939), Atlanta Daily World (1932-2003), Chicago Defender (1905-1975), Los Angeles Times (1881-1986), New York Times (1851-2004), Wall Street Journal (1889-1990), and the Washington Post (1877-1991). (Or you can search a single newspaper).

The Historical New York Times.
1851-2004

Lexis Nexis Academic
Provides the full text of over 6,000 sources including newspapers, journals, news wire services, newsletters, campus publications, company reports, case law, government documents, trade publications, broadcast transcripts, and selected reference works. Some sources go back to the 1970s, but most to the 1980s or 1990s.

Chronicling America
Historic American Newspapers – Library of Congress

Microfilm

American Newspapers

International Newspapers

Also see the Center for Research Libraries which has long runs of newspapers from most countries in the world on microfilm.  These can be borrowed for long periods through Interlibrary Loan.