Primary Sources: African American Newspapers in the South, 1870-1926

Two African American men working a printing pressAfrican American Newspapers in the South, 1870-1926 is a new addition to Accessible Archives. It documents the African American press in the South from Reconstruction through the Jim Crow period. Written by African Americans for African Americans, the first-hand reporting, editorials, and features kept readers abreast of current domestic and international events, often focusing on racial issues. The editors didn’t shy away from exposing racial discrimination and violence, including the emotionally laden topic of lynching. Yet, the newspapers also covered lighter fare, reporting on civic and religious events, politics, foreign affairs, local gossip, and more.

It includes all complete runs of representative newspapers from the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia:

The Advocate, 1907 – 1912
Athens Republique, 1921 – 1926
The Banner-Enterprise, 1883 – 1884
The Bee, 1882 – 1884
The Black Dispatch, 1917 – 1922
The Educator, 1874 – 1875
The Langston City Herald, 1892 – 1900
The Louisianian, 1870 – 1871
The Muskogee Cimeter, 1904 – 1920
The Nashville Globe, 1907 – 1918
The National Forum, 1910
Pioneer Press, 1911 – 1917
The Republican, 1873 – 1875
Semi-Weekly Louisianian, 1871 – 1872
The Tulsa Star, 1913 –1921
Western World, 1903 – 1904

 


Primary Sources: American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside

newspaper clippingsOn March 24, 1800, Forlorn Hope became the first newspaper published within a prison by an incarcerated person. In the intervening 200 years, over 450 prison newspapers have been published from U.S. prisons. Some, like the Angolite and the San Quentin News, are still being published today. American Prison Newspapers will bring together hundreds of these periodicals from across the country into one collection that will represent penal institutions of all kinds, with special attention paid to women’s-only institutions.

Development of the American Prison Newspapers collection began in July 2020 and will continue through 2022, with new content added regularly. The source material for the collection is being provided by numerous libraries and individuals from across the country.  Currently there are nearly 100,000 pages available (of a planned 250,000 pages), representing at least one prison in 30 states.


Primary Sources: Accessible Archives

Accessible archives banner

The Library has an ongoing subscription to Accessible Archives, which provides access to valuable newspaper content, county histories, early periodicals, books, and pamphlets. The collections can be browsed or searched (though the search interface is fairly clunky).

The most recent additions to Accessible Archives include:

  • African American Newspapers, Part XIV: The Canadian Observer, 1914-1919
  • Invention and Technology in America: American Inventor, 1878-1887
  • America and World War I: American Military Camp Newspapers, Parts I and II

Trial: Black Life in America

Until March 15, the Library has trial access to Black Life in America,  This resource consists of two parts:  BLA (1704-1877):  Arrival in America Through Reconstruction and BLA (1878-1975):  Jim Crow Through Civil Rights. Both series are comprised of articles from over 20,000 mostly American, but some international newspapers about all manner of Black life in America.

 


Primary Sources: Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980

The Library has acquired Readex’s Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980, a collection of Spanish- and English-language newspapers printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries. The papers are sourced from the “Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project,” a national research effort directed by Nicolás Kanellos, Brown Foundation Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Houston.

The resource can be cross-searched with other Readex historical newspaper series, including Early American Newspapers, Caribbean Newspapers, and African American Newspapers, 1827-1998.

 

 


Primary Sources: Cumhuriyet Digital Archive

selection of newspaper's front pagesThe Library recently acquired the Cumhuriyet Digital Archive, which provides access to the complete run of the newspaper since its establishment in 1924. This information is provided on the digital platform: “…Cumhuriyet (“The Republic”) is the oldest secular Turkish daily newspaper and is widely considered one of the last remaining opposition newspapers in Turkey. Founded by journalist Yunus Nadi Abalıoğlu at the initiative of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Cumhuriyet was the first newspaper of the Turkish Republic and promoted a belief in democracy, secularism and the rule of law. According to the newspaper’s editorial principles: Cumhuriyet is an independent newspaper; it is the defender of nothing but the Republic, of democracy in the scientific and broad sense. It will fight every force that tries to overthrow the Republic and the notion and principles of democracy. It will endeavor for the embracing by society of the principle of secularism along the path of “Enlightenment” ushered in by Atatürk’s revolution and principles.”


New Latin American/ Latinx/ Chicanx Studies Database at UC Berkeley: Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980

We are glad to announce the purchase of access to Readex’s Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 database at UC Berkeley. This collection represents the single largest compilation of Spanish-language newspapers printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries. The database provides access to thousands of titles and includes both English and Spanish language materials. The currently registered students and faculty can access the database using your UCB credentials here: Hispanic American Newspapers, 1890-1980.

The title list of the newspapers that are included in this collection can be accessed here. There are forty-four titles that were published in California. Some titles have extensive runs while the others have only a single issue that can be accessed. The image below is used for demonstrative and educational purposes only.

 

Source: Cinema, 1 Feb. 1935, p. 1. Readex: Hispanic American Newspapers, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/doc?p=EANASP&docref=image/v2%3A11E0D8ECE2FAA6F1%40EANASP-11E89061E331F2E0%402427835-11E888FE0098D8E8%400. Accessed 21 June 2021.

Trial: African American Newspapers, Series 2

Until March 15, the Library has trial access to Readex’s African American Newspapers, Series 2, which includes 75 newly available newspapers and complements Series 1, which the Library acquired last year.

“While African American Newspapers, Series 1, was created from the extensive newspaper archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Kansas State Historical Society, and the Library of Congress, Series 2 was created from the remarkable holdings of the American Antiquarian Society, Center for Research Libraries, the Library of Congress, and New York Public Library. Selections were guided by James Danky, editor of the monumental African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography.”


Trial: UK Press Online

Through the end of February, the Library has trial access to UKPress Online, a collection of historic and current newspapers. The following information was provided by the vendor.

The Daily Express (Updated daily) was launched in 1900 by Arthur Pearson as a mid-market broadsheet. The ha’penny Express was the first to devote its front page to news (rather than advertisements): “This paper is produced with the intention of supplying its readers with news. That is the excuse for its existence.” Advance orders for Issue One were a million and a half copies– “absolute impossibility to supply… we are doing our best.”

The first issue was over-subscribed. That edition began a series of articles from an Expressman in “Hayti”; another was despatched to Patagonia to search for a “giant ground sloth” – in vain, although his articles gripped readers for weeks. This policy of having “our man on the spot” became a hallmark of the Express.

When Pearson went blind, during the Great War, he sold the Express to Conservative MP Max Aitken, soon to be Lord Beaverbrook, the first “Fleet Street baron” and an evangelist of the free press – “a flaming sword which will cut through any political armour”; the paper’s symbol became The Crusader. Beaverbrook crusaded, both politically and editorially: despite personal advice to Edward VIII to give up Wallis Simpson, the Express notably chronicled every detail of their affair. And not always successfully: the Express’s vehemence against Attlee was credited with losing the 1945 election for Churchill!
By 1936, the Express had the world’s largest circulation of more than two million, rising to four million in the 1940s, under the seminal editorship of Arthur Christansen. It was one of the first newspapers to carry gossip, sport and women’s articles; it was the first to carry a crossword. With its commercial success and vast editorial staff around the world, the Express dominated Fleet Street; as a bemused Royal wrote, “I was met by a gaggle of reporters from the Daily Express and a gentleman from the Glasgow Herald”.

Express contributors run from the exiled Leon Trotsky to Evelyn Waugh (who lampooned Beaverbrook as Lord Copper – “up to a point”), William Hickey (Tom Driberg) and the cartoonist Giles.

The Express became a (black-top) tabloid in 1978. The Daily Star was a late-comer, as was the Star on Sunday, occupying the red-top tabloid slot in competition to the Sun and Mirror.

The Daily Star (Updated daily) was launched in 1978 (and is available from 2000) by Express Newspapers as a tabloid for the north of England, competing against The Sun’s Page 3 girls with its own topless Star Birds. In 1987, it lost a £500,000 libel action after accusing Tory deputy chairman Jeffrey Archer of paying hush money to a prostitute – a political scandal in those pre-Trump days…. Twelve years later, the now-Lord Archer admitted he had lied and, in 2002, he had to repay the cash with costs and interest – £1.5million. The same year, the Star launched a Sunday sister (all available – updated weekly).

Church Times (updated weekly): The World’s leading Anglican newspaper. The first 26 years, from the paper’s very first issue in 1863 to 1889, saw fierce ‘battles’ over Ritualism: one of the reasons why the Church Times was established was to defend the High Church against “Broad and Low Bigots”. The paper also warned against the digging of a Channel Tunnel, criticised President Lincoln for going to the theatre (where he was assassinated), and had a stern word for one of its advertisers: “It would be curious to learn how such a cad came to be a priest.” All of the archive is now available: cataloguing almost every page from 1863 to the present.

Daily Worker & Morning Star (updated daily): The Communist & Socialist Press providing a different angle on news – through WW2 and the new millennium.

Action, Fascist Week and Blackshirt the Fascist titles published by Oswald Mosley before and during WW2 (until banned by Churchill’s government). A view from the far Right as the World prepared for war.

The Watchman (1835-1884): primarily a Wesleyan, (and the first) Methodist newspaper, The Watchman has an impressive breadth and depth of reporting of matters of import in 19th Century Great Britain and abroad. Details of movements of clergy are useful for those trying to track their family history; parliamentary election results are published in detail; discussions of the Second Anglo-Afghan war (1878-80) may give some perspective to modern campaigns.

World War One & World War Two A key package of newspaper titles giving a broad political and geographical range of views from national and regional publishers’ newspapers: Includes the issues of all of the above titles between 1914-1918 and 1933-1945. Providing the view from ‘the North’ the WW2 editions of the Yorkshire Post cover from January 1933 to April 1946.

The South Eastern Gazette (1852-1912), formerly the Maidstone Gazette, was a major regional title for the south-east of England. Available free in the UK thanks to the ‘Your Heritage Lottery Fund’ and the Kent Messenger, the title covers Kent and much of the South-East of England from East Hampshire through Surrey and Sussex to South Essex and parts of London.”

 


Primary Sources: Resources on the Middle East

Over the past year the library has acquired new resources on the Middle East and North Africa, which include:

Minorities in the Middle East: Christian minorities, 1838-1967 – A digitized version of 10 volume collection primary source material. It includes original political despatches, correspondence and reports covering: Christian communities in the Levant 1838 to 1955 in overview, and the affairs of the Assyrian communities 1880 to 1951, the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Jacobite, Chaldean and Syrian Catholic communities, and Protestant communities in the Levant and Iraq, in particular, with further detail about the Maronite communities in the Levant 1841 to 1958, and Coptic Christian communities in the Levant and Egypt 1917 to 1967. These volumes also cover the Jeddah murders of 1858 and 1895, and the treatment of Armenians in Turkey and the Levant, including the Armenian massacres during the First World War.

Minorities in the Middle East : Jewish communities in Arab countries, 1841-1974 – A digitized version of a 6 volume collection, which covers the arrangements and conditions for Jewish communities living under Islam, throughout the Arab world, from 1840 to 1974.

Middle Eastern and north African Newspapers – A digital archive of prominent newspapers from the the Middle East and North Africa.

Noor Digital Library – a collection of thousands of full text Persian ebooks in humanities and religious studies. This include history, literature, language, Islam, and philosophy.

NoorMags – One of the largest specialized databases in Islamic Studies and Humanities. It provides full text access to more than 1300 magazines for over a million articles in mainly Persian, with some Arabic and English languages.