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JRN 222 Development of the American News Media: Home

This guide will provide you will links to databases and digital collections featuring historical newspapers.

Exploring Historical Newspapers

The image above shows  an order of the Order of the Governor and Council of Massachusetts suppressing publication of Publick Occurences, both Forreign and Domestick. Signed on Sept. 29th, 1690, the order also forbid all other printers from publishing anything without official license from the government. Image Credit: Massachusetts Historical Society.

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Trish McPherson
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Newspaper Collections in MacPhaidin Library

Newspaper Collections in the Boston Public Library

Massachusetts residents and non-residents who attend school in state can obtain eCards from the Boston Public Library. eCards provide you with access to the Boston Public Library's electronic resources, including a selection of historical newspaper databases. To obtain an eCard, fill out the registration form. Once you complete the registration form and select a PIN number, you will receive an email with your Boston Public Library eCard number.

To access the historical newspaper databases, visit the newspaper section of the library's electronic resources collection. When you select a particular newspaper database, you will be promoted to enter your Boston Public Library eCard number and PIN.

The following electronic collections are available:

  • 17th & 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers - Newspapers, pamphlets, and broadsides gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817) representing the largest and most comprehensive collection of early English news media, containing approximately 1,270 titles from London, the British Isles, and the colonies. Local Coverage:  Boston Gazette (1721-1722); New England Courant (1721-1723).

  • 18th Century Collections Online - Over 180,000 full-text searchable 18th century books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides, and more, primarily in English, covering all aspects of life and knowledge, including history, geography, arts and literature, law, science, medicine, and the social sciences.

  • 19th Century US Newspapers - Searchable full-page and article reproductions of newspapers from across the country. Massachusetts Coverage: Boston: Atlas, Congregationalist, Courier, Daily Advertiser, Emancipator & Republican, Investigator, Liberator; Lowell: Lowell Daily Citizen.

  • American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection - Partnering with the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), EBSCO provides digital access to a comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912 in fifty subject-based thematic subsets.

  • Boston Globe (1872-1986) - Searchable full-page and article reproductions back to the first issue on March 4, 1872. Coverage:  Morning Edition only.

  • Boston Herald (1997-2011) - Text-only articles (not page reproductions).  Does not contain all content found in the published version of the Herald, such as advertisements, charts, classified ads, graphs, images, and non-staff written items. Coverage via General OneFile: Full-text: Jan 1, 1997–Nov 3, 2010; Index only: Nov 4, 2010–May 16, 2011.

  • British Library Newspapers - Full page reproductions of national and regional newspapers specially selected to best represent nineteenth century Britain, including newspapers that helped lead political or social movements and penny papers aimed at the working and clerical classes.

  • Financial Times Historical Archive (1888-2010) - Searchable article and page reproductions of the world’s most authoritative daily business newspaper.

  • Gale Newsvault - Historical newspapers and periodicals, primarily from Britain and the United States, covering the 17th -21st centuries.

Newspaper Collections Available Online

Websites of Interest

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