Search Tips for Digital Newspapers
Limit by date range if at all possible as this will reduce the number of results exponentially.
Try combinations of search terms.
Be ready to execute multiple searches in order to get the results you are looking for.
Use specific search terms.
Remember to match the terminology to the time period or issue being discussed (i.e. searching the term "African-American" in 1920s newspaper will get you nowhere)
Black Newspapers & Magazines
- Proquest Black Studies This link opens in a new windowScholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, reference books. Includes The Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, Index to Black Periodicals Full Text, Black Literature Index, and the Chicago Defender historical newspaper.
- African American Newspapers (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowVanderbilt subscription includes 5 of the 7 papers: The Baltimore Afro-American, The Chicago Defender, The Los Angeles Sentinel, New York Amsterdam News, and the Pittsburgh Courier.
- African American Newspapers (Readex) This link opens in a new windowExtensive African American newspaper archives. Includes the Wisconsin Historical Society, Kansas State Historical Society, Freedom's Journal (NY), The Colored Citizen (OH), Rights of All (NY), Wisconsin Afro-American, New York Age, Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser, Richmond Planet, Cleveland Gazette, The Appeal (MN), etc.
- African American Newspapers (Readex) This link opens in a new windowIncludes Frederick Douglass Paper, Frederick Douglass Monthly and The North Star among others. This database of over 15 newspapers provides information about African-Americans' cultural life and history during the 1800s and reports on major events and issues of the day.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new windowProvides full text articles from newspapers and magazines published for ethnic communities in the U.S. LIMIT BY ETHNIC GROUP: African American/Caribbean/African
- Magazine Archives (EBSCOHost) This link opens in a new windowIncludes Ebony and Jet (access starting in March 2022 for historical issues).
National & International Newspapers
- ProQuest News and Newspapers This link opens in a new windowMajor U.S. and international newspapers such as The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the Times of London, plus hundreds of other news sources and news wires. Includes historical newspapers as well.
- Access World News Research Collection This link opens in a new windowResearch diverse perspectives, topics and trends that align with curricular areas such as Political Science, English, Sociology, Humanities, Business, International Studies and more. Features reliable, credible information from a wide variety of international, national and local news sources.
- Caribbean Newspapers, Series 1, 1718-1876 This link opens in a new windowEighteenth and Nineteenth Century newspapers from the Caribbean Isles originally preserved by the American Antiquarian Society.
- Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) This link opens in a new windowA news database that provides full text news stories from more than 350 international, national, and regional newspapers published between the late 1970s and the present.
- World Newspaper Archive This link opens in a new windowHistorical newspapers from North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia. (note: North American section includes Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and the US.)
Finding Pictures Online Using Life Archives
Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1860s to today. Add "source:life" to any Google image search and search only the LIFE photo archive.
Newspaper city room of the Amsterdam News in Harlem.
Photographer: Hansel Mieth, 1938
