New American Historical Newspapers Online: Series 4 and 5 of Early American Newspapers
by Ben Stone
Building on an already impressive holding of digital historical newspapers, the Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) has recently acquired online access to Series 4 and 5 of Early American Newspapers, part of America's Historical Newspapers, published by Readex.
Early American Newspapers, Series 4 (1756-1922) and 5 (1777-1922) provide access to several hundred thousand fully searchable issues from more than 140 significant 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century newspapers from all 50 present regions of the United States.
Series 4-Titles of Special Historical Significance
Many of the titles in Series 4 are of special historical significance, including The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison's powerful anti-slavery newspaper; the New Orleans Daily Creole, the first African-American newspaper in America; Siwinowe Kesibwi (Shawnee Star), the first newspaper in Kansas and the first to be printed wholly in a native American language; the Gaceta de Texas, the first newspaper in Texas; and the Maryland Gazette, the oldest continuously published newspaper in America.
Series 5-Additional Notable Titles
Series 5 contains additional notable titles, including the North Star, the famous anti-slavery newspaper founded by Frederick Douglass; the New Hampshire Sentinel, the first newspaper in the state; Hokubei Jiji (The North American) - the first Japanese-language newspaper in the Pacific Northwest; the Nevada Territorial Enterprise, Nevada's most important newspaper when Mark Twain worked there; the Owyhee Avalanche, the first daily in Idaho; and the Albany Evening Journal, the central organ of Thurlow Weed, chief organizer of the Republican party in the north.
Series 4 and 5-Titles Highlighting Important Themes/Eras
In addition to many regional titles that highlight important themes and eras in American history, Series 4 includes the New York Herald, Albany Gazette, Boston Press and Post, Chicago Inter Ocean, Charleston Courier, Nebraska Press, Austin City Gazette, Hawaiian Gazette and many others. Series 5 includes the Texas Gazette, Boston Evening Post, New York Spectator, Daily Alaska Dispatch, Oregon Herald, Chicago Herald, Vermont Journal, Philadelphia Public Ledger, San Francisco Daily Globe, Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Orleans Gazette, among others.
Useful Features and Advanced Search Capabilities
Early American Newspapers Series 4 and 5 share a common interface with other series in the America's Historical Newspapers collection, which enables researchers to view, magnify, print, and save digital images of both articles and pages. Advanced search capabilities allow users to search by keyword, date, place of publication or article type, as well as browse individual titles. Additionally, America's Historical Newspapers is cross-searchable with all other Readex Archive of Americana collections owned by Stanford, including the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, American Broadsides and Ephemera, and Early American Imprints Series I and II (Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker).
Access to America's Historical Newspapers
Series 1-5 of America's Historical Newspapers can be accessed through the Databases and Articles page on the SULAIR Web site using the database title "America's historical newspapers". Select By Titles (A-Z) under "Show all databases" or just enter the database name in the Databases search box at the top of the page and click on the Find Database button.
