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Historic Newspapers: Finding Historical Newspapers in Print

This Guide lists available Historic Newspapers as well as Databases where Historic Newspapers are avaliable.

Finding Antebellum Newspapers in Print and on Microfilm

The number of newspapers that have been digitized, though large and growing larger every year, represents a small fraction of the total number of newspapers published during this period. To identify antebellum American newspapers, a good starting place is the U.S. Newspaper Directory. You can search the directory by state, county, city, time period, as well as by language and ethnicity. The directory also supports keyword searches, but just remember that the database is a collection of records that describe newspapers, so a keyword search is searching these records, not the newspapers themselves. The U.S. Newspaper Directory identifies extant copies of newspapers, which means that the directory doesn't include newspapers for which no issues have survived to the present.

Two other important sources for identifying antebellum American newspapers are History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 by Clarence Brigham, and American Newspapers, 1821-1936 by Winifred Gregory. Both bibliographies are organized by state and then city; both bibliographies are available for library use only at the Spartanburg County Public Library, as well as several other local institutions in the South Carolina Upstate region.  

Search Strategies for Newspapers

Locating newspapers (print, microfilm, and electronic versions) in the library catalog can be quite challenging, and the catalog records for newspapers differ from books.  Some tips to try:

  1. Search for newspapers by TITLE.  (Example:  Spartanburg Herald Journal)
  2. Using the Advanced Search screen in Search, search by SUBJECT using the keyword "newspapers".  This will take several steps to narrow your search to specifically newspapers.
  3. Online availability of many titles is provided through the Library of Congress' Chronicling America website, which is linked automatically in the record.  
  4. Keep in mind that newspapers changed names frequently as ownership changed hands or papers were consolidated. There often will be separate catalog records for EACH title incarnation; within the record there will be an entry in the NOTE field which details the earlier title, if any, and at the very bottom of the record an entry will appear for "Continues as" or "Continues" for the next name change. 

 

Other historical newspapers in South Carolina

One of the richest sources of historic newspapers in South Carolina is the South Caroliniana Library on USC's Columbia Campus. Please use the link below to access the holdings of the South Caroliniana, and to find contact information and use guidelines for the library.