These are just a few of the historical newspapers and periodicals available online at IU. For a longer list of newspapers, see here. In addition to the databases below, you can find individual titles in IUCAT.
Important note: Many historical newspapers and periodicals are available in print and on microforms. This includes the Indiana Daily Student. While some years of the IDS have been digitized, most are only available on microfilm in GIMMS, which is on the 2nd floor of the East Tower of Wells Library.
Provides digital access to newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets and broadsheets that form the Nichols newspaper collection held at the Bodleian library in Oxford, UK.
John Nichols (1745–1826) was a London printer and avid collector of newspapers, which he used to inform his literary and historical research work. The collection includes approximately 300 primary titles of newspapers and periodicals and 300 pamphlets and broadsheets.
Originally bound in 96 volumes, of which number 14 (July 1705-July 1708) and 90 (Jan-April 1736) no longer exist, the collection was later re-bound into the present 296 volumes by splitting each volume in three or four parts labelled A through D. The newspapers cover the political history between the reign of Charles II and the Age of Walpole, and cover a variety of subjects.
Provides searchable, online access to more than 350 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African-American experience. Includes newspapers from more than 35 states covering life in the Antebellum South, growth of the Black church, the Jim Crow Era, the Great Migration, Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights movement, political and economic empowerment, and more.
Some titles lasted a short time, or few extant issues have been found, so that the database may contain as little as a single issue from a source. Other newspapers had longer lives, and long runs of issues are available.
African American Newspapers, Series 1, 1827-1998:
Beginning with Freedom’s Journal (NY)—the first African American newspaper published in the United States—the titles in this resource include The Colored Citizen (KS), Arkansas State Press, Rights of All (NY), Wisconsin Afro-American, New York
Age, L’Union (LA), Northern Star and Freeman’s Advocate (NY), Richmond Planet, Cleveland Gazette, and The Appeal (MN).
African American Newspapers, Series 2, 1835-1956:
Key titles include Frederick Douglass’s New National Era (Washington, DC), Washington Tribune (Washington, DC), Chicago Bee (Chicago, IL), The Louisianian (New Orleans, LA), The Pine and Palm (Boston, MA), National Anti-Slavery Standard (New York, NY), New York Age (New York, NY), Harlem Liberator (New York, NY), North Carolina Republican and Civil Rights Advocate (Weldon, NC), and Southern News (Richmond, VA).
Digital archive of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century.
Based on a very comprehensive microfilm collection of American magazines and journals, 1740-1940. Contains searchable full text of all extant issues of over 1000 titles, ranging from children's magazines to professional journals. Can be cross-searched with historical newspaper archives.
Comprehensive digital access to historic newspapers, newsbooks, ephemera and national & regional papers from British Isles.
Includes access to:
British Library Newspapers, Part I: 1800-1900:
Ranging from early tabloids like the Illustrated Police News to radical papers like the Chartist Northern Star, the 47 publications in Part I span national, regional, and local interests. Other notable papers of Part I include the Morning Chronicle, with famous contributors such as Henry Mayhew and John Stuart Mill; the Graphic, publishing both illustrations and news as well as illustrated fiction; and the Examiner, the radical reformist and leading intellectual journal.
British Library Newspapers, Part II: 1800-1900
Part II includes additional English regional newspapers with 22 additional publications. Researchers can find the newspapers of a number of towns and regions included in this collection: Nottingham, Bradford, Leicester, Sheffield, and York, as well as North Wales. The addition of two major London newspapers, The Standard and the Morning Post, captures conservative opinion in the nineteenth century, balancing the progressive, more liberal views of the newspapers that appear in Part I.
British Library Newspapers, Part III: 1741-1950
Part III includes 35 newspapers, encompassing provincial news journals like the Leeds Intelligencer and Hull Daily Mail, local interest publications such as the Northampton Mercury, and specialist titles such as the Poor Law Unions’ Gazette. Other noteworthy titles in Part III include the Westmoreland Gazette, whose early editor, Thomas De Quincy (of Confessions of an English Opium Eater) was forced to resign due to his unreliability.
British Library Newspapers, Part IV: 1732-1950
From early newspaper titles like the Stamford Mercury to what may be the oldest magazine in the world still in publication, the Scots Magazine, the 23 newspapers in Part IV offer local and regional perspectives from Aberdeen, Bath, Chester, Derby, Stamford, Liverpool, and York. In addition, Part IV includes the 1901-1950 runs of papers such as the Aberdeen Journal and Dundee Courier whose earlier newspapers are available in Part I and Part II.
British Library Newspapers, Part V: 1746-1950
With a concentration of titles from the northern part of the United Kingdom, the 36 newspapers in Part V includes titles from the Scottish localities of Fife, Elgin, Inverness, Paisley, and John O'Groats, as well as towns just below the border, such as Morpeth, Alnwick, and more. Includes access to the Coventry Herald, which features some of the earliest published writing of Mary Ann Evans (better known as George Eliot).
Searchable, full text of ethnic and minority newspapers in the U. S.
The Collection of the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, which merged with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, offers searchable, full text coverage of over 130 searchable full text newspapers from 25 states and in ten languages. The ethnic groups most represented are the Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Jewish, Polish, and Slovak communities.
Provides full text access to The Indianapolis Star from 1903 to 2004.
The Indianapolis Star is the largest paper in Indiana. It has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize three times — once for meritorious public service and twice for investigative reporting. In 1975, the Star was honored for its 1974 series on corruption within the Indianapolis Police Department. It was cited again in 1991 for its 1990 series on medical malpractice.
The Indianapolis Star is the largest paper in Indiana. It has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize three times — once for meritorious public service and twice for investigative reporting. In 1975, the Star was honored for its 1974 series on corruption within the Indianapolis Police Department. It was cited again in 1991 for its 1990 series on medical malpractice.
Additional access options:
Access to the Indianapolis Star 1903-Present (via Indiana Collection). Note there may be a lag time of approximately 5 days for new issues to be added.
The IUB Library holds the physical microfilm for the Indianapolis Star, 1907-present, located on the second floor of the East Tower, call number AN2 .I3S7.
Full text, searchable archive of newspapers published between 1805 and 1922 in Latin America.
Part of the World News Archive. Includes content from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Guyana, Mexico, Peru, Trinidad and Venezuela. Among the title included are: La Nacion, La Prensa and Vanguardia (Buenos Aires), Jornal do Commercio (Rio de Janeiro), O Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo), Mercurio (Santiago), La Prensa (Havana), El Guatemalteco (Guatemala City), Daily Chronicle (Georgetown, Guyana), La Revista de Yucatan (Merida, Mexico), La Patria, Mexican Herald and El Monitor Republicano (Mexico City) , El Dictamen (Veracruz Llave, Mexico), La Estrella de Panama and Star & Herald (Panama City), El Peruano and West Coast Leader (Lima), Port of Spain Gazette (Port of Spain), and the Venezuelan Herald (Caracas)
Digital access to more than 1000 historical newspapers from communities within Indiana.
Includes digitized copies and content of the follwing local Indiana Newspapers: Bloomington Evening World (1907-1923), Indiana Daily Student (1867-1923), Madison Herald, Indianapolis State Sentinel, Indianapolis Star, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette,Terre Haute Star and Indianapolis Sun.
Contains full runs and portions of runs of well-known, regional and state titles in addition to small local newspapers.
Includes access to newspapers from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom & Ireland, Australia, and Panama.
Digital archive of historical newspapers. Each issue of each title includes the complete paper, cover-to-cover, with full-page and article images.
Full text issues of Time Magazine, 1923-2000. Intended to be read in under an hour, each issue of Time contains reports of national and international current events, politics, sports, and entertainment. First published in 1923, Time attempts to collect the relevant news for a given week.
Provides access to current and archived news content. Includes newspapers, newswires, blogs, and news sites in active full-text format.
Also includes a collections of local and regional newspapers, cross-searchable on the ProQuest platform.
Several of the links below are portals to dozens of other primary source databases.
For help choosing a particular database, contact me.
Allows users to search all Adam Matthew digital collections.
Portal for accessing descriptions of archival and special collections held by libraries, archives and other cultural heritage units at Indiana University or affiliated with Indiana University.
Digital image library of over 2.5 million digital images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences. To save or download images, users must register for an individual account.
Users who create an account also gain access to a set of tools for sharing images, curating groups of images, downloading them directly into PowerPoint presentations, and comparing and contrasting images.
An image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research.
The Digital Scriptorium (DS) is a non-commercial online image database of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, or manuscripts made in the tradition of books before printing. DS unites scattered resources from a consortium of many libraries into a union catalog for teaching and scholarly research in medieval and Renaissance studies. It provides unprecedented access to illuminated and textual manuscripts through digital cataloging records, supported by high resolution images and retrievable by various topic searches. DS enables users from the most casual to the most specialized to study the rare and valuable materials of academic, research, and public libraries. It makes available collections that are often restricted from public access and includes not only recognized masterpieces but also understudied manuscripts that have been previously overlooked for exhibition or publication. DS fosters the public viewing of non-circulating materials otherwise available only within restricted access libraries. As a visual catalog, DS allows scholars and beginners to verify with their own eyes cataloguing information about places and dates of origin, scripts, artists, and quality. Special emphasis is placed on the touchstone materials, i.e., manuscripts signed and dated by their scribes, thus beginning the American contribution to the goal established in 1953 by the Comité international de paléographie latine (International Committee of Latin Paleography): to document photographically the proportionately small number of codices of certain origin that will serve stylistically to localize and date the vast quantities of unsigned manuscripts. DS publishes not only manuscripts of firm attribution but also ones that need the attention of further scholarship and traditionally would have been unlikely candidates for reproduction. Because it is web-based, it also allows for updates and corrections, and as a matter of form individual records in DS can and do acknowledge contributions from outside scholars. DS encourages interaction between the academic and the library world to build a growing and reciprocally beneficial body of knowledge. DS looks to the needs of a very diverse community of specialists: medievalists, classicists, musicologists, paleographers, diplomatists, literary scholars and art historians. At the same time DS recognizes a broader user community in the public that values rare and unique works of historical, literary and artistic significance.
Based on Charles Evans' American Bibliography, this database covers American life and comprises 36,000 works and 2,400,000 images, from 1639 to 1800.
Includes a wide variety of material types, including maps, textbooks, songs and novels. The texts are searchable and browsable by type.
Provides access to over 50 million digitized items from European archives, libraries, and museums.
Provides access to over 50 million digitized items from European archives, libraries, and museums.
Archives Unbound presents topically-focused digital collections of historical documents. Collections cover a broad range of topics from the Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history. Particular strengths include U.S. foreign policy; U.S. civil rights; global affairs and colonial studies; and modern history. Collections are chosen based on requests from scholars, archivists, and students.
Archives Unbound is a suite of collections, each devoted to a particular topic. The collections include primary, unpublished historical documents and draw from institutional and governmental sources (Africa and African America; Source Library: Federal Bureau of Investigation Headquarters Library) and private collections (Women in Cuba; Library: Personal collection Dr. K. Lynn Stoner).
Provides an interactive research environment that allows researchers to cross-search Gale digital archives.
Latin Literature from its origins to the Renaissance.
Those who are interested in the writers, texts and manuscripts of Antiquity and the Middle Ages know how difficult it is to identify a particular work encountered by chance in a manuscript, or, when studying or publishing a particular text, to make an inventory of all the manuscripts in which it appears. These difficulties arise primarily from the manner in which literary works circulated prior to the invention of printing. Before Gutenberg, the text had a life of its own, independent of its author, and was modified from copy to copy. It is not only the text that changed; titles might vary and authorial attributions could shift. There was a tendency to lend only to the rich, and Ovid, Saint Augustine and Saint Bernard found themselves credited with a host of apocrypha. The incipit or first words of a work thus remain the surest means of designating it unambiguously. In a sense, the incipit, by virtue of its invariability, is the identity card of the text. Standing apart from the diversity of attributions and titles, the incipit guarantees the presence of a particular text.
Keyword-searchable database of primary sources in Korean history, literature, medicine and philosophy. Image files of original texts in classical Chinese and searchable translations in Korean.
Knowledge content resource with focus on Korean Studies, containing 162 digital products categorized under ten subjects (history, literature, art, culture, religion, philosophy, sociology, classics of Korean studies, traditional medicine, and animal and plants).
Archival collections documenting topics in eighteenth- through twentieth-century American history. Provides access to digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and many more primary source materials taken from the University Publications of America (UPA) Collections.
U.S. Federal Government website, mandated by law, to assure secure access to information produced by federal agencies. Formerly FDSYS (Federal Digital System), and prior to that, GPOACCESS.
A service of the U.S. Government Printing Office, govinfo provides free electronic access to a wealth of important information products produced by the Federal Government. The information provided on this site is the official, published version and the information retrieved can be used without restriction, unless specifically noted. This free service is funded by the Federal Depository Library Program and has grown out of Public Law 103-40, known as the Government Printing Office Electronic Information Enhancement Act of 1993.
IUB has served as a U.S. Federal Depository Library since 1881. Most of the resources available have historically been available in print. Consult reference staff in East Tower 2, Wells Library (Government Information, Maps and Microform Services).
Online access to over 500,000 pages of previously classified government documents.
Declassified Documents Reference Service provides searching and fulltext access to declassified U.S. government documents. Covering major international events from the Cold War to the Vietnam War and beyond, this single source enables users to locate key information underpinning studies in international relations, American studies, United States foreign and domestic policy studies, journalism and more.
Provides easy access to congressional publications since 1789 and some full-text of reports, bills, resolutions, and laws to the present.
ProQuest Congressional provides indexing and full-text access to various publications of the U.S. Congress. It provides easy search access to congressional publications and includes full-text of reports, bills and resolutions, and laws.
Use Advanced Search to select specific series included:
-Congressional Research Digital Collection
-Congressional Hearings Digital Collection
-House and Senate Unpublished Digital Collection
-ProQuest Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection
-ProQuest Congressional Serial Set Maps Digital Collection
-ProQuest Statutes at Large
-ProQuest U.S. Serial Set Digital Collection
-Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations
-U.S Bills and Resolutions
Most publications are owned by IUB, either in print, on microfiche or electronically. IUB has been a Federal Depository Library since 1881. For specific assistance or to ask questions about using congressional publications, contact Government Information, Maps and Microform Services, located on the 2nd floor of the Herman B Wells Library. Email libgimms@iu.edu or telephone 812-855-6924
Historical Documents, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity.
Provides access to the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. The series, which is produced by the State Department's Office of the Historian, began in 1861 and now comprises more than 450 individual volumes. The volumes published over the last two decades increasingly contain declassified records from all the foreign affairs agencies.
Access provided by the Jerome Hall Law Library. Provides full-text of historial treaties, regulations, and presidential documents. Also includes numerous law resources.
Also includes materials related to constitutions, case law, world trials, classic treatises, international trade, foreign relations, U.S. Presidents, and much more.
The Herman B Wells Library is home to the largest map collection in the state of Indiana. The collection contains maps from most countries in the world, with a focus on the state of Indiana. Currently, about 40% of the map collection remains uncataloged, and can only be discovered by physically browsing the map drawers. However, the majority of the maps are searchable in IUCAT.
The following categories of maps represent a small selection of the collection, but highlight the types of things you might discover.
Military Maps
The Wells Library map collection contains a wide selection of military maps from around the world. These were created by various governments and armies for planning or tactical purposes, and sometimes used in battle. One of the larger collections of this type is the Russian Military Topographic Map collection. These are maps of Eastern Europe and that were created by the Soviet military in the years before WWII. Many were captured in the field by German, US, and British troops, and the maps eventually made their way to Indiana University. You can read more about these maps in National Geographic and Wired.
We also hold many military maps created by the US military, including "Newsmaps" from WWII. These fascinating maps were sent to overseas and domestic military operations to keep people informed of the progress of the war. They present updates on troop movements, enemy atrocities, and tips for returning to civilian life in an informal (and sometimes racist) tone. The University of North Texas has digitized this collection, and we hold them in print at the Herman B Wells Library. We also have similar maps produced by the British military.
Maps of Indiana
Indiana Historic Maps is IU's database for public domain maps of Indiana. Click on "Interactive View" for full functionality. This collection represents only a small selection of our maps of Indiana! Visit the library or search IUCAT for more.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
The Sanborn Maps were made by the Sanborn Fire Insurance company for their internal use, and therefore show elements that are useful for assessing the cost of insurance for a particular area. For example, they indicate if a building is made of wood or stone, where the nearest fire hydrant is located, and often such details as the schedule of the night watchman. They depict individual buildings in urban areas, and are valuable resources for historical research of urban centers, or even individual businesses or homes. We hold Sanborn Maps for the state of Indiana, ranging from the late 19th Century through the 1960's.
IUPUI's Sanborn Maps (has great metadata and allows you to search by topic, such as "saloons (bars)"!)
Tourist Maps
Tourist maps often include advertisements for local businesses, highlight areas of interest or historical importance, and are generally more casual in tone than official government maps. The primary purpose is to offer an overview of a city or country and to direct tourists to areas of interest. They sometimes include illustrations to this end. Tourist maps offer insight into what is/was perceived to be of interest or of value to visitors, and help construct a sense of place. We have a strong collection of tourist maps from the 1950's to present for most countries in the world.
For example, this 1970 map of Panama, titled "Panama, City of Contrasts"
Topographic Maps
We hold topographic map series for most countries in the world. Topographic maps show detail of an area's terrain, including elevation (by using contour lines), land forms, lakes, rivers, and roads. These are usually produced by a government mapping agency, like the US Geological Survey in the United States.
Other Maps
The map collection at the Wells Library is vast and holds many surprises. With about 40% of the collection still uncataloged, there are sure to be some hidden gems. Some other categories of maps that you might investigate are government publications, such as maps from the CIA, State Department, or foreign governments, infrastructure maps, or other maps made by city governments.
Visit Map Collections at the Library for more information.
These are mostly general databases, covering many topics. For help finding information on your particular research question, contact me or look at this much longer list.
Provides full-text coverage of magazine, newspaper, and scholarly journal articles for most academic disciplines.
This multi-disciplinary database provides full-text for more than 4,500 journals, including full text for more than 3,700 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles.
Bibliographic database focusing on the history and life of the United States and Canada, indexing more than 1,800 journals published, dissertations and reviews.
In addition to the principle English language sources in the field, it includes some (about 10%) in other languages, as well as some state and local history journals. All aspects of historical inquiry are represented: diplomatic, ecclesiastical, agricultural, cultural, economic, political, military and others. The index also provides citations to book and media reviews from about 100 journals and references to abstracts of dissertations in the field. All abstracts are in English.
Full text database with a focus on how gender impacts a variety of subject areas.
GenderWatch is a full text database of nearly 400 periodicals and other publications that focus on how gender impacts a variety of subject areas. Publications include academic and scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books, booklets and pamphlets, conference proceedings, and government, and special reports.
Index to journals, chapters and theses about world history, 1450 to present.
Covers modern world history (excluding the United States and Canada which are covered in the database America: History and Life) from 1450 to the present. It currently indexes about 2,300 journals in 40 languages, with indexing also for some books and dissertations. Most of the article citations include abstracts of 75-100 words.
Interdisciplinary resources pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700).
Access to e-journals, bibliographies, and other content related to the study of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Includes access to the following:
Iter Italicum
Milton: A Bibliography
Bibliography of English Women Writers
Provides searchable full-text of historical runs of important scholarly journals in the humanities, arts, sciences, ecology, and business.
JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization established with the assistance of The Mellon Foundation, provides complete runs of hundreds of important journal titles in more than 30 arts, humanities, and social science disciplines. These scholarly journals can be browsed online and searched, and the page images can be printed for those available in full-text. The IUB Libraries subscribe to current content for only some titles available through JSTOR.
All journals in JSTOR start with the first volume. Many include content up to a "moving wall" of 3-5 years ago, although some journals have a fixed ending date for their content in JSTOR. Please check individual journals for exact dates of coverage.
For information about access to this resource for IU alumni, contact the Indiana University Alumni Association.
Provides full text access and indexing for e-journals and e-books from a variety of scholarly publishers. Covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others.