Newspapers

Shelves holding bound volumes and boxes of newspapers.

AAS is this nation's chief repository for early American newspapers, and a significant portion of research done at the Society draws upon the collection. Newspapers provide researchers with unparalleled access into the details of everyday life, commerce, culture, and politics in communities large and small. The newspaper reveals how ordinary people both got information and made news. Building on AAS-founder Isaiah Thomas's 1812 gift of 382 titles in 551 volumes, the Society today has over 20,000 titles with two million issues. The newspaper collection continues to grow through purchases and by gifts from individuals and institutions.

What is a Newspaper?

The Library of Congress defines a newspaper as a serial publication designed to be a primary source for current events connected with public affairs, either local, national, or international, not limited to a specific subject matter. The Society, collects every kind of newspaper: those that fit the definition strictly and those containing current events with a topical focus issued by college, literary, religious, or temperance groups. Serials focused on a single subject such as trade publications, scholarly journals, and popular magazines are in the periodicals collection.

Access

Information for the United States newspapers, Caribbean holdings, and papers from parts of Canada (except Quebec) can be accessed through the General Catalog. The Clarence database provides item-level holdings information for most of the United States collection. Newspapers from Quebec, Canada, and all of Great Britain are uncatalogued. For a list of newspaper genre terms used in the General Catalog see Finding Specific Types of Newspapers. 

AAS participates in the United States Newspaper Program, underwritten by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The United States Newspaper Program is a national project to locate, catalog, and microfilm newspapers across the country. 

Digital Access

See Digital Newspaper Collections for information on accessing newspapers digitally.

Scope of Newspaper Collecting at AAS

  • American newspapers up to 1876 except for the following states, where few newspapers existed by 1876:
     
    • Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas to 1880 
    • Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming to 1890
    • Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah to 1895
    • Alaska to 1900
  • Caribbean and Canada to 1876
  • Great Britain to the end of the Revolutionary War (1783)

Highlights from the Collection

America’s Early Newspapers

The Society has strong holdings of papers from the earliest colonial settlement through 1820. These include papers from major cities of England's original thirteen mainland North American colonies, such as The Boston News-Letter, the first continuously published newspaper on this continent. AAS has its first issue of April 24, 1704, as part of its run through 1776. Early small-town papers are also represented, including The Potowmac Guardian, and Berkeley Advertiser, the first newspaper published in what is now West Virginia. This includes its very first issue (vol. 1, no. 1) published in Shepherdstown, Virginia, (a town of about 1,000 residents) on November 15, 1790. AAS owns nine such first issue newspapers. 

Newspapers Printed or Published by Black Americans

Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm published the first U.S. newspaper owned and operated by Black Americans, the Freedom’s Journal, New York, 1827-29. Subsequent Black newspapers, including those published by activists like Frederick Douglass and Peter H. Clark, served as platforms for social change and agents of community consciousness throughout the nineteenth century. AAS holds more than forty newspaper titles printed or published by Black Americans.

Newspapers in Languages other than English 

Diverse communities across the United States published weekly and daily newspapers for readers fluent in languages other than English.  AAS has titles printed in German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Cherokee, Chinese, and other languages. AAS also holds one of the largest collections of early Hawaiian language printing, including newspapers. Editors and publishers filled these papers with both international and national news, advertisements for local merchants, and information on births and deaths in their communities.

Wallpaper Newspapers

Printers desperate for paper used the obverse of wallpaper samples for these unusual newspapers because of paper shortages in the Confederate states during the Civil War. The Society holds over seventy titles with an issue printed on wallpaper samples. Three July 1863 issues of the Daily Citizen from Vicksburg, Mississippi, are each printed on different wallpaper. See the blog post Emergency Paper Sources. 

Amateur Newspapers

Non-professional editors, writers and printers created small-format publications known as amateur newspapers, which were popular from the 1870’s into the early 1900’s. They were usually published by teenagers, though adults and children as young as 7 also contributed to amateur publications. Amateur newspapers contained a combination of editorials, short stories, poetry, word puzzles, jokes, local news, and commentary on other amateur journalists. AAS holds around 3,500 titles with at least one title from every state, except Alaska and Hawaii. 

Dissolved and Temporary Communities' Newspapers

A small but important group of newspapers provide a printed record for communities that are no longer extant. AAS holds ghost town newspapers from more than twenty-five Western boom-to-bust mining and lumbering towns. Union soldiers during the Civil War printed newspapers on confiscated or portable presses to distribute news and provide amusement within camps and field hospitals. Printers in communal settlements, such as the Oneida Community in upstate New York, and attendees of multi-week religious revivals and camp meetings, also issued daily or weekly newspapers like The Seaside Gazette on Martha's Vineyard.

Fellowship Opportunities

The American Antiquarian Society awards over forty fellowships annually. Fellowships are offered for postdoctoral academics,  advanced graduate students, independent scholars, as well as for creative and performing artists and writers. 

The Joyce Tracy Fellowship is for research on newspapers and magazines or for projects using these resources as primary documentation. This award derives from an endowment established in memory of the Society's longtime curator of newspapers and periodicals. Doctoral candidates may apply.

Additional Information