The US Newspaper Program Copyright 2003 June Clover Byrne

In some early areas, you may find that the newspapers are the only records of marriages, deaths, and other important events. Information from many newspapers has already been put on line.  The largest collection of newspaper extracts is in the Genweb archives hosted by Rootsweb.  Go to the main site at https://sites.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ and click on Search By State.  Put newspaper or the surname or the town into the window and then mark the state you want to search.  A major source of links to newspapers is on Cyndi’s List.  She has a separate heading named Newspapers. http://www.cyndislist.com/newspapr.htm   There are also several obituary sites which are primarily for 20^th Century newspapers. Cyndi also maintains a list of those sites.  http://www.cyndislist.com/obits.htm

If you are not one of the lucky ones whose newspaper can be found on-line, you will have to do it yourself.  Luckily, some years ago, the National Newspaper Program was started.  It is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and receives technical support from the Library of Congress. The goal of the US Newspaper Program is to preserve newspapers published in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present and to put them on microfilm both for the sake of preservation and so that they are available to the public. There is considerable information about the projects on their website. http://www.neh.gov/projects/usnp.html   The website includes links to each state repository as well as links to the nine national repositories. 

Unfortunately, as we all have found to our sorrow, links are like leftovers in the back of the refrigerator. They get moldy if you don’t do anything with them.  So I have attached a list of links to the various states.  As of this date, all of the links work. Obviously, that is only true for one day. They change quickly.  However, I have included the name of the repository which will help you locate the link in case this one becomes obsolete.  In many cases, the newspapers have been microfilmed and those microfilms are available for public use.  Some of the repositories have separate catalogs of their microfilmed newspaper holdings.  Others have them in the main catalog. Many repositories provide interlibrary loan services.  When you know the name of the newspaper and the dates you want, take this to your local library and ask them to try to get the microfilm on Interlibrary Loan (ILL).   The cost is usually nominal for ILL.  If your state does not have a separate list of newspapers and you cannot seem to get what you want out of the main catalog of the repository, ask your librarian to check.  Librarians have some databases which may not be available to the public.  You may also find the newspaper you are searching for in a near-by state.  For example, the Kansas Historical Society has many microfilms of newspapers from near-by states. 

US and world current newspapers:   http://newslink.org/metnews.html

http://www.refdesk.com/paper.html

www.onlinenewspapers.com

http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/types/flnews/ (foreign language newspapers)

Old Newspapers by State:

Alabama: Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, AL

http://www.archives.state.al.us/dataindex.html

Alaska: Alaska State Library, Juneau, AK      

http://library.state.ak.us/hist/newspaper/newspaper.html

Arizona: Arizona State Library, Phoenix, AZ               

www.lib.az.us/anp/index.html [Not a working link]

 Arkansas: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR

http://libinfo.uark.edu/specialcollections/about/overview.asp

California: University of California, Berkeley, CA       

http://cnp.ucr.edu

Colorado: Colorado Historical Society, Denver, CO

http://www.history.state.co.us/chs_Library/research_coll_files/rc_newspapers.htm

Connecticutt: Connecticutt State Library, Hartford, CT 

http://www.cslib.org/cnp.htm

Delaware: University of Delaware Library, Newark, DE

http://www2.lib.udel.edu/delnews/

District of Columbia: 

http://dclibrary.org/washingtoniana/us-newspaper-project.html

Florida: Gainsville, FL 

http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/flnews/

Georgia: University of Georgia

http://www.libs.uga.edu/gnp

Hawaii: University of Hawaii

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~speccoll/

Idaho: Idaho State Historical Society, Boise, ID          

http://www.idahohistory.net/library_collections.html

Illinois: There are three repositories in Illinois:             

        Abraham Lincoln Memorial Library, Springfield, IL  

        http://www.alplm.org/library/library_depts.html#Newspaper

        University of Illinois, Urbana, IL:     

        http://www.library.uiuc.edu/inp/

        Historical Society, Chicago, IL  

       http://www.chicagohs.org/collections/newspaper.html

Indiana: Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, IN      

http://www.Indianahistory.org

http://www.iowahistory.org/library/library_offers/library_offers.html#Newspaper

Kansas: Kansas Historical Society, Topeka, KS         

http://www.kshs.org/library/news.htm

Kentucky: University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY     

http://www.uky.edu/Libraries/PRC

Louisiana: Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA         

http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/lnp.html

Maine: Maine State Archives, Augusta, ME    

http://www.maine.gov/sos/arc/newspapers/mnphome.htm

Maryland: Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, MD

http://speccol.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/speccol/catalog/newspapers/cfm/index.cfm

Massachusetts: Boston Public Library, Boston, MA

http://www.bpl.org/research/microtext/mnp.htm

Michigan: Michigan has two sites. 

        Library of Michigan, Lansing, MI

        http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17449_18643---,00.html

        Clarke Historical Society, University of Central Michigan, Mt. Pleasant, MI

        http://www.clarke.cmich.edu/newspapers/michigannewspapersproject/index.htm

Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society, ST. Paul, MN

http://www.mnhs.org/

Mississippi: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, MS

http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/arlib_index.html

Missouri:State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, MO 

http://www.umsystem.edu/shs/newspaper.html

Montana: Montana Historical Society, Helena, MT

http://montanahistoricalsociety.org

 Nebraska: University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE         

http://www.unl.edu/nebnews/

Nevada: University of Nevada, Reno, NV See main library catalog.

http://www.library.unr.edu/specoll//

New Hampshire: 

http://www.nh.gov/nhsl/nhais/newspaper_project.html

New Jersey: New Jersey Division of Archives and Records Management, Trenton, NJ

http://www.njarchives.org/links/newspaper-1.html

 New Mexico: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 

http://econtent.unm.edu/cdm4/index_NewMexicoNewspapers.php

New York: New York State Library, Albany, NY  

http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/nysnp/

North Carolina: State Library of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.

http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/TSS/newspape.htm

North Dakota: State Historical Society of North Dakota, Bismarck, ND

http://www.state.nd.us/hist/newshome.htm

Ohio: Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio

http://www.ohiohistory.org/resource/database/news.html

Oklahoma: Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma City, OK

http://www.okhistory.org/Res/ResDiv.html

Oregon: University of Oregon, Eugene, OR                

http://libweb.uoregon.edu/speccoll/image_svcs/onp/index.html

Pennsylvania: State Library of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA

http://www.statelibrary.state.pa.us

Puerto Rico: University of Puerto Rico, San Juan

http://biblioteca.uprrp.edu/cpr.htm

Rhode Island: Rhode Island Historical Society Library, Providence, RI

http://www.rihs.org/

South Carolina: University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC  

http://www.sc.edu/library/socar/books.html#newspapers

 South Dakota: South Dakota State Historical Society, Pierre, SD       

http://www.sdhistory.org/arc/arc_nwsp.htm

Tennessee: University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN

 http://www.lib.utk.edu/spcoll/newspaper/tnphome.htm

Texas: University of Texas, Austin, TX           

http://www.cah.utexas.edu/newspapers/tnp.html

 Utah: University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 

http://www.lib.utah.edu/digital/unews/news_project.html

Vermont: University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 

http://library.uvm.edu/vtnp/

Virginia: Virginia State Library, Richmond, VA 

http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwedo/vnp/index.htm

    For complete index and scans of the Virginia Gazette from the 1700s, see the Colonial Williamsburg site at:     http://research.history.org/DigitalLibrary/VirginiaGazette/VGPPIndex.cfm?firstltr=C

Washington: Washington State Library, Olympia, Washington

http://www.secstate.wa.gov/library/newspapers_wsl.aspx

 West Virginia: West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/wvcollection/newspapers.htm

Wisconsin: Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, WI

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/libraryarchives/collections/news.asp

Wyoming: University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY

http://www-lib.uwyo.edu/  Newspapers are in the main catalog.