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Finding Historical Newspaper Articles in Andersen Library

Table of Contents:

Wisconsin Newspapers State, National, and International Newspapers

Online Resources Wisconsin Historical Society

Andersen Library has many historical Wisconsin newspapers, as well as other state, national, and international newspapers. Most of these newspapers are available on microfilm in the Periodicals Microform Room on the first floor of the Library. If the newspaper has a print index, the researcher can look up his or her topic in the index to see what, if any, articles are available in that particular newspaper on that topic. Remember that wording has changed over time, so the words used today for an event may not be the words used in the newspaper's index. "World War II," for example, was not known as World War II in 1943. Try looking for information on the war in Europe, or something similar.

If no print index is available--and unfortunately, most newspapers do not have an index--try to identify a specific date, or date range, for your topic. Then, choose those issues closest to the identified date(s). Skim through the headlines on the film until an article on the topic is located.

Wisconsin Newspapers

The following Wisconsin newspapers are available on microfilm in the Periodicals Microform Room on the first floor of the Library. These newspapers do not have indexes.

• Milwaukee Advertiser: July 1837 – March 20, 1841 (dates of coverage not complete)
• Milwaukee Daily Free Democrat: September 1850 – February 1860 (actual newspaper title may vary)
• Milwaukee Journal: 1890 – March 1995 (later became Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel; available online in the LexisNexis Academic database from September 17, 1995-present)
  • Milwaukee Daily Journal: 1884 – 1890 (later became Milwaukee Journal; shelved as Milwaukee Journal)
• Milwaukee Sentinel: January 1910 – August 1926
• Royal Purple: March 1908 – February 1913; April 1, 1913 – May 1998 (also available in print from 1901-present in the Area Research Center)
• Whitewater Register: March 25, 1857 – December 2005
  • Whitewater Gazette (later became Whitewater Register): August 2; November 22, 1855 – January 1, 1857
• Wisconsin State Journal: 1985-1998 (available online in the LexisNexis Academic database from 1992-present)
• Wisconsin Free Democrat: March 20, 1844 – 1860 (dates of coverage not complete; actual newspaper title varies)

State, National, and International Newspapers

The following newspapers are available on microfilm in the Periodicals Microform Room on the first floor of the Library. The availability of an index for each newspaper, if any, is noted.

• American Periodical Series
  This is a microfilm set of over 1100 periodicals published between 1741-1900. It is primarily magazines, but includes some newspapers as well. The index for this series is located on top of the cabinets containing the microfilm.
• Chicago Daily Tribune: 1849 – 1871 (later became Chicago Tribune, which is available on microfilm from 1985-2005). No index is available for this newspaper in Andersen Library.
• Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Newspapers: 1792-1866
  Approximately 30 Pennsylvania newspaper titles, all shelved under Harrisburg newspapers, 1792-1866. Dates/coverage of each title varies; microfilm boxes have the individual titles written on the side and the dates of coverage on top. No index is available for these newspapers.

  Find newspaper titles in the Harrisburg set via an Advanced Search in the online catalog:

  1. Open the online catalog. Choose the Advanced Search tab
  2. On the search screen, set location to Periodicals (all) and date to 1790-1870
  3. Search for harrisburg within Keyword Anywhere
  4. Some titles have more than one record in the results list.

• New York Evening Post: January – December 1846. No index is available for this newspaper in Andersen Library.
• New York Times: 1851 – December 15, 2005 (title from September 1851 – September 1857: New-York Daily Times)
  This newspaper is also available full text online from 1851-2006. See Online Resources section, below.
• The Times (London): 1920-present
  An online index is available for this newspaper for the years 1785-1985. It is important to use search terms that reflect the time the article was written (e.g., to find articles on World War I, try "Great War"). To view the actual articles, you will need to use the microfilm in the Library. Please note the dates we have available.

Online Resources

• ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851 - 2006) -
  Searching of and access to the full content—articles, classified ads, obituaries, etc.—of the New York Times from 1851-2006 is available via this Library database. Also available on microfilm on the first floor of Andersen Library.
• Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (BETA) - (Library of Congress)
  This site allows you to search and view newspaper pages between 1880 and 1922 from the following states: California, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. Also find information about United States newspapers published between 1690 and the present, including where a particular newspaper may be obtained.
• Newspaper Archive - Available through BadgerLink. Search more than 4,000 newspaper titles published between 1753 and 2006. Search across all newspapers or narrow by date and/or location. Coverage of each newspaper is not complete and in many cases may be sporadic. Complete runs of newspapers are not available for most publications. Some articles may be viewed for free; other content requires payment for viewing. Databases provided through BadgerLink are available to all Wisconsin residents; however, a Wisconsin Internet Service Provider must be used. To access the database, follow these steps:
  1. Open BadgerLink.
  2. Click on the Access Newspaper Archive link.
  Note: Adobe Acrobat Reader® is required to view the articles. The type on the pages may be a poor quality scan and might be small and difficult to read. Articles not freely available full text in this database might be obtained through interlibrary loan.
• Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles - (Wisconsin Historical Society)
  This site contains images of 16,000 articles from Wisconsin local newspapers, and a small number from other states, "preserved in scrapbooks at the Wisconsin Historical Society in the late 19th and 20th centuries." Most articles were published between 1860 and 1940. See also Wisconsin Historical Society section, below.

Wisconsin Historical Society

The WHS Library contains thousands of books, pamphlets, and newspapers on North American history. To locate items in the WHS Library, search UW-Madison's online library catalog, MadCat. Materials found in MadCat are borrowed through Universal Borrowing or interlibrary loan. Which borrowing option to use depends upon the item; contact a reference librarian to find out how to obtain the item you need.

For a bibliography of newspaper holdings in the Wisconsin Historical Society, see the following resource in Andersen Library, held at the Reference Desk on the main (second) floor of the Library:

Danky, James P., and Maureen E. Hady, eds. Newspapers in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin: A Bibliography with Holdings. New York: Norman Ross Publishing, 1994.
Call number: Ref Z6952 .W8 N49 1994  2 vols.

Volume I contains listings of Wisconsin newspapers and volume II contains listings of U.S. and foreign newspapers.