Research Guides: American Civil War: Newspapers

Free Newspapers

19th Century U.S. Newspapers
Features full-text content and images from numerous newspapers from urban and rural regions throughout the 19th century.
America's Historical Newspapers
Allows exploration of American newspapers from three centuries.
Harper's Weekly, 1857 - 1912
The North's premier illustrated newspaper. Browse issues, or search for specific topics.
Civil War Newspapers - UT Tyler Scholar Works
Files of transcribed articles from Civil War era newspapers primarily from the South. Focuses on the Homefront, Confederate industry, and materials culture.
Tyler Reporter
The surviving issues of the Tyler Reporter newspaper have been digitized at Portal to Texas History.
Portal to Texas History
Offers digital copies of Texas historic newspapers.
Google News Archive
Archive of newspapers collected by Google. Please note that some of these titles are pay per view.
Chronicling America -- Library of Congress
Newspaper database collected by the Library of Congress. The National Tribune may be especially helpful as it was the official newspaper for Federal veterans.
National Tribune Selected Articles -- UT Tyler Scholar Works
Selected articles from the National Tribune. Includes articles on women soldiers, prisoners at Camp Ford, and Red River Campaign.
California Digital Newspaper Collection
Collection of historical newspapers from California. Search by dates.
Florida Digital Newspapers Library
Provides access to the news and history of Florida Newspapers.
Maryland Newspapers -- Early State Records Online
Scanned microfilm of newspapers from Maryland.
Historic Missouri Newspaper Project
Historic newspapers from Missouri.
Atlantic County (NJ) Digitized Newspapers
Over 5,000 newspapers covering Atlantic County happenings. The search engine is not very good.
New York State Historical Newspaper Collection
Newspapers from different counties in New York. Allows you to search for newspapers by county.
Digital Archives of Green Free Library (PA)
Newspaper database for news in a few different states.
Transcripts of Tyler Reporter, 1855 - 1860 -- Scholar Works
Selected articles from scattered issues of the Tyler Reporter, published in Tyler, Texas, for the years 1855 - 1860
Tyler Reporter, 1861 - 1864 -- Scholar Works
Selected articles from scattered issues of the Tyler Reporter, published in Tyler, Texas, from the years 1861 - 1864.
Utah Digital Newspapers
Collection of historical newspapers from Utah.
Newspapers of Washington
Collection of newspapers from Washington State.
Wisconsin Local History & Biography Articles
Contains 16,000 historical newspaper articles on Wisconsin people and communities.
Civil War Newspapers
These files of transcribed articles from Civil War era newspapers are predominantly from the South, and focus on the homefront, including women, Confederate industry, and material culture.
The Old Flag
Three surviving issues of one of the Camp Ford handwritten newspapers.

Subscription Databases

While database contracts do not allow off-site access to non-subscribers, most libraries will allow visitors to use their databases on-site. They may have open computers in the reference area or they may require a registration process to obtain temporary passwords. Printing and download processes may vary, but most databases allow email of articles to a distant computer. Click on the "more" for some locations within the state. Contact host libraries before making the trip to check accessibility.

Early American Newspapers, Series 1-7 (Readex)
Nearly 2,000 titles from all 50 states. Series 2 has the Dallas Weekly Herald (1855-1885), Galveston News (1842-1876), Houston Telegraph (1836-1864), and numerous antebellum papers. Series 4 has the Clarksville Standard (1848-1882, broken run). We have a subscription to just the Texas titles.

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Available at Texas A&M-Commerce, Texas A&M University
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Includes Chicago Tribune, Hartford Courant, New York Times, New York Tribune, Irish Times & Weekly Irish Times, The Scotsman, The Guardian & The Observer, the Baltimore Sun, the Detroit Free Press, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Nashville Tennessean, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for the Civil War era, as well as the Atlanta Constitution, the Austin American Statesman, the Boston Globe, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the San Francisco Chronicle added for Reconstruction.
ProQuest Civil War Era
Includes complete runs, 1840-1865, of Richmond Dispatch, Charleston Mercury, New Orleans Times Picayune, Boston Herald, New York Herald, Columbus [OH] State Journal, Kentucky Daily Journal, and the Memphis Daily Appeal as well as over 2000 pamphlets.
19th Century US Newspapers (Gale Cengage)
Over 28 million articles from the 19th Century, from seventeen libraries and archives, including Mississippi Dept. of Archives & History, South Caroliniana Liby, U of Georgia, Tennessee State Liby, and NC Office of Archives & History. No Texas CW papers.

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Available at the University of Texas at Austin.
GenealogyBank.com
Similar newspaper coverage to Early American Newspapers, but personal 30 day trial subscriptions available for $9.95, monthly $19.95, annual $69.95. Includes other genealogical resources.
NewspaperArchive.com
Includes Texas Civil War era newspapers from Galveston, Columbus, and San Antonio, many others nationwide.
Fold3.com
Subscription database includes the Civil War years of the Chicago Tribune, the 1865 issues of the San Francisco Chronicle, plus others post-war.

Microfilm

UT Tyler library offers free microfilm-to-paper as well as microfilm-to-thumb drive. Please ask for assistance. Below are newspapers that may be helpful to you.

State Gazette, 1855 - 1864

Weekly Gazette, 1864 - 1878

Galveston News, 1860 - 1866

Galveston Tri-Weekly News, 1860 - 1861, 1863 - 1872

Houston Tri-Weekly Telegraph, 1856 - 1870

Times, 1785 - 2003

Harrison Flag, 1858 - 1861, 1865 - 1868

New York Times, 1857 - 2004

San Antonio Zeitung, 1853 - 1856

San Antonio Herald, 1857 - 1859

Tyler Reporter, 1855, 1859, 1861, 1862, 1864

Finding Existing Microfilm

Interlibrary loan of newspapers on microfilm can be both slow and expensive. Many libraries do not lend out their microfilm. Once it arrives at the UT Tyler Library it often has to be used only within the building. We do offer free printing and equipment to save images to thumbdrive, as well as viewers.

WorldCat
Subjects are usually set up on the pattern of Tyler (Tex.)--Newspapers. You may limit to Serial Publications and subtype format Microform. WorldCat will also indicate holding libraries.

UT Austin card index to Texas newspapers

During the Great Depression, employees of the Works Progress Administration indexed thirty selected Texas newspapers for the years 1829-1936. Unfortunately, most of the headings are for proper names rather than subjects. Included are:

Abilene Daily Reporter
Alpine Avalanche
Commerce Journal
Dallas Daily News
Dallas Herald
Denison Gazette
Denison Herald
Denison Daily News
El Paso Herald
Free Press (San Antonio)
Ft. Worth Democrat
Ft. Worth Record
Ft. Worth Gazette
Houston Daily Telegraph
Houston Republic
Jacksboro Echo
Northern Standard (Clarksville)
La Prensa (San Antonio)
San Antonio Express
San Antonio Light
San Antonio Evening News
Sherman Courier
Sweetwater Daily Reporter
Telegraph & Texas Register (Houston)
Texas National Register (Washington)
Texas Sentinel (Austin)
Texas State Gazette (Austin)
Whitesboro News
Whitewright Sun
Wichita Daily Times.

This is an old-fashioned card file, held only at the Center for American History on the UT-Austin Campus. You may contact the reference staff to make photocopies of specific cards for you, for a fee.