LibGuides: Historic Preservation: Historical Newspapers, Magazines, and Trade Publications

Historical Texts

Historical Newspapers, Magazines, and Trade Publications are a great way to find contextual information about the historical period to which your research project belongs. While you may not find specific information on a building or architect, you may find valuable information with regard to the concerns of the day.

The Hathi Trust
APT Building Technology Heritage Library
The Building Technology Heritage Library (BTHL) is primarily a collection of American and Canadian, pre-1964 architectural trade catalogs, house plan books and technical building guides. Trade catalogs are an important primary source to document past design and construction practices. These materials can aid in the preservation and conservation of older structures as well as other research goals.
US Modernist Architecture Magazine Library
Open digital collection of major US 20th-century architecture magazines, with over 4 million downloadable pages.

Historical Newspapers

Local and Texas Historical Newspapers:

Austin American Statesman (Historical) This link opens in a new window
1871 - 1980. Unlimited users.
Provides full text and full image articles with digital reproductions of every page, every article and every issue in PDF format. As the leading newspaper in the capital of Texas, the Historical Austin American Statesman provides researchers with unique insights into the political, economic, cultural, and social life of this important state, as well as the southwest U.S. from the late 19th through the 20th century. The paper has strong central Texas coverage, especially for political reporting.
More recent issues are available in LexisNexis Academic, Factiva and Library PressDisplay.
Dallas Morning News (Historical) This link opens in a new window
1885 - 1984. Unlimited users.
Provides comprehensive coverage for one of the largest daily newspapers in Texas. Accessible by keyword and date searching. Documents major events in Texas, the United States, and the world, providing valuable primary source information. Includes classified and display advertising, photos and graphics.
Daily Texan - Newspaper Archive This link opens in a new window
Also known as Austin Daily Texan (1900-2019)
Digitized copies and content of the Daily Texan.
Texas Newspaper Archive This link opens in a new window
1838 - 2019. Unlimited users.
Digitized copies and content of Texas newspapers, including The Austin Daily Texan (1900-2019), Galveston Daily News (1865-2017), San Antonio Express (1865-1977), San Antonio Light (1883-1977) and hundreds of other Texas newspapers.

Texas Digital Newspaper Program
The Texas Digital Newspaper Program (TDNP) partners with communities, publishers, and institutions to promote standards-based digitization of Texas newspapers and to make them freely accessible via The Portal to Texas History.

Historical Newspapers:

African American Newspapers, Series 1 This link opens in a new window
1827 - 1998. Unlimited users.

Updated regularly (until completed). When completed, will provide online access to approximately 270 African American U.S. newspapers. Features papers from more than 35 states. The newspapers were scanned from the collections of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Kansas State Historical Society and the Library of Congress.
America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
1690 - 1990s. Unlimited users.

Updated regularly. Includes more than 1,000 U.S. historical newspapers published between 1690 and the 1990s, including titles from all 50 states. Search by dates/eras, article types (news & opinion, election returns, letters, poetry/songs, legislative, prices, advertisements, matrimony & death notices), region/state, and newspaper name.
American Periodicals Series (APS) This link opens in a new window
1740 - 1940. Unlimited users.
Updated daily. Contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals. Titles include Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine, the first American professional journals, and several consumer magazines still in publication, such as Vanity Fair, Harper's Magazine, and Ladies' Home Journal. The search interface allows you to search the complete text, including tables of contents, by boolean and keyword operators. Articles are linked to the corresponding page images, downloadable in PDF format.
British Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new window
Dates of coverage vary. Unlimited users.
Provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images.
HarpWeek This link opens in a new window
1857 - 1912. Unlimited users.
Provides full text and page impages of Harper's Weekly, one of the most important serials of nineteenth-century America. Includes browse issues by date, search the index, search for the full text of articles, browse literature by genre, or find people by their cccupation or role in society.
The University of Texas Libraries subscribes to the entire database, including The Civil War Era (1857-1865), Reconstruction I (1866-1871), Reconstruction II (1872-1877), Gilded Age I (1878-1883), Gilded Age II (1884-1889), Gilded Age III (1890-1895), Gilded Age IV (1896-1901), Gilded Age V (1902-1907), and Gilded Age VI (1908-1912).
HarpWeek is designed for Netscape Navigator 3.x or above OR Internet Explorer 3.x or above at 800 X 600 screen resolution with Java, JavaScript and Cookies enabled. Printing pages (which are large -- the original size is 11" x 15.5") can best be accomplished by downloading the page to disk, then opening the page in an image-manipulation program.
Hispanic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
1808 - 1980. Unlimited users.
Provides access to a large compilation of Spanish-language newspapers printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries. Includes many newspapers published bilingually in Spanish and English. Features hundreds of Hispanic American newspapers, including many long scattered and forgotten titles published in the 19th century.
Based on the “Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project", a national research effort directed by Professor Nicolás Kanellos.
Los Angeles Times (Historical) This link opens in a new window
1881 - 2001. Unlimited users.
Updated annually. Provides comprehensive coverage for Southern California's largest daily newspaper. Includes all the articles published since the first issue of the paper in 1881. Provides full text and full image articles with digital reproductions of every page, every article and every issue in PDF format. In addition to news stories, includes editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, photos, and advertisements.
New York Times (Historical) This link opens in a new window
1851 - 2018. Unlimited users.
Updated annually. Includes all the articles published since the first issue of the paper in 1851. Provides full text and full image articles with digital reproductions of every page, every article and every issue in PDF format. In addition to news stories, includes editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, photos, and advertisements.
More recent years are also available in other full text resources.
Nineteenth (19th) Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new window
1800 - 1900. Unlimited users.
Provides access to approximately 500 U.S. newspapers, published between 1800 and 1900. Includes titles from throughout the United States, many published in what were, at the time, only territories. Newspapers selected on their immediate value to researchers on the press and on the century in general. Papers selected cover a broad spectrum, with a comprehensive geographical and chronological range.
Full text searching allows users to search across the entire database for the specific term/subject/person/event they are looking for. Searches can be restricted by categories (such as, Advertising, Business News, Images, Editorials, etc.), by states & cities, and by date of publication. Also includes a number of scholarly essays on topics and events such as the Confederacy, fires & firefighting, immigration, and elections.
Washington Post (Historical) This link opens in a new window
1877 - 2008. Unlimited users.
Updated annually. Includes all the articles published since the first issue of the paper in 1877. Provides full text and full image articles with digital reproductions of every page, every article and every issue in PDF format. In addition to news stories, includes editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, photos, and advertisements.
More recent years are also available in other full text resources.
17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window
1600 - 1799. Unlimited users.

The newspapers and pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817) represent the largest single collection of 17th and 18th century English news media available anywhere. The 1,270-title collection includes a wide range of pamphlets, proclamations, newsbooks and newspapers from the period, covering more than 200 years of accounts from newspapers from England, Ireland, Scotland and a handful of papers from British colonies in the Americas and Asia.

Complete List of Newspapers Databases
Includes both current and historical newspapers.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newpapers

Historical Magazines

Here are some suggestions to get you thinking:

Trade Publications

Southern Architect and Building News The South's oldest trade publication, 1882-1932
Southern Architect and Building News (digitized content)
The Western Architect