LibGuides: AMS 370: Women Radicals and Reformers: Historical Newspapers

Finding Historical Newspaper Articles

Newspapers articles offer a glimpse into the time period of a particular event or movement, and they can provide rich context and perspectives that will enhance your reading of other primary sources. The following collections provide access to digitized historical newspapers, magazines, journals, and other periodical publications.

Alt-Press Watch
Independent, underground, radical publications covering a broad range of topics, including feminism, the environment, indigenous activism, and labor rights.
NOTE: Only four UT Austin users can access this database at a time. Please close your browser window when you are finished using this database.

Updated monthly. Provides full-text coverage of newspapers, magazines and journals of the alternative and independent press in America. Includes a broad range of critical issues confronting contemporary society, such as ecology and the environment, grassroots organizing, labor, indigenous peoples, and public policy.
Independent Voices
Another collection of alternative press publications, including many key feminist magazines of the 2nd wave women's movement.

Independent Voices is a growing digital collection of the magazines, journals, and newspapers of the alternative and small press archives of participating libraries, including UT Austin Libraries. Member libraries are supporting the growth of the collection, which will ultimately be an Open Access resource.
The current collection features full-color scans of complete journals from the GI Underground Press and the Women’s Alternative Press.
When the collection is complete, it will also include the following title lists: Native American Press, African American Press, Hispanic Press (including the Chicano Movement Press), Underground Campus Press, LGBT Press, Anarchist Periodicals, Right-Wing Press, Literary “Little” Magazines.
The Title Lists link to lists of current and potential titles included.
New York Times (Historical)
A searchable collection of the New York Times from 1851-2013.

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.
Hispanic American Newspapers
A collection of 19th and 20th Century Spanish-language and bilingual newspapers published in the U.S.

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.
Chicago Defender (Historical)
An important 20th African American newspaper published in Chicago. It became the de facto national black newspaper and covered major events in the South, such as lynchings and the Civil Rights Movement.

Includes the full image of articles published in the Chicago Defender from 1910 to 1975. You can browse individual issues by clicking Publications at the top of the screen, or search by keyword(s), author(s), article title, date ranges, and more. Includes illustrations and advertisements. The Chicago Defender was the most influential African-American newspaper of the 20th century. With the majority of its readership outside the Chicago region, it served as the de facto national black newspaper in the U.S. The Defender covered events in the South, such as lynchings, that Southern black newspapers could not safely report. The paper was a major influence for the Great Migration of African Americans to the North in the early 20th century. Later issues of the Chicago Defender (1989-2015) are in the Ethnic Newswatch database.

The Ladder
The monthly publication of the lesbian activist organization, The Daughters of Bilitis, from 1956-1972.
NOTE: This resource is in print at the PCL. It includes an index for finding articles on a particular topic. If you have questions about using this, ask Gina Bastone!

Women's Magazine Archive
A digitized collection of mainstream women's magazines, including Cosmo, Seventeen, Essence, and Better Homes & Gardens, and covers the 1890s to 2005.

An archival research resource comprising the full backfiles of leading women’s interest consumer magazines. Titles are scanned from cover to cover in high-resolution color and feature detailed article-level indexing. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005 and these key primary sources permit the examination of the events, trends, and attitudes of this period. Among the research fields served by this material are gender studies, social history, economics/marketing, media, fashion, politics, and popular culture.