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Archive of Americana

Irving Berlin, the great American songwriter, needs little introduction today, but the great singer Mary Garden is less well known. She was an opera star in the first three decades of the 20th century...

Henry Brown was born into slavery, circa 1815, 45 miles outside of Richmond, Virginia. As a young man, he was taken to work in the Richmond tobacco factory of his owner, William Barret. Well-regarded...

One of the most significant pieces of African American literature, “Native Son,” was serialized in the Kansas Plaindealer, Arkansas Free Press and other African American newspapers in 1941-42. These...

“Report of a committee of the Linnæan Society of New England relative to a large marine animal, supposed to be a serpent, seen near Cape Ann, Massachusetts, in August, 1817.” From Early American...

Having successfully located and digitized almost all of the American newspapers published during the 17th and 18th centuries, Readex is now focusing on 19th and 20th century newspapers. Guided by our...

Erin Cassidy We recently received a short note from Erin Cassidy, Assistant Professor, Web Services Librarian, and History and Foreign Languages Bibliographer in the Newton Gresham Library of Sam...

From the Readex digital edition Following the recent news that Readex is now offering institutions access to the complete historical run of the Washington Evening Star, here are comments from two...

Kathryn Stockett’s bestselling book and film, The Help, brought to life a familiar caricature of African American women, the American “mammy.” Depicted as good humored, overweight, middle-aged...

August 23, 2012, would have been Gene Kelly’s 100th birthday. While that would be reason enough to browse America's Historical Newspapers for coverage of his life and work, 2012 is also the 60th...

Isadora Duncan was dance-struck as a young child in San Francisco. By the time she was six, she was teaching neighborhood children how to move like ocean waves. The strict rules of ballet and...

What activities might make up the archetypal life of a 19th-century American man? Items on such a checklist could include: Samuel Clemens checked off many of these items: He was a sailor, if on the...

May 27, 2012, is the 75th anniversary of the opening celebrations of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. When it opened, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world. It spanned the mile-wide...

No novelist would dare to picture such an array of beautiful climatic conditions—the rosy dawn, the morning star, the moon on the horizon, the sea stretching in level beauty to the skyline—and on this...

Dr. James McCune Smith. Source: New-York Historical Society In 2010 descendents of Dr. James McCune Smith, a prominent abolitionist leader and prolific author, discovered and dedicated his unmarked...

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth. America’s Historical Newspapers contains hundreds of contemporaneous articles about this genius of English literature, as well as...

Our Guest Blogger: Barbara Shaffer, unofficial historian of Springfield, Massachusetts From the online archive of the Springfield Republican and Union Memories take many forms: stories of an older...

Nothing says “home” quite like a map of Alaska and adjacent lands shown as Russian and British territory—with annotations in French! “Map showing Russian territory of Alaska and coastline of western...

Old Evening Star Building on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. -- Source: Carol M. Highsmith Archive (Library of Congress) This spring Readex will begin releasing a complete 70-year span of The...

From Early American Newspapers, Series 9 This spring Readex will begin releasing two new series in its acclaimed Early American Newspapers collection. Early American Newspapers, Series 8 and Series 9...

Lincoln J. Beachey (March 3, 1887 – March 14, 1915) In the early 20th century, aviator Lincoln Beachey and his Curtis biplane amazed and delighted crowds with the “Dip of Death” and his mastery of...

Joshua C. Kendall The Connecticut Webster on Slavery By Joshua Kendall, author of The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster’s Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture The pure-bred New...

Guest blogger: Ja-ne de Abreu, an award-winning writer in the media production industry currently embarking on her first novel The Louisiana Historical Newspaper Archivehas proven to be an invaluable...

Carla Mulford, Dept. of English, Penn State University In December 2008 an essay about one of Benjamin Franklin’s cleverest hoaxes was published in The Proceedings of the American Philosophical...

Chocolate: A Readex Sampler By Louis E. Grivetti, Professor of Nutrition, Emeritus, University of California, Davis International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) 2010 Award Finalist in...