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Early American Newspapers: By Decade

1690-1922

An essential record of America across three centuries
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  • Select by decade: the most comprehensive and authoritative online source of historical American newspapers
  • Titles from every region of the U.S. provide an unparalleled record of people, issues and events
  • Meet specific teaching or research needs, or create a collection by selecting one or more decades at a time

1690 - 1779 

The First Nine Decades in One Consolidated Unit

Events covered include: Salem witchcraft, Slavery institutionalized, First Great Awakening, Pontiac's Rebellion, Royal Proclamation of 1763, Stamp Act Crisis, Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, First Continental Congress, Battle of Lexington and Concord, Declaration of Independence, Rise of Republicanism, Treaty of Paris, Shays' Rebellion, U.S. Constitutional Convention, Rise of Republican Motherhood.

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1780 - 1789

Events covered include: Siege of Charleston, Articles of Confederation ratified, Treaty of Paris ends the American Revolutionary War, Shay’s Rebellion, George Washington inaugurated.

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1790 - 1799

Events covered include: Bill of Rights ratified, George Washington reelected, Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, Whiskey Rebellion, Alien and Sedition Acts, Logan Act, George Washington dies.

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1800 - 1809

Events covered include: Thomas Jefferson elected, Marbury v. Madison, Louisiana Purchase, New Jersey abolishes slavery, Burr-Hamilton duel, Lewis and Clark begin expedition, James Madison elected.

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1810 - 1819

Events covered include: War of 1812 begins, Louisiana becomes 18th state, British troops burn Washington, D.C., Battle of New Orleans, James Monroe elected, Panic of 1819.

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1820 - 1829

Events covered include: Monroe reelected, Missouri becomes state, Florida becomes a territory, Monroe Doctrine proclaimed, James Quincy Adams elected, Erie Canal completed, Andrew Jackson elected.

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1830 - 1839

Events covered include: Second Great Awakening, Oregon Trails comes into use, Indian Removal Act, Nat Turner’s revolt, The Liberator begins publication, Black Hawk War, Department of Indian Affairs established, revolver invented, Panic of 1837, Amistad case.

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1840 - 1849

Events covered include: John Quincy Adams argues Amistad case before Supreme Court, Webster-Ashburton Treaty, Dorr Rebellion, Texas annexation, U.S.-Mexican War, Bear Flag revolt, Wilmot Proviso, Dred Scott sues for his freedom, California Gold Rush begins.

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1850 - 1859

Events covered include: Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, Compromise of 1850 with Fugitive Slave Act passed, California becomes a state, Gadsden Purchase, Whig Party collapses, Pottawatomie massacre, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Utah War, Lincoln-Douglas Debates, John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry.

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1860 - 1869

Events covered include: Pony Express begins, Abraham Lincoln elected, Confederate States of America established, American Civil War begins, Homestead Act, Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation, New York City draft riots, Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant, Civil Rights Act of 1866, Ku Klux Klan founded, First Transcontinental Railroad completed.

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1870 - 1879

Events covered include: Enforcement Acts passed, Great Chicago Fire, Yellowstone National Park created, Amnesty Act, Panic of 1873, Red River Indian War, Civil Rights Act of 1875, National League of baseball founded, Battle of Little Big Horn, Reconstruction ends, Thomas Edison creates light bulb.

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1880 - 1889

Events covered include: U.S. population exceeds 50 million, James Garfield assassinated, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Tuskegee Institute founded, Chinese Exclusion Act, Civil Rights Cases of 1883, Haymarket Riot, American Federation of Labor founded, Statue of Liberty dedicated, Dawes Act, Jane Addams founds Hull House.

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1890 - 1899

Events covered include: Sherman Antitrust Act, Wounded Knee Massacre, National American Woman Suffrage Association founded, Homestead Strike, Panic of 1893, Coxey’s Army, Plessy v. Ferguson, Williams Jennings Bryan delivers Cross of Gold speech, USS Maine explodes, Treaty of Paris.

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1900 - 1909

Events covered include: Boxer Rebellion, Galveston Hurricane, William McKinley assassinated, Theodore Roosevelt elected, Ford Motor Company founded, Big Stick Diplomacy, Department of Commerce and Labor created, Wright brothers flight, Panama Canal Zone acquired, San Francisco earthquake, NAACP founded by W.E.B. Du Bois.

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1910 - 1919

Events covered include: Mann-Elkins Act, Triangle Shirtwaist fire, Titanic sinks, Woodrow Wilson elected, woman suffrage parade organized by Alice Paul, income tax established, Philippine-American War ends, Lusitania sunk, Jeannette Rankin elected to U.S. congress, U.S. enters World War I, First Red Scare, Treaty of Versailles, 18th Amendment establishes Prohibition.

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1920 - 1922

Events covered include: 19th Amendment grants women right to vote, Sacco and Vanzetti arrested, first radio broadcasts, Volstead Act, Emergency Quota Act, Fordney-McCumber Tariff.

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Each of the ten-year Decades above is also available in five-year segments.

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Take a step toward access for your library

The Early American Newspapers series is available within America’s Historical Newspapers.

“…highly recommended…”
“Libraries may...choose series, decades, or eras, in order to reflect a library's research needs.”
Choice (July 2014)
Areas of Study
This product supports the following subjects
American Studies
US History
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Reviews & Accolades

“The Early American Newspapers collection contains over 2,000 newspapers of historical importance, both at the national and the local level, including the Pennsylvania Gazette, New York Herald, Boston Herald and Times-Picayune. Each series in the collection covers a different time span, and series can be selected individually or in combination to build a collection best suited to the needs of each institution’s users….Early American Newspapers uses the America’s Historical Newspapers interface, which makes it simple to search or browse….The simple search interface should make this database user-friendly for undergraduate researchers, while the thoughtful filtering options, as well as the sheer scope of the collection, will be a boon for more advanced researchers, such as graduate students and faculty.”
— Lindley Homol, Reference and Instruction Librarian, University of Maryland University College Library, in Reference Reviews (Vol. 29, No. 2, 2015)

“Readex publishes respected subscription databases of full-text historical newspapers. Its America's Historical Newspapers collects and digitizes American newspapers; offerings include Early American Newspapers, which has recently released four additional series—series 6 (1741-1922), series 7 (1773-1922), series 8 (1844-1922), and series 9 (1832-1922). This collective addition adds 290 newspaper titles and over 4,300,000 pages to Early American Newspapers (series 1, CH, Apr'06, 43-4401; series 4 and 5, CH, Dec'12, 50-1798), bringing the complete collection to a substantial compilation of 2,000-plus newspaper titles from all 50 states, published between 1690 and 1922. Titles include valuable sources such as some 8,000 additional issues from New Orleans's Times-Picayune and some 15,000 issues from The Oregonian, now Oregon's largest newspaper. Other remarkable titles are Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and New York's The Daily Graphic--both heavily illustrated with hand-drawn graphics, making them a researcher's treasure. The complete list of additions is rich with titles of national and local importance.

“Libraries may purchase the entire collection or choose series, decades, or eras, in order to reflect a library's research needs. Readex's newspaper searching has a number of features that encourage precision and better results. The single search line can be expanded into a multiple-line search engine to better focus a complex research topic. Users may also narrow results by date, article type, language, state, and individual newspaper titles. The results present a small window of select information, with search terms in boldface for quick reading. Though other newspaper databases are available, the America's Historical Newspapers project is unique in the numbers of newspaper titles included, the number of individual issues included, and the inclusion of small local newspapers. Early American Newspapers is a real research gem for historians, all levels of college students, and genealogists. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty; general readers.”
— C. W. Bruns, California State University-Fullerton, reviewing Early American Newspapers, Series 6-9, in Choice (July 2014)

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