Historical Newspapers

Boxing mail -- N.Y. Post Office (LOC). Bain News Service, publisher. [between ca. 1914 and ca. 1915].

Birth Control – "...a vice upon which relentless war shall be declared." The Society for the Suppression of Vice and the Comstock Act

The Comstock Act (or Law), enacted on March 3, 1873, was formally titled "Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use" thereby, according to...

Mrs. Yoshiye Abe, an American of Japanese ancestry, helps to make American flags in a Denver factory, from The Library of Congress

"This year, many persons of Japanese ancestry in the United States will once again observe this great day within the confines of a relocation center." Fourth of July celebrations in Japanese Relocation Centers during World War II

July 4, 2024, marked 82 years since thousands of Japanese Americans faced Independence Day behind barbed wire. Japanese Americans - forcibly relocated to ten concentration camps during the Second...

Cesare Dell’Acqua, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“Our rulers bide their time…”: The Monroe Doctrine and the Mexican Empire

December 23, 2023, marked the 200th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine has ebbed and flowed in the American public’s awareness throughout two centuries, often dormant, but resurgent when...

Zoot Suit Riots: Opportunities for Discovery using Suggested Searches in Hispanic Life in America

In many of its primary source collections, Readex provides a significant enhancement for the user by including Suggested Searches to jumpstart research. Created and curated by the Readex editorial and...

Celebrating Women's History Month: Perspectives from Historical Primary Sources

Celebrate Women’s History Month with a look back through the Readex blog archive featuring articles from Readex digitized primary source collections. Read on to discover and celebrate the...

Sepia-toned photograph of four young women posing on outdoor stone steps. They wear long skirts, high-collared blouses with puffed sleeves, and decorative hats. Each leans on one arm with a composed expression, creating a staged, fashion-focused portrait from the late 19th or early 20th century.

Black History is American History: Perspectives from Historical Primary Sources

Explore Black history and American history with these resources and articles for research, teaching and learning. Discover more in the Readex blog archives. Celebrating the Remarkable Life and Work of...

Side-by-side black-and-white portraits of W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. Du Bois (left) wears a suit and tie and has a mustache and goatee, looking slightly toward the camera. Washington (right) wears a suit and bow tie, facing forward with a serious expression against a plain studio background.

The Early Histories of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Part IV: W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and the Great Debate

W. E. B. Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1868. He died ninety-five years later in Accra, Ghana in 1963. During his long life he rose rapidly to become and remain a powerful...

Trenton Evening Times. February 18, 1911

“Shed Underwear Says Suffragist": Fashion as Social Commentary in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

A recent journey into the Readex archives reveals just how much clothing and fashion informed social, political, religious, and health opinions and commentaries in the 19th and early 20th centuries...

“Choose your goal, and success is yours…Follow it, even though you may never reach it.”: Lloyd Gaines and the Case Against the University of Missouri

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education and declared state laws establishing “separate but equal” public schooling to be unconstitutional...

Russia and the War in Ukraine: Historical Context for Today's News

Explore resources and articles offering historical context on current events. Read more from the Readex blog archives. Ukraine: Crossroads of Conquest There is no lack of irony in Russia’s recent use...

“All those individuals who, until this day, looked upon themselves as slaves, are free”: The Lost History of the Mexican Underground Railroad

When we are first taught about the Underground Railroad, we learn about following the drinking gourd and how “conductors,” such as Harriet Tubman, helped free enslaved people in the south, ushering...

Booker T. Washington, half-length portrait, seated at desk. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Early Histories of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Part III: Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Institute

Booker Taliaferro Washington was born April 5, 1856 in Virginia the son of an enslaved woman named Jane who later, after emancipation, was able to reunite with her husband, Washington Ferguson, in...

The cow-pock - or - the wonderful effects of the new inoculation. James Gillray image. Library of Congress

“All Who Will Yield to Evidence:” An Historical View of Vaccine Opinions

The search for inoculation from the most dreadful diseases that afflict humankind has been relentless for centuries. The history of the American colonies was affected by the decision of George...

Cartoon, The Daily Inter Ocean, July 18, 1895.

Bicycle Face: ‘It Is Sound Physiology, and It Squares with the Facts’: Following a Phrase in American Historical Newspapers

The 1880s saw the modern bicycle, with a diamond frame, pneumatic tires, and a chain-driven rear wheel, take shape. Along with their similarly sized wheels, these features made the new machine safer...

The Hunt for Captain Kidd’s Treasure and The Enduring Mystery of Oak Island

Any good mystery demands an answer; the best mysteries never give them up. For over 225 years, Oak Island has held its secrets and has unceasingly thwarted those who have tried to expose them. That...

Aerial view of a large red-brick historic building, Jubilee Hall at Fisk University, with a steep slate roof, ornate dormer windows, and a tall central spire rising above a white belfry. The building is surrounded by trees, with a distant landscape and clear blue sky in the background.

The Early Histories of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Part II: Fisk University and the Jubilee Singers

Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee opened on January 9, 1866 more than year before Howard University. While Howard was beset by controversy from its beginning, Fisk seems to have had a...

The Davenport brothers and William Fay with their spirit cabinet. Library of Congress

The Davenport Brothers: The act that divided Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Houdini

March 1865 Liverpool, England. It stood in the center of the stage, at least six feet tall, perched on two-foot-tall supports, with a decorative crown of wood carved vines and fleur-de-lis. To...

Wide daytime photograph of a Howard University building, a large red-brick institutional building with white trim and a central clock tower topped by a dome. The building sits on a landscaped lawn with trees and shrubs under a clear blue sky, suggesting a historic school or government campus.

The Early Histories of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Part 1: Howard University

“This institution bids fair to do great good.” — New York Evening Post (1867) Historically Black Colleges and Universities, commonly referred to as HBCUs, have graduated tens of thousands of men and...

“The Caucasian will not tolerate the Mongolian”: The Racism of Chinese Exclusion in the United States, 1848-1911

The history of Chinese immigration to the United States, from the Gold Rush to World War II, is uniquely the one instance in which American law has specifically barred an entire national or ethnic...

“Black Representative of a White Idea”: John Willis Menard, 1868 Representative-Elect from Louisiana

A person’s social standing has much to do with where they sit, or whether they’re even allowed to do so. During U.S. civil rights protests in the 1960s, Rosa Parks and other Black citizens went to...

Wood-engraved illustration titled “Reception at San Francisco” showing a festive street scene with flags and bunting as two men in top hats ride in a horse-drawn carriage, greeted by a cheering crowd; a man in the foreground waves his hat, and a uniformed driver holds the reins beneath an arch reading “Welcome to Grant.”

Tales of Brave Ulysses: General Grant’s World Tour, 1877-1879

General Ulysses S. Grant’s wife, Julia Dent Grant, enjoyed sharing the following anecdote about their epic voyage around the world. Her story emphasized a key difference between her husband and his...

Albert Pike: Confederate Commissioner, Masonic Demiurge, Apologist for Slavery, Apostate of the Union

In January 1840, 31-year-old Albert Pike published a poem entitled “Dissolution of the Union.” With the arrival of the American Civil War, the poem’s prophecy was proven true; its Boston-born author...

Nerves of Steal: Cassie Chadwick, “Patron Saint of Confidence Women”

Like many bank robbers, Cassie Chadwick proffered a note to her victims. Early in her criminal career, when she was just 22 years old, that elegant, imaginative note simply stated that because she was...