This page is designed to provide researchers with information that will help them to choose between a wide range of resources for identifying, locating, or accessing periodical and newspaper articles from the 17th, 18th, 19th, or early 20th centuries.

I. INDEXES

An index will enable you to identify articles published in periodicals and/or newspapers.

A. Online Indexes

The Wellesley index to Victorian periodicals, 1824-1900 
The vast majority of articles written for Victorian periodicals were published anonymously, or under pseudonyms. The Wellesley Index identifies the authors of articles within major Victorian periodicals, and provides a bibliography for each contributor. 45 important monthly and quarterly titles are included, covering the period from the beginning of the Westminster Review in 1824 to the end of the century. The exception to this is the Edinburgh Review, which is indexed from first issue, in 1802. Wellesley does not index poetry.

Nineteenth-Century Masterfile.
Focus: American and British, 19th Century
Integrates a number of indexes to nineteenth-century printed material into one database. Includes: Poole's Index to Periodical Literature (1802-1906), and other general periodical indexes; New York Daily Tribune Index (1875-1906), New York Times Index (1863-1905), and other indexes devoted to specific newspaper or periodical titles; as well as specialized indexes for law, religion, and government documents. Now includes links to full-text articles for selected periodicals.

Historical Newspapers.
Focus: American and British
Contains: Palmer's Index to the London Times (1790-1905); The Official Index to the London Times (1906-1980); and Historical Index to the New York Times (1851-1922).
Allows for searching across all of these indexes combined.

Readers Guide Retrospective.
Focus: American with limited coverage of British, 1890-1982.
Provides listings of articles in popular and general-interest periodicals published in the United States. Coverage includes literary works published in those periodicals (short stories, poetry, etc.)

B. To Identify Additional Relevant Indexes

For a fuller listing and discussion of periodical guides and/or indexes, see:

Balay, Robert. Early periodical indexes : bibliographies and indexes of literature published in periodicals before 1900. (Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 2000)
Butler Reference R016.05 B18

II. ONLINE FULL-TEXT RESOURCES

Various online resources provide access to full text and/or full-page image of selected periodicals and newspapers from the 18th-, 19th-, or early 20th- century.

For the most wide-ranging picture of how your topic was covered in the periodical press, you will want to make use of indexes and full-text resources in conjunction with one another.

Accessible Archives.
Focus: American, 18th and 19th centuries
A set of databases that can be searched individually or simultaneously. The focus is on periodicals and newspapers in the Eighteenth Century (Pennsylvania Gazette) and the Nineteenth Century (African-American Newspapers, Godey's Lady's Book, and Civil-War newspapers). Also includes specialized databases of genealogical and industrialization information.

American Periodicals Series APS Online.
Focus: American, 1740-1900
Provides full-text and full-image access to more than 1,100 American magazines and journals that originated between 1741 and 1900.  Derived from the American Periodicals Series microform collection.

America's Historical Newspapers, 1690-1922
(Including Early American Newspapers, Series I through V)
Provides full-text and full-image access to more than 1,000 U.S. historical newspapers published between 1690 and 1922, including titles from all 50 states.

British Periodicals (Collections I and II)
Provides full-text and full-image access to hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century.  Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts, the social sciences, music, archaeology and architecture.

Gerritsen Collection: Women's History Online, 1543-1945.
Focus: American, British, and European, 1543-1945 (most materials are 1880-1920)
Full-text collection of books and periodicals relating to the history of women, women's rights, and women's suffrage.

HarpWeek.
Focus: American, 1857-1912
Page images and searchable full text of Harper's Weekly, the popular illustrated American magazine.

Internet Library of Early Journals: A Digital Library of 18^th and 19^th Century Journals
Focus: British, 18th and 19th centuries
Provides digitized page images covering at least twenty consecutive years for six journals: Gentleman's Magazine, The Annual Register, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Notes and Queries, The Builder, and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Search options vary by title, ranging from browse only, to searching by subject headings, to searching full text.

JSTOR.
Focus: American and British, beginning 1665
Searchable full text, displayed as page images, for more than 600 key scholarly journals beginning with their earliest issues. A “moving wall” (generally ranging from 3 to 5 years) separates the latest issue available in JSTOR from the most recently published issue of the journal.

Making of America.
Focus: American, 19^th century
“A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection currently contains approximately 8,500 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.”

The Nation.
Focus: American, 19^th century onward
Searchable full text, displayed as page images only, for a leading American left-liberal journal, from 1865 through 2004.

19th Century UK Periodicals. 
Provides full-text and full-page-image access to periodicals (1800-1900) aimed at the following readership areas: Women, Children, Leisure and Sport, and Humor. The current contents constitute Series 1 of a projected five-series set. Series 2 through 5 will cover additional subject areas and will be added as they are published--between now and 2011.

Periodicals Archive Online.
Focus: British, American, and European; mid-17th to late-20th centuries
Archive of hundreds of digitised journals published in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and areas of general popular interest. Each periodical is covered back to its first issue, regardless of when it began publication. International in scope, Periodicals Archive Online covers periodicals in a number of Western languages.

Proquest Historical Newspapers.
Focus: American, 19^th and 20^th centuries
Full-text and full-image articles, dating back to their first issues, for the following newspapers: the New York Times (1851-2001), the Wall Street Journal (1889-1987), the Washington Post (1877-1988), the Atlanta Constitution (1868-1925), the Boston Globe (1872-1922), the Chicago Tribune (1890-1946), and the Los Angeles Times (1881-1984).
NOTE: If you do not wish to search all of these newspapers simultaneously: click on "Select Multiple Databases"; scroll down to the Historical Databases; and de-select newspapers as you wish.

Times Digital Archive
Focus: British, 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th centuries
Full-text and full-image articles from the Times of London for 1785-1985.

TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Centenary Archive
Focus: British, 20th century
A full-text and full-page-image online edition of The Times Literary Supplement from its inception in 1902 up until [1994, when complete].

III. BIBLIOGRAPHIES, DIRECTORIES, AND HISTORIES

Bibliographies, directories, and histories can provide you with varying types and degrees of information about specific periodicals or newspapers and/or about the periodical press as a whole in a given time period. Some major examples of such works would be:

The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900
A subject-inclusive, language-inclusive annotated bibliography of 50,000 periodical publications. Searchable by title, by names of persons or of issuing bodies involved with these publications, by subject, and by place of publication.

Mott, Frank Luther. A History of American Magazines, 5 vols. (New York, London, D. Appleton 1930-1968)
BUTLER STACKS  PN4877 .M63 1930
BUTLER REFERENCE DESK  R070.973 M851

IV. USING CLIO TO IDENTIFY ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Books and other information resources about periodicals and newspapers can be searched in CLIO under the appropriate subject headings.

• In the “Basic Search” screen of CLIO:
• Select "Subject Heading" from the “In:” box menu.
• Enter searches using subject headings as appropriate:

• For example:
english periodicals
or
english newspapers

american periodicals
or
american newspapers

Once you have done your subject search in CLIO:

• Look at the overall list of entries to see how the subject is broken down. If you are interested in finding more of the types of resources listed on this page, you should be attentive to subheadings such as those below:

english periodicals--bibliography
english periodicals--directories
english periodicals--history
english periodicals--indexes

• Click "More Info" next to the "American Periodicals" or the "English Periodicals" subject heading to see more specialized subject headings that you may wish to search under, for example:

African American periodicals
Children’s periodicals, American
Hispanic American periodicals
Women’s periodicals, American
etc.