To find old newspaper articles online is at times a struggle. The web is full of information and almost all current events are easy to find because they have been originally recorded on the web. Almost every newspaper today has a web edition free of charge. The current edition newspapers generally only have their issues up for a limited time. But if you are looking into the past by more than a few years for old newspaper articles, you will need a subscription.
My suggestion is for you to try the free trial subscription to Newspaper Archive. This site is the largest of its kind on the web. With newspapers from 1759 to the present day, and over 1.12 billion articles, 820 cities are covered and 3,385 titles; all in pdf formatting, there is no single site with more information. The annual subscription price is so low that it is very affordable even at the student level.
The search engine is amazingly helpful. Like most there are areas to put in phrases and qualifying words. In addition the search can be narrowed down by exact date or between two separate dates. Also the country or state for wish you want the search to take place is available.
Search results can be sorted by relevance to the subject or by date either ascending or descending order. There is also a handy section the records your last five papers for quick referral back in case you forgot a quote or wish to reread an article. There is also a section for writers like myself along with a special area for students and teachers. And for those that are interested in Genealogy there are over 3.36 billion names from with to get history and information from.
I have found this site to be my most valuable resource when doing online research into the past. Especially to find old newspaper articles online. Sign up for a subscription to Newspaper Archive and get the full use of all of the fabulous features of these old papers.
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From the history books to newspaper articles, World War 2 comes to life. But if a person in an American public school wants to know about WW2 or any other war they must read it on their own in old newspaper articles. Every history teacher I had always skipped over the wars. They did cover a little on the first one, the revolution, but the same speech was heard year after year “there are more important events in history”.
There was enough to study at the time so I never had a real chance to learn a lot about the war effort or the heroes in them. Most of Americans greatest sacrifices came during the war years but the teachers seem not to care. It is a sad fact but true. Maybe if they took the time themselves and learn a little they would have been better informed. Of course I had a few that were old enough to live through WWII and they put it bluntly that they just wanted to forget those hard times. What is a child to say to that?
Looking back at old newspaper articles, World War 2 is well documented. On Friday October 15, 1943, the Modesto Bee had an editorial written about the travels of President Roosevelt’s wife, Eleanor. It was written that some American was upset Eleanor was flying around the south Pacific. But this woman gave her husband the truth and facts about the situation and the feelings of the men and women fighting in the front. Past and future policy was set on facts she gave him.
I never knew she put her life in danger to help the country. We were told of some of her great deeds but this is above and beyond duty. It’s Americans like her that makes me proud to be an American. Maybe if the teachers would have taught more about the wars then the shame of what happened to the Vietnam veterans may have never happened.
Read old newspaper articles, World War 2 can never be repeated.
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To search old news records is a chore by itself once you have the material. Just a few years ago this meant going through stack after stack of either old newspapers or journals to find the necessary information. There are some that were luckier than others and had a librarian in the family like me. My Great Aunt Ruth was the family librarian and she kept track of and documented all of the family records and deeds through out the years. Unfortunately she passed away a few years ago and no one has picked up the duties so the records are no longer up to date.
In today’s modern world of high tech the Internet is the best and most convenient source of information. The wide selection is at times mind-boggling. Unless you have a firm grasp of the way the internet works and how search engines use key words it would be easy to get lost in the maze. I personally have had searches that resulted in over ten million hits. Most of which are not relevant to what I am looking for. This number can be narrowed down with a better choice of key words but the best and most efficient use of time is to find a reliable site that has what you are looking for.
I have found that in my quest to search old news records the web site at Newspaper Archive is the best site in terms of easy to use and quantity of information it contains. When you consider how fragile and short lived newsprint paper is we are very lucky that people had enough interest to preserve and microfilm them through the years.
old newspaper article - flickr
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December 8, 1980 is the date of the John Lennon assassination. Newspaper reports the tragedy the following day with headlines like “Suspect ‘stalked’ Lennon” From the Syracuse Herald-Journal and “EX-Beatle John Lennon Killed” from the Maryville Journal-Tribune. No matter what the headline read, every newspaper article had the same information. That a 25 year old Hawaii man that had stalked John Lennon for three days and was being charged with the murder. The accused was Mark David Chapman. Chapman even had a license for the gun he used in the murder and a bill of sale from Hawaii where the purchase was made, though of course the license was not legal in New York City..
The first excuse from Chapman was that he had shot Lennon because John had only scribbled his autograph on an album earlier in the day for him. What an ungrateful fan. There is no wonder today’s celebrities stay behind closed doors and have armed guards with them at all times. But no matter what the reason or situation it still does not excuse or explain what Chapman did at 10:50pm that evening. As John was returning to his home in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Chapman pulled his gun and shot the ex-Beatle dead.
John’s last words before he collapsed were “I’m Shot”. Just hours before John was on the RKO radio network in an interview. In this interview John said that he had hoped to die before Miss Ono. It was because he “couldn’t carry on” without her. He got his wish. This is another example of be careful of what you wish for, it just may come true. John Lennon assassination, newspaper articles once again recorded history as it happened.
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Famous Headlines become famous for many reasons. Some became famous because of the news they are reporting like the V E edition. These were the two letters all of Europe had been waiting for since 1939. Victory in Europe was announced on May 8, 1945 or simply as many newspapers reported it as “V-E Day”.
When you search old newspapers you will discover other reasons that headlines become famous, like the reporting of the outcome of the 1948 presidential election in America. On November 2, 1948 the headlines read “Dewey Wins”. We now know this was wrong but it will forever be the most famous wrong headline ever.
Of course then the sad headlines we all wish we could forget like “President Kennedy Shot to Death In Dallas; Gov. Connally Wounded”. That was the headline that shocked and saddens the nation on November 22, 1963.
It makes one wonder why when we read a headline if it will be famous and are they for sure going to be remembered. The headlines read like a timeline in our history. The good, the bad, the mistakes, and the tragic. All make the headlines and all are unforgettable. In time some, if not most forget what has happened and made headlines in the past of each year but not all. When Mark McGwire broke the home run record, what year was it? Maybe the steroid scandal after the record was broken has helped this headline fad. I am not sure and do care anymore. I had even saved the paper but through it out after the scandal.
It all depends on what is important to us over time on whether a famous headline stays famous for any length of time.
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Old newspaper articles are a wealth if information for the world to use. There are literally over a billion articles now available on the internet. This vast knowledge is not only useful for historians and students but the common man as well. Every topic is available at the touch of a button.
One site I particularly love is Newspaper Archives. This site has old articles dating back 247 years. Just think of it, you can read what the founding fathers of our nation read. The thoughts and minds of the journalist are all down as a record of the times in which they lived. I personally have seen how the history books that are used in schools change with the times. One book I found was Black’s History Book. This book was written back in the early 1940’s and ended during WWII. The attitude and its perspective was so different from the way the history book for which I was issued for my class was written, I have never forgotten it.
They say history is really his story or others say history is written by the victor. I believe both of these are true but old newspaper articles are not revised for the times. They tell the story of how it was, as seen through the eyes of those that wrote them at the time events happened. This is true history written and preserved for all times.
So for a true account of history as it really was without any meddling from the forces or by the administration in power at the present time, read old newspaper articles and get the accurate and precise truth of what really happened, as it happened forever unchanging.
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This weekend the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers face off for Superbowl XLIII, (Superbowl #43,) and everyone will be glued to their television sets to watch the event and the entertainment that goes with it.
Bruce Springsteen will be celebrating along with his old time E Street Band and it should be a great show.
Here at Old Newspaper Articles we normally think about using the Newspaper Archive database for reading about historical events and not for sports use, however I just did a quick search of the one word “superbowl” and there are over 15,000 occurrences of newspaper stories about Superbowls of the past.
When you use the ‘Advanced Search’ method and select the ‘Exact Search’ feature you are able to search for occurrences of each Roman numeral Superbowl from the 1970’s to date.
It is kind of fun to read about Superbowl I and Superbowl II, right up through the years. This is a sports caster’s dream to be able to back through the stats and compare things in previous games to today’s results. Those of you who are interested in sports history will also want to check it out.
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Our news in these times is filled with mention of immigrant problems that blend in with National Security problems. The story itself is nothing new and you might want find old immigration articles to compare with.
This country is a nation of immigrants, other than the Native Americans and DNA evidence now shows that they too were immigrants at one period or another in ancient history. Every generation has been faced with concerns over immigrant problems and there is no place better to see that than in the Newspaper Archive database of scanned newspaper images.
After this country was founded there have been periods of time that various ethnic groups and hoards of many different nationalities came flowing into the United States. If you think there is animosity towards Spanish speaking people coming in today, just compare it to the 1840’s and 1850’s when the Irish immigrants were coming in by the millions, mostly due to the Potato Famine in their native lands. They were not treated very well by the present residents when they arrived.
Also in the 1840’s many other groups came from England, Scotland and Wales and they were soon assimilated into the communities as farmers and business men. The period from the 1850’s to the 1880’s many millions of German speaking people came in from various Germanic states and principalities. There was also a huge influx of Italian immigrants around this time.
Around the turn of the century the Eastern European countries sent huge numbers of refugees from war torn and economically deprived land to come to the land of milk and honey. Many of these various groups of immigrants came legally through either Castle Garden at the tip of Manhattan or in the 20th century came through Ellis Island were they were documented and checked for health problems and were accepted with wide open arms.
Compare those waves of new Americans to the current immigration articles in the news and you will gain a better knowledge of the world situation.
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Many of you are in a position where you need to Earn Money at Home. Here is a way to do it using old newspaper articles.
There are many local news agencies and TV and radio stations that have researchers on staff. These people are paid a salary and have a benefits package, take vacations or other time off and are a part of the company overhead and operating budget.
Most of those researchers are also staff writers that take the researched material and whip it into some form of story for their editor. You can take part of the responsibility of the research part of the project at a much lower cost that they can do it.
All you need is a membership to Newspaper Archive, which you can obtain right from this Blog, and then you will see how easy it is to search for articles about any subject and any time period. It does not matter what you need to find, you will most likely be able to find some previous story on the same subject in the papers.
Go ahead and join and see how easy it is to find information on any subject, then start marketing your services. Print up some mailers, send an email to the editorial departments of the local media outlets and let them know that you are available on a per project basis. They will jump at it because they know exactly how much it costs them per hour per in-house employee to do the same job.
You will also be doing them a favor in respect to freeing up the staff writer to do more important things with their time and they will be able to use the materials you located and will be able to have more time to enhance their own creative writing. It is a win-win situation and is a very good method that you can use to earn money at home.
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Starting in 1861 with the taking of Fort Sumter by the south, there was a scramble on both sides to form armies. As the civil war evolved over the four year period it was concentrated in various sections of the country and to follow it properly you will need to become familiar with the names of the Civil War Battles.
The western part of the State of Virginia, that part which is now the State of West Virginia, saw some of the earliest action of the civil war battles when Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan who was in command of the troops in Ohio moved across the river and engaged the Confederate troops under Col. George A. Porterfield in what was called the Battle of Philippi and also called the Philippi Races.
It will be important to follow the history of the civil war by making a list of the campaigns and the various battle names as they occurred. The newspapers of the day had plenty of field correspondents and there were also field photographers that traveled with the armies with a wagon load of wet plate photography equipment and huge cameras. Many of the photographs that are available through the Library of Congress were actually staged on the field of battle after the hostilities ceased and it became possible for the artist to set up his equipment and record recreated images.
To follow the progression of battles you will want to read original newspapers to help you create a mind picture of what you have been reading in the history books all these years. To read the day to day battlefield and troop movement news helps to build a picture that you will never forget.
As we bring you more articles on this subject from time to time we will report on other civil war battles and events of the day from the first Battle of Bull Run to the signing of the peace at Appomattox Court House you can find no better resources than to read it as old news.
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