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Reviews & Testimonials

Review:

"The 19th century United States newspapers database contains digital facsimile images of both full pages and clipped articles from hundreds of newspapers drawn from over 20 microfilm collections across the United States. Searching uses the Infotrac system and will be familiar to users of the The Times Digital Archive."

– Lawbook Co., 2007

Testimonial:

"The John Rylands University Library at The University of Manchester has recently taken out a subscription to the [Cengage] Learning database Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers Online. The subscription was initiated in January of this year and the database has already proved popular with academic staff and students in the University's School of English and American Studies.

An extensive range of full-text newspapers is included in the database. One of the main intentions of the development team was to include as wide a representation of newspapers as possible. Hence the database includes not only mainstream publications, such as the New York Herald, but also full text articles from a variety of fairly obscure nineteenth century newspapers. For example, the database includes such rarities as the Nauvoo Expositor (1844) which only produced one single issue before it was closed down and had its printing press destroyed. It includes newspapers produced by the black press of the antebellum period and the post-civil war eras. Some Native American newspapers are included, for example the Cherokee Phoenix. First published in 1828, the Phoenix was the first American Indian Newspaper to be published. A handful of newspapers from the former US territories are included: for example, it is possible to access some nineteenth century newspapers which were produced and circulated in Alaska, which was, during this period, classified as an 'unorganized territory'.

Some of the newsprint, particularly from the earlier newspapers, has inevitably faded quite dramatically (the digital images have been taken from microfilm) and, in some cases, the digitized images can be difficult to read. However, a useful magnification tool is provided which allows the size of the newsprint to be increased up to 6400%. The functionality of the database includes search term highlighting and an opportunity to limit searches to selected sections of the various newspapers. For example, it is possible to do searches on various subjects within Classified Advertisements. The database also features 'infomarks', which provide a way of saving your chosen article with a persistent URL. In addition to these features, the database also provides access to some recent essays by historians of journalism which provide a background context to the newspapers included, and reference articles on key events and issues in nineteenth-century American history, for example the Civil War and Slavery. Having spoken to some members of academic staff in the School of English and American Studies, it is becoming increasingly evident that the database is proving to be a very useful research tool. It has the capacity to provide access to a myriad of articles and ephemera which would have previously been very labour-intensive and difficult to find. One of our academics has welcomed the opportunity to narrow down searches to particular sections of newspapers, such as advertisements, letters to the editor and so on. Broad studies and comparisons of a huge range of topics can now be made. It offers the opportunity, for example, to make comparisons between the content, style and attitudes of newspapers which served agrarian communities and those which were produced for an urban readership. On reflection, it is clear that the database, if used imaginatively and with some attention to detail, provides the capacity to open up a great amount of potential for future research on a huge range of subjects."

– Rose Goodier, John Rylands University Library