Chronicling America Adds New Collections



chronicling-america-adds-new-collections-find-more-genealogy-blogs-at-familytree-comChronicling America is a website that provides access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages. It is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), which is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC). Chronicling America has added some new collections to its resources.

Chronicling America is a long-term effort to develop an internet-based searchable database of U.S. Newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages. This digital resource will be developed and permanently maintained at the Library of Congress.

Their U.S. Newspaper Program (USNP) was conducted by the NEH from 1982 to 2011. It was intended to ensure that America’s historical newspapers will be available for its citizens. The USNP was a cooperative national effort among the states and the federal government to locate, catalog, and preserve on microfilm newspapers published in the United States from the 18th century to the present.

The USNP supported projects in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Each project was conducted by a single organization within a state or territory, usually the state’s largest newspaper repository. The USNP also funded the cataloging of newspapers at eight national repositories.

There are links on the U.S. Newspaper Program website to individual state archives of newspapers. Another option is to visit the Chronicling America website itself and browse the resources that way.

The U.S. Newspaper Program continues to add more newspapers to their collection. In August of 2016, they added newspapers from Alaska, Colorado, Maine, and New Jersey. The NEH has made awards to digitize historic newspapers to the Alaska Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums; the Colorado Historical Society; the Maine State Library, and Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Previous to that, in July of 2016, the NEH and the Library of Congress expanded the scope of the National Digital Newspaper Program by allowing all state partners to digitize historic newspaper from 1690 to 1963. According to their announcement, anything published before 1923 is in the public domain. This means that digitized newspapers from 1923 to 1963 can be added to Chronicling America.

It is now possible to read 18th century newspapers from three early capitals of the United States: New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. at Chronicling America. They have added digitized newspapers from 1836-1922 to their resources.

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Related Articles at FamilyTree.com:

* Information to Look for in old Newspapers

* Updated Newspapers on Chronicling America

* Newspapers Online

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