Historic American Newspapers – Chronicling America (The Library of Congress)

The Hawaiian gazette. (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, June 18, 1912

If you visit the Library of Congress’s (LOC) website and click on, “Historic Newspapers,” you open up a unique tool for teaching American history.  The first thing you will see is a collection of newspaper front pages, “100 Years Ago Today.”   These, of course, offer great potential as a way to scan the current events from a century ago, but it is not the only resource the site affords visitors and educators.

“Chronicling America” is a joint-effort of the Library of Congress and National Endowment for the Humanities to provide access to digitized newspapers and to digitize select others.  The intent is, of course, to provide a digital directory of such resources for American history.  The website explains the project in the following manner:

Chronicling America is a Website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, and is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). NDNP, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), 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. Supported by NEH, this rich digital resource will be developed and permanently maintained at the Library of Congress. An NEH award program will fund the contribution of content from, eventually, all U.S. states and territories.

To search for particular content, start by clicking on the sidebar’s link, “Recommended Topics,” (location on left upper sidebar, as seen from the screen shot, above) a large alphabetic list of topics is provided.  From here you have two options, 1) find your topic among the listed suggestions, or 2) type in a search term(s) into the box labeled, “Find,” with one of three search areas (1, “News & Current Periodical Pages,” 2, “Researchers Web Pages,” and 3, “All Library of Congress Pages”) provided in the drop down box immediately to the right and see what is provided (see at the top of the screen shot provided, below).

Topics in Chronicling America

 For example, I typed in, “Thomas Edison” in, “News and Current Periodical Pages,” and hit, “GO.”  Now, here, it gets a bit confusing.  While I did not get a direct result for, “Thomas Edison,” the man, as such, I got a topic that is related to Edison: “Early Cinema.”  This could be frustrating for some folks, but the site does function best along the topics it has prepared.  An alternative method is to search, ”Thomas Edison” in, “Researchers Web Pages,” and hit, “GO,” giving you research options from the LOC.  Not all of these results will be useful, some will be collections’ items that are not digitized, and others may be only tangentially related, such as the page for the, “Motion Picture and Television Reading Room,” which explains on its main page that:

The Library of Congress began collecting motion pictures in 1893 when Thomas Edison and his brilliant assistant W.K.L. Dickson deposited the Edison Kinetoscopic Records for copyright. However, because of the difficulty of safely storing the flammable nitrate film used at the time, the Library retained only the descriptive material relating to motion pictures. In 1942, recognizing the importance of motion pictures and the need to preserve them as a historical record, the Library began the collection of the films themselves. From 1949 on these included films made for television. Today the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) has responsibility for the acquisition, cataloging and preservation of the motion picture and television collections. The Division operates the Motion Picture and Television Reading Room to provide access and information services to an international community of film and television professionals, archivists, scholars and researchers.

 The last search option from this page is to search, ”Thomas Edison” in, “All Library of Congress Pages,” and hit, “GO,” thus providing you with a wide array of materials, including lesson plans, events information and much more.  This brings up some of the same material that the last search provided, but it also includes the LOC biography of Edison and the lesson plan, “Thomas Edison, Electricity and America,” which provides some pretty interesting primary sources, though no newspaper sources (it does include magazine sources, focusing especially on advertising in select magazines).

If you are determined to cover Edison and use the Historic American Newspapers website, you still have a couple of options: 1) direct your students to the page on the 100th anniversary of something newsworthy from Edison’s career, or, if you can’t manage that, 2) use either the, “Early Cinema,” or, “Nikola Tesla,” topics.  Once you select on the topic of choice, you will first get a list of, “Important Dates,” for the topic, then, “Suggested Search Strategies,” and finally, “Sample Articles,” providing links to digitized newspaper articles.

A Nikolas Tesla article, The Times. (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, October 21, 1894, Page 2

The digital copy of the newspaper can be manipulated with controls in the top left corner of the view screen.  In addition to zooming in and out, turning pages, etc., one can also take snapshots with the view screen which can be copied and pasted, downloaded, or printed.  By clicking on the, “Clip Image,” link, the snap shot is opened on a new page or tab with bibliographic information from the newspaper, itself, and the link to the site.

Keep in mind when using old newspaper articles that the rules of journalism developed over time and are relatively recent guidelines, despite the upheaval and threat to such rules created by the web.  As ever, multiple sources will often reveal biases and prejudices among individual publications or authors.

Researching at the Library of Congress

(A snow day post…)

A bird's eye view of Capitol Hill and the Library of Congress

If you don’t do research, you should find yourself a project just so you have an excuse to visit the Library of Congress (LOC).  If you have never visited, you should–it is very cool and entertaining, more accessible than many of the Smithsonian museums and better located for other amenities, plus you can spend a half-day or a full-day there and not feel like you have left most of it unseen.  (I posted about the LOC earlier for folks who want to visit:  “The Library of Congress”.)

As great as it is to take the tour and play with the “The Passport to Knowledge” at each of the exhibits, the experience researching at the LOC is awesome!  While the facility exists first and foremost to benefit Congress–think about that for a moment and see if it doesn’t give you a flicker of hope for our country’s future–it is also intended to benefit the country as a vast receptacle of knowledge that will contribute to the greater good for America’s citizens.  So, take advantage!  This is a primer on doing research at the LOC and quite frankly will only scratch the surface because there is so much within its facilities.

The beautiful Thomas Jefferson building (LOC)

Your first stop should probably be the the LOC’s website, where you can get the lay of the land and IM with a librarian to help plan your visit.  Your next stop should be the James Madison building.  Here you get your library card–it typically takes a few minutes.  The building is at the top of the street from the Capitol South Metro station on the Orange and Blue line.  (Union Station is only a few blocks away and is on the Red line.  Transferring takes the most time on Metro, so if you are already on the Red line just go to Union Station.)  The library card station is one floor below the main entrance and both the security guards and the help desk just inside the main entrance can guide you.

The John Adams building (LOC)

There is security because these are federal buildings.  Don’t bring blades–even scissors, although some guards will ignore them I wouldn’t risk it–and travel light.  Put those items that run afoul of metal detectors in your bag or coat so you can quickly run it through the x-ray machines (while this will speed your entrance, it does not necessarily help you with slower tourists who may be in line in front of you–fortunately most of them will be at the Jefferson building).  Your next step is to determine which reading room you need.  The folks who get you your card will give you a quick orientation.  For some projects you have to go to a specific reading room because the materials do not leave that room.  If time is of the essence than you will want to go to the correct room to get your materials quickly.  If you are using a variety of materials, such as books and journals, you have a little more time, or brought some materials to work on with you, go to the Jefferson’s Main Reading Room.  This is also where preparation is so important, because you can pre-request materials online and have them waiting for you in the Main Reading Room or a specific reading room.

A map of the Library of Congress facilities on Capitol Hill (more exist in Maryland!)

Let’s say you do this and are going to the Main Reading Room, you will never work in such a beautiful and, in my opinion, optimal setting.  So, enter at the Madison building, get your card and walk through the tunnels to the Jefferson building so you do not have to do the security drill again and you bypass the tourists–also allows you to avoid the bizarre DC weather.  Once you get to the Jefferson building (follow the signs–it is not quite as obvious as it might be), go to the coat check–this is mandatory!  Here, you will hand over your bags and coats.  My advice is that you wear a layer or two–I typically find that I get cold after sitting there for a while.  Travelling light is important, too, because you will carry everything in by hand or in provided clear plastic bags–which I love and constantly reused at my campus library!  This includes your laptop and its accessories, pencils (pens are not allowed in some reading rooms!!) and notebooks!  Go find a spot to sit and note the seat number.  Then submit your book requests with your seat number at the desk or pick up the resources that are waiting for you.  Assuming you find what you need, but don’t finish with all of your materials you have the option of holding the books for a week and retrieving them from a room off the Main Reading Room.  Remember you can’t take them with you!

The Jefferson's Main Reading room (LOC)

Use your time wisely and be focused about what you want to do when you are there.  I liked having two projects to work on, because  I could switch my focus if I was hitting a block or getting burned out, but I have also been guilty of over-stimulating myself and not making the best use of my time.  While we are talking about the actual practice of researching let me throw in a quick note about note-taking: Be methodical!  Put your bibliographical information at the top of page (be it in Word or your notebook) and write down the page numbers for each note.  This is a good habit to get into–especially if you have previously been stacking and hoarding library books in your room all semester long.  This will make your research process much more useful to you two years later after you’ve completed that project and realize you need something from that research which you did not include in your paper.  You can’t own all the books you need, but you can take good and useful notes, which may be almost as useful.  (The key is being able to do it quickly, which is something I still struggle at . .  maybe from lack of practice while a student!)  Finally, if you are stuck ask for help.  The librarians know there business and if you are in a specific reading room they really know their stuff.  I was amazed at how they could help me even if they were not experts in my field.  They work for you and work out solutions.  (A shot out to librarians everywhere!)

Pulling an all-dayer is possible, of course, but you need to plan carefully.  For food, you can get “off campus” if you need a break and walk a couple blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue (use the researcher’s entrances and exits on the back side of Jefferson–right next to the coat check), but be aware that the area can get a bit crowded and busy if Congress is in session and the weather is nice.  Otherwise pack your lunch and check it in with bag and coat.  There are places to eat and even purchase food in the LOC–so, again preparation–know the location closest to where you are researching.

This should get you started.  The LOC has most books published in this country, many published abroad, journals, newspapers, photos, audio and video archives.  It is a great place to visit and research.  It is worth developing a project just so you can take advantage of the facility–consider it your duty as an American citizen!