Historical Digital Newspaper Collections

Free Web Resources

California Digital Newspaper Project (UC Riverside)

This digital collection contains various California newspapers published since 1846.  Full-text digital scans are available for selected issues of The California Star (1/9/1847 – 6/14/1848), California Star & Californian (11/18/1848 – 12/23/18), Daily Alta California (12/10/1849 – 6/2/1891), and San Francisco Call (4/1/1890 – 12/31/1913).  Searchable by keyword, title, place, subject, publishing year, and holding institution.  Maintained by the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside.

Chronicling America: Historical American Newspapers (Library of Congress)

This digital collection contains newspapers published in the United States from 1690 to the present.  Search and view old newspapers from 1900 to 1910 from several states and Washington D.C.  Full-text digital scans are available for selected issues of The Morning Call (4/1/1890 – 3/4/1895), San Francisco Call (3/5/1895 – 12/8/1913), and San Francisco Call and Post (12/9/1913 – 12/31/1913).  Maintained by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

SFPL Resources (Requires library card)

California Historical Newspapers (Newsbank)

This database contains full-text digital scans of 17 historic California newspapers from the 19th century, including the American Sentinel, California Star, Daily Globe, Evening Post, Oakland Daily News, San Francisco Bulletin, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Evening Journal, Weekly Alta California and others. (Newsbank)

San Francisco Chronicle Historical (Newsbank)

This database contains full-text digital scans of the San Francisco Chronicle from 1865 to 2017.  Covers news articles capturing the social, political, and current events during the late 19th and early 20th century in San Francisco.  Includes specialized search options for obituaries, birth notices, classified ads, editorials, and more. See other database options for the San Francisco Chronicle, including post-2017.

San Francisco Examiner, Historical & Recent (ProQuest)

This database contains full-text digital scans of the Examiner from 1865-1889 as the Daily Examiner, 1889-1902 as the The Examiner , and 1902-present as the San Francisco Examiner

Los Angeles Times Historical (ProQuest)

This database contains full-text digital scans of the Los Angeles Times from 1881 to present. 

Newspaper ARCHIVE - United States Collection (NewspaperArchive.com)

This database contains full-text digital scans of historical U.S. and California newspapers such as the Berkeley Daily Gazette, Oakland Tribune, San Mateo Times and many others. As the largest historical newspaper database online, it contains tens of millions of newspaper pages from the 1700s to present. Every newspaper in the archive is fully searchable by keyword and date, making it easy for you to quickly explore historical content.

New York Times Historical (ProQuest)

This database contains full-text digital scans of the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times from September 18, 1851 to four years ago.  Considered by some to be “the national paper of record,” this newspaper covers articles capturing the social, political, and current events during the late 19th and early 20th century in New York and throughout the nation.  Includes specialized search options for obituaries, birth notices, classified ads, editorials, and more.