Research & Subject Guides: The History and Future of the American Press: Clip Files (Find Articles)

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Searching the Clip File

Library Databases index and in many cases provide the full text of newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, and other resources. When your Journalism professors tell you to "Search the Clip File" you want to search the library databases....

Historical resources

Subject specific databases of particular use for History of American Journalism:

America: History and Life - focus on US and Canadian history

Historical Abstracts - world history, excluding US and Canada

Academic Search Complete - indexing and full text from a wide range of resources

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 - includes information about women journalists

North American Women's Letters and Diaries, Colonial to 1950 - includes first-hand accounts, mention of journalists made frequently

In the First Person - first-hand accounts of various topics back to the 1500s.

Looking for Articles

When looking for old articles on a topic you must search the resources from that time period. If you are looking for contemporary (i.e., from that time) accounts of Hearst's objections to Orson Welles' film, then make sure you are in an index that covers that time period.

Searching the New York Times Historical File (which covers 1851-three years ago) for example, yields many articles on the topic from that time period (1940s). By comparison, searching Lexis Nexis' Academic Universe (1985-present) will only find articles as far back as 1985.

Use the Databases page to find out what databases (indexes and abstracts, encyclopedias, etc.) the library provides. From the Databases page you can locate a resource by broad subject area using the drop down box, or by its title by using the alphabetical list. These online indexing and full-text resources will help you find more information in magazine and journal articles, in books the library does not list in its catalog, and in a variety of other materials.

Use the Find Early American Papers tab above for more tips.

Start Your Clip File Searches Here

These are the biggest, most frequently used newspaper and magazine databases (i.e., indexes). Start your research here.

Academic Search Complete
Date coverage varies, back to 1887. Scholarly, multi-disciplinary database. Covers over 6100 fulltext journals, 5100 peer reviewed journals, and indexing for over 10,000 journals. Non-journal publications are also indexed.
Nexis Uni
Date coverage varies. Fulltext. Over 10,000 news, business, and legal sources. News coverage includes deep backfiles and up-to-the-minute stories in national and regional newspapers, wire services, broadcast transcripts, international news, and non-English language sources.
Gale OneFile: News
1980-present. Citations. Covers 5 U.S. newsapapers: The Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Newsday
1985-present. Fulltext of Newsday (Combined edition). Fulltext of Nassau edition 1988-1997. Fulltext of Queens edition 1988-1996.
Newspaper Source Plus
Current. Full text. Includes 1,570 full-text newspapers, providing more than 27 million full-text articles. In addition, the database features more than 583,100 television and radio news transcripts, videos & podcasts.
New York State Newspapers
1980-2010. New York State Newspapers with 4 million+ articles. updated daily.

Historic Newspaper Collections Online

African American Newspapers (1827-1998)
1827-1998. Full-text. Online access to approximately 270 U.S. newspapers from more than 35 states—including many rare and historically significant 19th century titles. Beginning with Freedom's Journal (NY)—the first African American newspaper published in the United States—the titles in this resource include The Colored Citizen (KS), Arkansas State Press, Rights of All (NY), Wisconsin Afro-American, New York Age, L'Union (LA), Northern Star and Freeman's Advocate (NY), Richmond Planet, Cleveland Gazette, The Appeal (MN) and hundreds of others from every region of the U.S.
America's Historical Newspapers
1755-1922. Fulltext. More than 135 historic newspapers from all 50 states. Titles include The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery newspaper; New Orleans Daily Creole, the first African-American newspaper in America; Siwinowe Kesibwi (Shawnee Star), the first newspaper printed wholly in a Native American language; and the Maryland Gazette, the oldest continuously published newspaper in America. Regional newspapers include The New York Herald, Irish World, and Jewish Daily News.
Gale Primary Sources: Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
1700-1799. Fulltext. Major digital collection consisting of every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom during the 18th century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. Includes over 180,000 titles (200,000 volumes) - books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and more. Based on the English Short Title Catalogue.
Latin American Historical Newspapers
1805-1922. Full-text. Over 300 Latin American newspapers published in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Combining Latin American Newspapers Series I & II, the collection features papers in English, Spanish and Portuguese from 20 countries, including key titles such as La Nacion, La Prensa and Vanguardia (Buenos Aires), Jornal do Commercio (Rio de Janeiro), O Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo), Mercurio (Santiago), La Prensa (Havana), La Patria, Mexican Herald and El Monitor Republicano (Mexico City) , El Peruano and West Coast Leader (Lima) and Venezuelan Herald (Caracas).
New York Times (Historical)
Coverage: 1851-3 years ago.

Online access to page images and fulltext articles from the New York Times as far back as the first issue.
Gale Primary Sources: The Times Digital Archive, 1785-2014
1785-1985. Full text. Digital edition of The Times (London) with searching capability and facsimile images of individual articles or the complete page. Includes parliamentary debates, editorials, birth and death notices, advertisements, illustrations/photos and classified ads. More than 7 million articles. Does not include the Sunday Times, the Times Educational Supplement, the Times Higher Education Supplement, or the Times Literary Supplement.

Washington Post Archive (1877-1994)
1877-1996. Fulltext. Digitized historical archive of The Washington Post. Complete issues, cover to cover, from its beginning in 1877 until 1996, including news articles, photos, advertisements, marriage announcements, obituaries, cartoons, and more. In searchable pdf format.

Specialized Clip Resources

Use these resources to search for clips in a variety of specialized areas such as women's and gender issues, alternative presses, and ethnic news.

Gale OneFile: Contemporary Women's Issues
1992-present. Fulltext. Books, articles, newsletters, and reports. 2000 sources from 250 organizations: mainstream periodicals, "gray" literature, and alternative presses from over 190 countries.
Ethnic NewsWatch
1990-present. Fulltext. Articles from newspapers and periodicals published by ethnic, minority and native presses in the United States. In English and Spanish.
GenderWatch
This is a database of unique and diverse publications that focus on how gender impacts a broad spectrum of subject areas. With its archival material, dating back to 1970 in some cases, GenderWatch is a repository of important historical perspectives on the evolution of the women's movement, men's studies, the transgender community and the changes in gender roles over the years. Publications include scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books and NGO, government and special reports.

All databases

The Library has hundreds of databases covering a wide range of information. Check out the subject list of what is available for you to search:

The History and Future of the American Press: Clip Files (Find Articles)