As Ford Risley researched his book, "Abolition and the Press: The Moral Struggle Against Slavery," published in 2008, he relied on newspapers of the antebellum era to give him rich first-hand accounts of the editorial fight against slavery. Risley, professor and department head in Penn State's College of Communications, notes, " I often rely on Penn State's University Libraries collections for primary resource material that I use in my research as well as in the classroom."
He added, "Among the many historical newspapers available online through the News and Microforms Library, African American Newspapers, 1827–1998, was a rich resource for my book, providing interesting and little-known accounts of this era."
The African American Newspapers database provides access to approximately 270 U.S. newspapers in 35 states chronicling a century and a half of the African-American experience. It was created from the most extensive African-American newspaper archives in the United States —t hose of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Kansas State Historical Society and the Library of Congress. Selections were guided by James Danky, editor of "African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography."
The database includes Freedom's Journal (N.Y.) — the first African-American newspaper published in the United States—as well as The Colored Citizen (Kan.), Arkansas State Press, Rights of All (N.Y.), Wisconsin Afro-American, New York Age, L'Union" (La.), Northern Star and Freeman's Advocate (N.Y.), Richmond Planet, Cleveland Gazette, The Appeal (N.M.) and hundreds of others from every region of the U.S.
Coverage begins with Antebellum South, the spread of abolitionism, growth of the Black church, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Jim Crow Era, the Great Migration, the rise of the N.A.A.C.P., the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement and more.
Plus this database can be cross-searched with all other Archive of Americana collections, including Early American Newspapers and Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808–1980.
For more contemporary research into African-American history, the News and Microforms Library offer access to Black Historical Newspapers, 1910–2002, among a host of other resources available through www.libraries.psu.edu/content/psul/researchguides/historical.html The databases are organized as American and International, Penn State, Periodical Press, Microfilm and Microfiche Collection, Directories, and Additional Newspaper Sources, and many include full-page reproductions.
For more information, contact Eric Novotny, history librarian, ecn1@psu.edu, 814-865-1014, or Debora Cheney, Foster Communications Librarian, dlc13@psu.edu, 814-863-1345.