Pennsylvania Newspapers

United States U.S. Newspapers  Pennsylvania  Newspapers

Newspapers are an important source for vital records, etc., during the period before Pennsylvania began keeping civil vital records.

History
Pennsylvania's first newspaper was the American Weekly Mercury, published in Philadelphia in 1719. Ben Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette began in 1728.

Pennsylvania presses published German-language newspapers as early as the eighteenth century. Reading's Adler is an example that continued to be printed up to the early 1900s.

Libraries and Archives
The State Library of Pennsylvania has the largest newspaper collection. An inventory of these is Louis F. Rauco, Pennsylvania Newspapers and Selected Out-of-State Newspapers ([S. l.: s. n.], 1984; Family History Library ; item 16).

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has a major collection, especially of Philadelphia newspapers (1790-present).

The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has a large collection, especially of Pittsburgh newspapers. It also has a card index to marriages and deaths listed in the newspapers in their collection.

Newspaper Directory
The U.S. Newspaper Directory, 1690-Present is a national directory from the Library of Congress of over 140,000 newspaper titles. The directory provides a list of libraries from around the country that have the newspapers in their collections

Digital Issues Online

 * Penn State University Libraries digital collections Pennsylvania Civil War Era Newspaper Collection.
 * Pennsylvania digitized newspapers on:Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers.
 * NewspaperArchive.com ($) has a large collection of Pennsylvania newspapers online. This database is sometimes free at libraries under the name Access NewspaperArchive.
 * First several years of The American Weekly Mercury is available for free online (1719-1723).
 * Accessible Archives ($) has The Pennsylvania Gazette (1728-1800).
 * Extra! Extra! Read All About It! FREE Historic Newspapers Online: Links to free online collections of historic newspapers published in Pennsylvania.

Indexes

 * 1728-1791 - Hildeburn, Charles R. "An Index to the Obituary Notices published in the Pennsylvania Gazette, from 1728-1791," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 10 (1886):334-349. For free online access, see WeRelate.

Family History Library
The Family History Library has the Pittsburgh Daily Gazette on microfilm (1786-1880) and a few other newspapers. It has several published abstracts and indexes of Pennsylvania newspapers, including:


 * Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728 to 1748
 * Pennsylvania Chronicle, 1767 to 1774
 * Daily Telegraph, 1883 to 1900
 * German newspapers published in Philadelphia and Germantown, 1743 to 1800
 * Quaker Necrology (59,000 obituaries found in Quaker newspapers of Philadelphia and other cities), 1828 to 1960

An excellent bibliography of Pennsylvania newspapers is Ruth Salisbury, ed., Pennsylvania Newspapers, a Bibliography and Union List (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Library Association, 1969; Family History Library ).

An inventory for Philadelphia County is Pennsylvania Historical Survey, Division of Community Service Programs, Work Projects Administration, A Checklist of Pennsylvania Newspapers, Philadelphia County (Harrisburg, Pa.; Pennsylvania Historical Commission, 1944; Family History Library ).

Valuable newspaper information is in:


 * Manning, Barbara. Genealogical Abstracts from Newspapers of the German Reformed Church, 1830-1839. Bowie, Maryland.: Heritage Books, 1992. (Family History Library book .)
 * Manning, Barbara. Genealogical Abstracts from Newspapers of the German Reformed Church 1840-1843. Bowie, Maryland.: Heritage Books, Inc., 1995. (Family History Library .)

Web Sites

 * Access Pennsylvania Digital Repository managed for the Office of Commonwealth Libraries www.accesspadigital.org/
 * USNPL: Pennsylvania - This site provides links to Pennsylvania historical newspapers and current newspaper websites.