By Jutta Seibert

In prior decades, access to historical news sources has been revolutionized through large-scale digitization projects. Yet many of the newly created digital newspaper archives remain tied to institutional subscriptions that limit the number and types of archives academic communities can access.

Regrettably, the digitization of non-western newspapers has been neglected for many reasons, including language, writing systems, and demand. These important historical sources were collecting dust in remote storage facilities of large research libraries until 2019 when the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), recognizing the unique value of these collections, partnered with East View, a publisher specializing in Russian, Chinese, and Arabic news databases, to develop a series of digital collections that would provide “global access to a wide selection of newspapers from around the world.”

Thus the Global Press Archive was born. It currently features five open access collections, besides a few more collections that require subscriptions.

Geographic distribution of newspapers in the Global Press Archive.

East View is well known in academic circles as a provider of Russian and Chinese news sources. East View’s experience in digitizing news sources published in non-Roman scripts made them a good fit for CRL who was looking for a partner with expertise in digitizing non-Western newspapers. CRL member institutions hold rich primary source collections from all around the world, and while local interest in these sources can be low, the global communities which produced these newspapers in the first place would be given the unique opportunity to access them freely online.

CRL raised the necessary funds to create a number of open access collections of non-Western news sources and as a result five open access collections were published for the Global Press Archive project since 2019.

Gazetnyĭ mir Rossii XIX – nachala XX veka

The Imperial Russian Newspapers collection features a selection of 32 newspapers published between 1782 and 1917. Most of them are from Moscow and St. Petersburg, but some regional titles are also included. The search interface features a transliteration table and a Cyrillic keyboard to facilitate discovery. Bibliographic indexes of newspapers published in Imperial Russia are part of the collection. Some of the contents of the collection were supplied by the National Library of Russia in collaboration with CRL.

The Southeast Asian Newspapers collection comprises 118 newspapers published in Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam between 1831 and 1958. Most of these news publications were short lived, and the archive will then only include a few years’ worth of issues. The newspapers were produced in a range of Southeast Asian languages including Filipino, Indonesian, Javanese, Vietnamese, Khmer, and Thai. Those unable to read any of these languages might be interested in the Arabic, French, English, Spanish, and Dutch publications that are part of this collection. A quick search for independence retrieves matches for various forms of the word, such as the Spanish independencia and the French inédependance. Most of the newspapers in the archive can only be browsed as the search interface only permits searches for words using the Roman alphabet.

The Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers collection includes about 80 newspapers, mostly from Syria and Lebanon, but also from Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Palestine. Most newspapers are in Arabic but a few papers published in English and French are also included. The collection spans from the second half of the 19th century to the early 20th century. While most of the content of this collection is freely available, access to five newspapers is limited to CRL member institutions. The search interface includes an Arabic keyboard to enter and retrieve search terms in Arabic.

Newspaper vendors in Beirut, 1956. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

El Debate, June 11, 1910.
Courtesy of Global Press Archive.

The Independent and Revolutionary Mexican Newspapers collection offers by far the greatest number of publications with nearly 1,000 newspapers from Mexico’s pre-independence, independence, and revolutionary periods (1807-1929). The newspapers are predominantly in Spanish but a few French, English, and German language titles are also included. While holdings for many of the newspapers featured in this collection are available only in short runs, the titles are often unique and, in many cases, represent the only existing record of a newspaper’s short-lived publication. The collection was digitized based on archival newspaper holdings of the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, a research library at the University of Texas at Austin, considered to be the preeminent Latin American library in the United States.

The Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers collection comprises 292 newspapers spanning the period 1911-1949. All papers are in Chinese. Sadly, the collection lacks a Chinese character keyboard and can hence only be browsed as search results will be limited to ads and names that use the Roman alphabet. Newspapers from more than 20 major cities are included covering most regions of mainland China.

Open access is made possible through the generous support of the Center for Research Libraries and its member institutions. A link to the Global Press Archive collection can be found under “G” on the Library’s Databases A-Z list.

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.

Replica of The Lincoln Bible.

This Presidents’ Day, stop by Falvey Memorial Library’s first floor to view a replica of “The Lincoln Bible.” Used during his inauguration in 1861, the Lincoln Bible didn’t actually belong to the President. The clerk of the Supreme Court, William Thomas Carroll, was the owner of the Bible Lincoln placed his hand upon. The Bible remained in Carroll’s possession until it was acquired by the Lincoln family sometime after the president’s assassination in 1865. Now known as “The Lincoln Bible,” the original copy is currently housed in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The Lincoln Bible was used by President Barack Obama at his inaugurations in 2009 and 2013. President Donald Trump also used the Bible at his inauguration in 2017.

The replica mirrors The Lincoln Bible as it appeared in 1861, as it was not possible to duplicate the wear and fading of the original copy. More features of the replica are listed below:

• 280-page, 1853 Oxford University Edition.
• Inscription of William Thomas Carroll, complete with the seal of the Supreme Court.
• Velvet-covered; framed with brass borders and has a brass clasp, authentic gilded edges, and two ribbon markers.

The Lincoln Bible will be on display in the Library’s first floor Wednesday, Feb. 16, through Monday, Feb. 28.

Dig deeper: You can now view a Bible Lincoln previously owned. The new Lincoln Bible resurfaced in 2019 and is on display at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill. Gifted to Lincoln in 1864 at a charity event in Philadelphia, the cover reads, “Presented to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by the Ladies of the Citizens Volunteer Hospital of Philadelphia.”

Mary Lincoln gave the Bible to the Rev. Noyes W. Miner, a friend of the President, seven years after her husband’s death. Having been passed down through the generations, Miner’s descendants recently disclosed its existence and donated it to the public.

For more on President Lincoln, whose 213th birthday is Feb. 12, check out the links below:

• Abraham Lincoln
• The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (Paludan, 1994)
• Lincoln: A President for the Ages (Weber, 2012)
• A. Lincoln: A Biography (White, 2009)
• Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction (Guelzo, 2009)
• Lincoln: The Screenplay (Kushner, 2012)
• Lincoln (DVD, 2013)
• Hand accounts of Lincoln’s funeral procession in Chicago and Philadelphia (Sherman Thackara Collection)

Looking for a specific resource on President Lincoln? Contact, Jutta Seibert, History Librarian. A special thank you to Andrew McKeough, ’19 CLAS for the exhibit concept.

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.

References:

• Baker, P. (2019, June 20). A New Lincoln Bible, From a Mantel to a Presidential Library. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/us/politics/abraham-lincoln-bible.html
• Magazine, S., & Katz, B. (n.d.). A Bible Owned by Lincoln, Unknown to Historians for 150 Years, Goes on Display. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved February 8, 2022, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bible-owned-lincoln-unknown-historians-150-years-goes-display-180972473/
• The Story Behind the Lincoln Bible at Obama’s Inauguration. (n.d.). US News & World Report. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/god-and-country/2008/12/23/the-story-behind-the-lincoln-bible-at-obamas-inauguration

The 32nd annual Gender and Women’s Studies (GWS) Conference will take place on Friday, March 25 at Villanova University. Looking to showcase your work? Villanova graduates and undergraduates may submit papers or alternative forms of expression (poetry, performances, films, etc.) by Friday, February 11. Applicant’s work must engage gender, sexuality, or feminist theories. All papers must have been written during spring or fall 2020, 2021  (or written specifically for the GWS conference). Scholars can submit their work in one of the following three categories:

1. Papers or creative works by first year undergraduates (4-10 pages)
2. Papers or creative works by sophomores, juniors, and seniors (5-20 pages)
3. Papers or creative works by graduate students (12-30 pages)

View full submission guidelines here. Questions? Email gws@villanova.edu. For the latest updates on the 2022 GWS conference visit the program webpage.

Looking for more GWS resources? Explore the GWS research guide or contact Jutta Seibert, Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement, GWS Librarian, for a research consultation.

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Jutta Seibert

The Marxists Internet Archive (MIA) may at first glance look like a hold-over from the early internet years, but a closer look quickly reveals its lasting scholarly relevance. This one-of-a-kind library is home to a wealth of sources representative of the width and depth of Marxist thinking worldwide. Scholars can find here the works of most Marxist thinkers and practitioners, selected works of contemporary practitioners, and a range of influential works that predate Marx and Engels.

As should be expected from a library of Marxist thought, all content is freely available as promised in the MIA’s charter. The texts in the archive are either in the public domain or were published with the permission of the current copyright holder. Other texts, including transcriptions and translations, were contributed by volunteers.

Some core texts are missing because current copyright holders do not permit to share them freely online. Foremost among these is the authoritative English translation of the collected works of Marx and Engels. This 50-volume set was produced through the collaborative efforts of three left-leaning publishing houses: Lawrence & Wishart (London), International Publishers (New York), and Progressive Publishers (Moscow). Initially Lawrence & Wishart permitted the digital publication of the collected works through MIA but later withdrew its permission fearing a loss of revenue. Today, Lawrence & Wishart only grants free online access to the collected works on its own website. The Villanova community has access to this set through the Past Masters collection, and the Library’s print collection. The German edition of the collected works is freely available online.

The New Masses, Nov. 1930 issue.

Despite the gaping hole left by the absence of the authoritative English translation of the collected works of Marx and Engels, there remains a wealth of Marxist thought to be explored. The Beginner’s Guide to Marxism introduces the subject with a carefully curated selection of fundamental Marxist ideas. The works of major Marxist thinkers, such as Marx & Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, and Mao Zedong, are organized in special sub-archives. MIA can also be explored by browsing through its many subject collections, including archives about branches of Marxism, such as Anarchists and Bolsheviks; key historical events, such as the French Revolution and the Comintern; and related movements, such as the Black Liberation and African Liberation movements. The works of Marxist thinkers who are still alive and politically active are out of scope. The same goes for works that are copyright protected, such as important English translations of the works of Marx & Engels. However, because of the global impact of Marxist thought a wide range of languages and geographical regions are represented in the archive.

The MIA periodicals collection brings together an impressive lineup of socialist and communist newspapers and magazines. They can be accessed through a separate drop-down menu on the archive’s homepage. Most of the periodicals are in English, German, and French. Among the titles are the Black Panther (1967–1976), the Camden Voice of Labor (1912–1920), the Irish Marxist Review (2012–present), the Masses (1911–1917), the Liberator (1918–1924), and the New Masses (1926–1948).

In some cases, only selected articles, as opposed to complete issues, have been digitized. The Rheinische Zeitung is one case in point. Only the articles contributed by Marx are available. The Beijing Review (formerly the Peking Review), an English language news magazine published by the Chinese Communist Party, is not listed on the periodicals menu, but rather the Chinese Communism Archive links to the extensive archive which goes back to the first issue published in 1958 and includes over a thousand issues up to 2006. Besides the works of Marxist thinkers and the extensive collection of periodicals, MIA also offers a small selection of recorded speeches as well as images and short videos.

Each new visit to the MIA promises serendipitous discoveries. On my last visit I found two pamphlet collections from the 1920s: the Little Red Library and a collection of Trade Union Educational League Pamphlets. These pamphlets were published by the Communist Party USA and various trade unions and intended for the education of party and union members. For example, one of the volumes in the Little Red Library was written by Max Shachtman about the Paris Commune, and another one presents Engels’ Principles of Communism in English translation. Make some time and stop by the Marxists Internet Archive! The MIA is linked from the Library’s Databases A-Z list.

Related resources:

• Short biography of Karl Marx from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography written by the indomitable Eric Hobsbawm.
• Short biography of Friedrich Engels from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography written by Gareth Stedman Jones.
• Marx: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd ed., by Peter Singer.
• Engels: A Very Short Introduction, by Terrell Carver.
• Past Masters (InteLex)
  Features the English language edition of the collected works of Marx & Engels published by Lawrence & Wishart, International Publishers, and Progressive Publishers.
• Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA)
  Launched in 1975 as a collaborative project of the SED (GDR) and CPSU (USSR) and published by the East German Dietz Verlag. The project was transferred to the International Marx-Engels Stiftung in Amsterdam and new volumes are published by de Gruyter since 2013.
• Marx-Engels Werke (MEW)
  Published between 1956 and 1968 in East Germany. Lacks some important works and was replaced by MEGA. Freely available online.
• The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism
• The Cambridge History of Communism (3 vols.)

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Jutta Seibert

Proceedings of the 1st National Negro
Congress, Feb. 14-16, 1936, Chicago.
Courtesy of Washington Area Spark.

Labor rights were an important facet of the civil rights movement and figured prominently on the program of the National Negro Congress (NNC). Some union excluded African Americans while others limited their rights in one way or another. The Communist Party of the United States of America, which promoted worker solidarity across racial and national boundaries, supported the work of the NNC. Although the NNC did not expressly favor any political party some of its members were affiliated with the Communist Party. James W. Ford, one of the co-founders of the NNC, was three times selected to run as the Communist Party’s vice presidential candidate. The novelist, poet, and activist Richard Wright was likewise affiliated with both organizations. Other prominent members of the NNC included the singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson and Asa Philip Randolph, the founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. African America, Communists, and the National Negro Congress (AACNNC), a collection of primary sources documenting the work of the NNC is available at Falvey Memorial Library. The papers in the collection outline the history of the NNC from its inception to its dissolution.

John P. Davis, a lawyer, journalist, and activist, who was the driving force behind the NNC, envisioned it as an umbrella organization that would unite and focus existing efforts in the struggle for equal rights and thus increase national impact. He already had an extensive network of connections among African American organizations, such as the NAACP and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters from his prior work with the Joint Committee on National Recovery.

The NNC convened for its first national convention in Chicago on February 14, 1936. Richard Wright attended the convention and wrote about it in an essay entitled “Two Million Black Voices,” which appeared in the communist magazine The New Masses (Feb. 25, 1936, p. 15). In it he vividly evoked a sense of shared purpose and hope.  African American newspapers likewise reported on the Chicago convention. Throughout the month of February The Chicago Defender informed its readers about the activities at the Convention in great detail. It also published the resolutions adopted by the NNC.

“Resolutions Adopted by the National Congress.” Chicago Defender, February 22, 1936, p. 10.

The oldest documents in the AACNNC collection date back to 1933, predating the formation of the NNC by a few years. The papers from those early years document the efforts to get the new organization off the ground. The range of documents in the collection includes print materials as well as typed and hand-written manuscripts from the papers of John P. Davis, Edward Strong, and Revels Cayton, who served as executive secretaries from 1935 to 1947, as well as Davis’ files from the Negro Industrial League and from his work on the Joint Committee on National Recovery along with records of the Negro Labor Victory Committee. The original documents are preserved at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which provides a detailed description of the collection on its website.

Villanova students, faculty, and staff may access the collection on Gale’s Archives Unbound platform via the Library’s Databases A-Z list under “A”.

Related Resources

• Wittner, Lawrence S. “The National Negro Congress: A Reassessment.” American Quarterly 22, no. 4 (1970): 883–901. https://doi.org/10.2307/2711875.
• Davis, John P. Let Us Build a National Negro Congress. Washington: National Sponsoring Committee, National Negro Congress, 1935. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112063345828.
• Black Historical Newspapers (ProQuest)
  Offers access to the major African American newspapers of the 20th century: the Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003), the Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988), the Cleveland Call & Post (1934-1991), the Chicago Defender (1910-1975), the Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005), the New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993), the Norfolk Journal & Guide (1921-2003), the Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001), and the Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002).
• The New Masses Digital Archive (Marxist Internet Archive)
• The Daily Worker Online, 1922-1968 (Brill)
  Offers the complete archive of the Daily Worker, which was the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) between 1924 and 1958.
• African American Studies Center (Oxford University Press)
  Contains a selection of information sources ranging from the authoritative Encyclopedia of African American History to the African American National Biography project. Selected primary sources, maps, images, charts, and tables round out the collection.
• Race Relations in America (Adam Matthew Digital)
  Documents the fight for civil rights with digital copies of the reports, surveys, analyses, and speeches produced by staff and participants of the Annual Race Relations Institute based at Fisk University from 1943 to 1970. Sourced from the records of the Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, housed at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans.

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Jutta Seibert

Newspaper section of
Emily McPherson College Library,
Russell Street, circa 1960s.
Courtesy of Museums Victoria.

Newspapers and magazines are popular primary sources for good reasons: many of them have been digitized, they cover most topics and events, and they are continuously published over many years.

Compared to other primary sources, which are preserved in brick and mortar archives and which may only exist in their fragile original format, newspaper and magazine archives are widely available with few hurdles to access. By their very nature they were mass-produced when they were first published, and in many cases have since been converted to microfilm and digital formats.

Identifying suitable newspapers and magazines for a project among the plethora of serial publications would be daunting where it not for specific research tools designed to help with this task.

Newspaper and magazine archives present some unique research challenges, such as locating existing archives or issues and finding access to them through library portals. Falvey’s new research guide Newspapers & Magazines addresses most of these challenges. It offers guidance on how to find a specific newspaper or magazine, how to find a cited article, how to identify newspapers and magazines for a project, and gives advice on how to work with digital and microfilm archives. It also covers Chicago-style citations for news articles. One of the most exciting features of the new guide is an A-Z list of available newspaper and magazine archives.

Microfilm reader, Haifa University Library, ca. 1980.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Newspapers & Magazines research guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, which encourages interested readers to reuse all or part of its contents. Falvey also offers a workshop on research with newspaper and magazine archives, which can be requested through the Library’s website.

We invite you to take a closer look and revisit the guide the next time you are looking for newspaper and magazine archives. The Newspapers & Magazines research guide can be found on the history subject guide on the Library’s website.

Let us know what you think and send us your questions.

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Jutta Seibert

Villanova University faculty, students, and staff now have electronic access to all volumes in the acclaimed Studies in Imperialism series published by Manchester University Press. For close to forty years the series has retained its relevance in academic circles by steadily expanding its cross-disciplinary scope. John M. MacKenzie, the founding editor of the series and an occasional contributor, explored the cross-fertilization or, as some would argue, the cross-contamination between the usurper and the usurped in Propaganda and Empire (1984), the first volume in the series. The series’ continued success reflects the pervasive and persistent bonds between metropolis and periphery in the post-colonial period.

As general editor, MacKenzie has promoted cross-disciplinary research in imperial studies through his research and editorial work for more than thirty years. In Propaganda and Empire MacKenzie explored the impact of imperialism on British popular culture. As the editor of the following volume, Imperialism and Popular Culture (1986), he invited other scholars to further explore the same topic. During his tenure as general editor, MacKenzie continued to push Studies in Imperialism into new directions. Examples include his foray into environmental history with The Empire of Nature, which appeared in 1988, followed by Imperialism and the Natural World (1990), a collection of essays edited by MacKenzie. His Museums and Empire (2009) introduced museum studies to the series. Later volumes on imperial museums and exhibitions include Exhibiting the Empire (2015), a collection of essays edited by MacKenzie that explored the domestically promoted imperial narrative, and Curating Empire (2012), a collection of essays edited by Sarah Longair and John McAleer.

The Library’s catalog includes records for all available print and electronic editions of individual volumes in the series. Access to the complete series is also available via the Library’s Databases A-Z list under S.

Learn more about Studies in Imperialism

• Thompson, Andrew (ed.) Writing Imperial Histories. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.
  Volume 100 reflects and celebrates Studies in Imperialism.
• Thompson, A. S. (ed.). (2013). Complete List of the Manchester University Press Studies in Imperialism Series, 1985–2013. In Writing Imperial Histories (pp. vii–xii). Manchester University Press.
• Ward, Stuart. “The MacKenziean Moment in Retrospect (or How One Hundred Volumes Bloomed).” In Writing Imperial Histories, edited by Andrew Thompson, 29-48. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.
• MacKenzie, John M. “Afterword.” In Writing Imperial Histories, edited by Andrew Thompson, 268-274. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.

Related resources

• British Library Newspapers (Gale)
  Includes over 160 newspaper titles spanning the years 1732 to 1950. The archive reflects diverse and distinct regional attitudes, cultures, and vernaculars, providing an alternative viewpoint to the London-centric national press.
• Times (London) Digital Archive, 1785-2012 (Gale)
• Times of India, 1838-2010 (ProQuest)
• British Periodicals (ProQuest)
  Provides access to British periodicals published from the 17th through the early 20th century with the majority of content from the 19th century. Covers a broad range of topics.
• 19th Century UK Periodicals (UK)
  Features digital access to a selection of 19th century British magazines on women, children, leisure and sport, humor, anthropology, travel, missionaries, and colonies.
• Age of Exploration (Adam Matthew Digital)
• China: Trade, Politics and Culture, 1793-1980 (Adam Matthew Digital)
• Empire Online (Adam Matthew Digital)
• Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement and Colonial Encounters (Adam Matthew Digital)
• India, Raj and Empire (Adam Matthew Digital)

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Jutta Seibert

Villanova faculty, staff, and students have temporary access to the complete digital archive of Izvestiia until Nov. 1. Izvestiia (Известия) is one of the longest running Russian newspapers. It was the official organ of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and was often called the Kremlin’s newspaper of record. It was first published in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) by the Petrograd Soviet in 1917. The Bolsheviks took over Izvestiia after the October Revolution and relocated it to Moscow when the Soviet government moved there. Izvestiia remained the main news outlet of the Soviet state until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, after which it became independent. The archive covers the Soviet era in its entirety as well as the collapse of the Union and the following decades until 2011.

The Izvestiia archive is available from East View, a publisher that specializes in international news sources. The search interface accepts Romanized (transliterated) Russian and Cyrillic search terms. Cyrillic search terms can be entered with an integrated Cyrillic keyboard.

Russian news sources available through Falvey Library include:

• Izvestiia Digital Archive, 1917-2011 (East View)
  Presents the complete archive of Izvestiia (Известия), one of the longest running Russian newspapers and the official organ of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The archive covers the Soviet era in its entirety as well as the collapse of the Union and the first decades of the Russian Federation.
  Trial access until Nov. 1, 2021.
• Moscow News Digital Archive (East View)
  Features the longest running English-language newspaper published in Russia from 1930 to 2014.
• Current Digest of the Russian Press, 1949- (East View)
  Offers a selection of Russian-language news in translation.
• Imperial Russian Newspapers (East View)
  Presents open access to selected Russian newspapers published between 1782 and 1917.

Trial access is available to all Villanova University faculty, staff, and students. Links to the two archives will be available on the Databases A-Z list under “I” for the duration of the trial. Contact us if you would like to recommend this resource for the permanent collection.

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Jutta Seibert

Falvey Library recently expanded its Irish newspaper holdings with assistance from the Irish Studies program and the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. The newly acquired Radical Newspapers collection from Irish Newspaper Archives includes more than 100 Irish newspapers, bulletins, and pamphlets, mostly from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection consists of digital copies of a broad range of nationalist, republican, and socialist publications. It offers rich contemporary commentary on Ireland’s War of Independence (1919-1921) and many other topics.

The United Irishman, Sinn Fein Daily, The Irish Worker, and The Workers’ Republic are some of the better-known newspapers in the collection. The United Irishman was an Irish nationalist weekly published from 1899 to 1906. Irish leaders such as Pádraig Pearse, Maud Gonne, and Roger Casement regularly contributed to the paper. The paper ceased publication after only seven years following a libel suit. The same year it was re-started under the new name Sinn Féin, under which it was published until 1914 when it was suppressed by the British government. The Irish Worker was founded in 1911 by James Larkin, an Irish trade union leader. It was also suppressed by the British government in 1914. The Workers’ Republic was the official organ of the Socialist Party of Ireland. Its first issue was printed in 1898 under the aegis of James Connolly, another Irish trade union leader and the founder of the Irish Socialist Republican Party. Connolly emigrated to the U.S. in 1903, where he worked for a few years as the editor of the Free Press, a newspaper out of New Castle, Pa. He returned to Ireland in 1910 as organizer of the Socialist Party of Ireland. Many of his contributions to The Workers’ Republic and other papers have been transcribed for the Marxist Internet Archive.

Many of the publications in the collection were ephemeral in nature and, in some cases, only a handful of issues have been preserved. For example, the Radical Newspaper archive only includes a single issue of The Woman Worker (An Bhean Oibre), a short-lived newspaper published by the Irish Women Workers’ Union from 1926 to 1928. Helpful publication histories for individual titles in the collection are available elsewhere on the publisher’s website.

Irish Newspapers Archive has created a short tutorial that introduces available search features. Search facets include date range, publication title, and document type. The search bar features Boolean operators to combine search terms. Search results can be refined in various ways but beware the byline facet as many articles do not carry a byline and results are unreliable. The digital archive is easy to navigate from search results to article and/or page display. Individual articles can be clipped and downloaded or saved to a personal collection. Access the Radical Newspapers archive via the Library’s Databases A-Z list under “R”.

Austin Molloy.
The Nation’s Armour.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Related resources in the Falvey collections:

• Irish studies research guide
• The Irish Times (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
  Presents a complete archive of the Irish Times back to 1859 (except for the most recent two years) and the Weekly Irish Times (1876-1958).
• Irish newspapers in Falvey’s Digital Library
  Available titles include The Free State, The Irish Felon, The Irish People, The Irish Tribune, The Irish Worker and People’s Advocate, The Irishman, The United Irishman, and The Waterford Chronicle.
• Irish newspapers on microfilm in the Falvey collection
  Titles available include: An-Phoblacht/The Republic, Belfast News-letter, Dublin News, Evening Freeman, Evening Telegraph, Freeman’s Journal, Irish Freedom, Irish Times, Irish Tribune, Irishman, Pilot, The Peasant, United Irishman, and The Weekly Nation.
• The Irish Press
  A weekly newspaper dedicated to Irish nationalism for an Irish American audience. It was founded by Joseph McGarrity and published in Philadelphia from 1918 to 1922.

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Jutta Seibert

Bloomsbury History: Theory & Method is a brand new digital resource dedicated to historiography and the examination of historical theory and methods using a global approach. It features cutting-edge scholarship in the form of exclusive articles contributed by historians from 25 different countries. At the core of the collection are the recently published four-volume survey Historiography: Critical Readings edited by Q. Edward Wang and 100 essays that explore key concepts, thinkers, debates, and methods as well as a small selection of classical texts that shaped the discipline. Examples of topics include medievalism, social movements, agency, causality, microhistory, environmental history, and public history to name just a few. The collection also features digital access to more than 60 previously published monographs and essay collections that focus on historiography, theory and methods. Included are the following titles:

• The Concept of History (2017) by Dmitri Nikulin
• Historiography: An Introductory Guide (2012) by Eileen K. Cheng
• Theories of History: History Read across the Humanities (2018) by Michael J. Kelly and Arthur Rose (eds.)
• Global History, Globally: Research and Practice around the World (2018) by Sven Beckert and Dominic Sachsenmaier (eds.)
• Contesting History: Narratives of Public History (2014) by Jeremy Black

New content will be added continuously in the coming years. Trial access will be available until October 22, 2021. A link to the collection is available on the Library’s Databases A-Z list under B. Get in touch if you would like to recommend this resources for the Library’s permanent collection.

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.