At Carlow, you can use Proquest Historical Newspapers to search the full archive of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Philadelphia Inquirer, going back to their first issues. It is recommended that you access these databases through the Grace Library A-Z Databases page, or using the search box above.
Proquest Historical Newspapers is indexed. This means that you can keyword-search the full text of every article. For example, if you search for "Lusitania," you will get results for every article that has that word somewhere in the headline or text.
Newspaper archives can be an especially potent source of information, especially when doing research in history or genealogy. You may find articles written in response to events as they unfolded, or information written about a particular person while they were alive in order to put their significance into historical context.
- When doing historical research, be conscious of your search terms. For example, in the days following Krystallnacht there were many articles written about the event, but journalists had not begun calling it "Krystallnacht" just yet. In instances such as these it is best to find the date of the event you are researching and browse the newspapers in the dates following. Another example, you will not want to use something like "9/11" as your search term, but instead begin browsing newspaper headlines published on and after September 11, 2001.
- If you are looking for a specific person or place, try different spellings of the name. In the years before instant spell check, it was common to misspell names or even common words, especially when researching articles written in the 18th and 19th centuries.
- Sometimes a newspaper is not indexed, or the index is not reliable. This is especially evident the further back in time you are searching. In these instances, again browse the specific dates of the newspaper or try different search terms.
- This is especially true of obituaries when doing genealogical research. Generally it is best to browse the obituary section of local newspapers in the dates following the death of the person you are researching.
