5. TITLE: Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876. - Yelena
VENDOR: Readex: a division of NewsBank
WEB SITE: http://www.readex.com/scholarl/earlamnp.html
PRICE: The Early American Newspapers Series I, 1690-1876 will run us $67,900,
which includes a discount because of our Evans purchase. This would be a one time
purchase for the collection, with a $2,000 annual maintenance fee that would kick in at
the 1st anniversary of the purchase date. Access is IP authenticated, unlimited usage, site
license with remote access. They can set up a payment plan for us, but if it is multi-year
we might end up paying more than the $67,900.
DESCRIPTION (from the publisher):
In 1690, Benjamin Harris published Publick Occurrences, the first newspaper in
America. The British colonial governor immediately suppressed it, and only one issue
was ever published. However, beginning with the Boston News-Letter in 1704, the early
American newspaper industry thrived, experiencing particularly strong growth following
technological advances in the 19th century. Early American newspapers, published often
by small-town printers, documented the daily life of hundreds of diverse American
communities, supported different political parties and recorded both majority and
minority views.
Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876 offers fully searchable, cover-to-cover
reproductions of more than one million pages from more than 650 historical American
newspapers, focusing on titles published in the 18th century.
While assembling the original collection of early American newspapers on microfilm,
Readex began with Clarence Brigham's renowned “History and Bibliography of
American Newspapers, 1690-1820.” The core of the Readex collection is formed by
Isaiah Thomas' own collection of colonial and early national period newspapers and
supplemented by issues added by Thomas' successors at the American Antiquarian
Society.
Numerous other institutions and historical societies have contributed to the collection,
including the Boston Athenaeum; the Connecticut Historical Society; the Connecticut
State Library; the Library Company of Philadelphia; the Library of Congress; the
libraries of universities such as Brown and Harvard; and private collections. This joint
effort led to the creation of a historical newspaper collection of momentous breadth and
depth.
JUSTIFICATION:
This collection would make the full collection of newspapers produced in early America
available for UM students use. Newspapers are one of the most valuable sources for
exploring the social, cultural and political history of colonial, revolutionary and early
national America. The purchase of this collection would enhance the research
components of many courses taught in the history department.
Because newspapers have no thematic limitation they can be used in courses that address
a wide range of issues. They would be important tools in Dr. Berlin’s courses on slavery,
Dr. Henretta’s courses on constitutional issues, Dr. Ridgway’s courses on politics, Dr.
Bradbury’s courses on religion, Dr. Grimstead’s courses on cultural history, Dr. Lyons
courses on women and gender history, as well as the chronological courses Americanists
history faculty teach on Colonial US, American Revolution, and Early National United
States History.
Students in history would use these materials in the two capstone research courses Hist
208 Historical Research and Methods, and Hist 408 Senior Seminar. Both are required of
history majors.
This database would also be used in lower level and upper division courses which service
the general university student population:
Hist 156 US History to 1865
(800 students enroll in this course each year)
Hist 210 Women in America to 1880
(160 students each year
Hist 306 History of Religion in America (40 students a year)
Hist 352 American in the Colonial era
(80 students a year)
Hist 353 American in the Revolutionary era (40 students a year)
Hist 354 Ante-Bellum America
(40 students a year)
Hist 419 Hist of Slavery/and race
(40 students a year)
Hist 456 Hist of American Culture to 1865 (40 students a year)
Hist 463 Hist of the Old South
(40 students a year)
Hist 619C Special Topics in History: African American History
Hist 619R Special Topics in History: Gender, Race and Conquest: Europe Meets The
New World, 1500-1900
Hist 629 Readings in the American Revolution and New Nation, 1763 to 1812
Hist 810 Museum Research Seminar
This collection would also be very useful to our faculty and graduate students whose
research and publication fields are in the early American period (currently six faculty in
history, history dept is hiring a 7th this year.).
In addition to the history program, this database will become an essential tool for
numerous departments and program on campus, including African American Studies,
American Studies, Anthropology, Art History and Archaeology, Architecture, English,
Government and Politics, Music, Women’s Studies, and possibly a few more.
There is another important fact about this database: it contains the very first newspapers
of Maryland and the District of Columbia, which will greatly compliment our Marylandia
collections.
Surprisingly this is truly a unique resource for our library. Because of the cost issues, we
were not able to purchase this resource in the past (it was offered in a microfilm format),
although surprisingly we purchased the entire microfilm set of the Early English
Newspapers. Overall we have only a few examples of the Early American Newspapers,
which I had to purchase individually over many years.
FACULTY REQUESTS:
The first request that the library purchase the new database of Early American
Newspapers, and the second expresses concern that the library is considering eliminating
ESTC! Please let me know if I can provide any additional information - these are both
serious concerns for faculty in the history department.
(Clare Lyons)
I'm a graduate student in the Department of History writing my dissertation on colonial
and revolutionary America. I've recently become aware that News Bank, in conjunction
with the
American Antiquarian Society, has digitized many of New England’s Early American
newspapers in a database called "Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876." I
suggest the library look into getting a subscription to this excellent resource for research.
This database would not only be useful to the other early Americanists, but also would be
of great interest for the History 208 and 408 classes that use primary sources for their
final papers.
(Kelly A. Ryan)