While at the College of Southern Maryland doing a program on communications and newspapers during the War of 1812, the audience was interested in some of the digital newspapers that are now available online for researching this era. We had talked about how editors gathered and distributed news during the times when the region was on the front line of the war, and in discussion session afterwards members were curious about the newspapers. They asked questions such as how so many survived, what the production process was like, and how to access them online.
While there are a number of digital collections of broadsheets online from subscription e-content providers, there are some great free ones too. One, a seldom used newspaper called “The War,” is a resource researchers of this period will find of interest. Printed in New York from 1812 to 1817 by Samuel Woodworth, the publisher devoted the paper to documenting the war for subscribers. He also sought to make create a history of those alarming times. “The War” has been digitized by the Lilly Library and Indiana University, thus making the pages available to a broad audience. Also there is the digital newspaper project at the Library of Congress.
This online resource came to our attention as a result of a post we read on the blog “I found it at the Watkinson”
