Indiana University’s Lilly Library Releases Online Finding Aid for Collection of 900 Historic Periodicals and Newspapers

From an Article by Joel Silver, Director of the Lilly Library/Indiana University:

The collections of the Lilly Library have expanded in many ways since its 1960 founding, and like every great special collections library, the Library is a “collection of collections,” as new collections formed by private collectors who specialized in various fields have been added to the Library’s original holdings.

Among the important collections added to the Library in recent years is the “Jonathan Krause Rare Newspaper and Magazine Collection,” which spans the mid-seventeenth through the late-nineteenth centuries, and has a special focus on late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century American publications.  There is a very strong concentration on newspapers and magazines that includes the writings of the “Founding Fathers” of the United States, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine.  There are also a number of earlier newspapers and magazines relating to the American Revolution, and a focus on later American history including slavery and abolitionism, Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

The Jonathan Krause Rare Newspaper and Magazine Collection consists of approximately 900 original issues of historical newspapers and magazines. The collection has already been used by faculty and students in class sessions at the Lilly Library, as well by researchers in the Library’s Reading Room.  Students have been struck by the connections of these periodicals to the daily lives of their original readers, as the words of some of the most famous people in American history appeared together with advertisements for goods and services, and announcements and legal notices on a variety of topics.

Learn More, Read the Complete Article

Direct to Finding Aid: Jonathan Krause Rare Newspaper and Magazine Collection, 1648-1881

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