The Daily Worker

Daily Worker was created for Communist Party USA members in 1921. The paper was originally titled the Worker, centered in Chicago and marketed as a weekly newspaper for the first three years of its existence. It then moved to New York City and carried out a pre-planned expansion into a daily broadsheet with a new name, Daily Worker. Publication under this new title lasted from 1924 to 1958. Daily Worker was primarily focused on issues relating to organized labor.    Continue reading “The Daily Worker

New Digital Collections for Fall 2020

We have acquired several new digital collections for Fall, 2020, including major historical newspaper collections, module three of British Periodicals, two collections for the study of LGBTQ history, the latest release of records from the Mass Observation archive (1981-1990), over  two centuries of U.S. government documents, and a major collection of Chinese gazetteers.

Continue reading “New Digital Collections for Fall 2020”

Flash Newspapers: New Digital Collection

Flash newspapers were a type of “underground newspaper” that catered to people interested in reading about, or participating in, illicit activities, such as gambling, prostitution, and other forms of vice. Flash newspapers were often published and circulated secretly, so as to avoid detection by law-enforcement, and consequently these newspapers were  rarely collected by libraries. The best collection of flash newspapers in the United States is held by the American Antiquarian Society, and a large portion of that collection has now been digitized by Readex. The University of Illinois Library is pleased to announce that we have acquired this digital collection, American Underworld: The Flash Press.

Continue reading “Flash Newspapers: New Digital Collection”

Latin American Newspapers Series 2

Now available: Latin American Newspapers Series 2. Part of the World Newspaper Archive (which also includes African Newspapers, and South Asian Newspapers), Latin American Newspapers Series 2 is the second module in what is arguably becoming the best digital collection of Central and South American newspapers available anywhere.

Continue reading “Latin American Newspapers Series 2”

Digitized Pittsburgh Newspapers

The Library now has permanent access to a collection of digitized Pittsburgh newspapers. Although the database is called ProQuest Historical Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the collection is actually a couple dozen different newspapers related to the Post-Gazette, which did not begin publication under that title until 1927. This collection boasts newspapers dating back to 1786.

Continue reading “Digitized Pittsburgh Newspapers”

New Digitized Newspaper Collection: Historical Communist Newspapers

The Library now has permanent access to ProQuest Historical Communist Newspapers, a collection of nine labor, socialist, and communist newspapers published in the United States. All nine newspapers are connected to the Daily Worker (either preceding or succeeding titles).

Continue reading “New Digitized Newspaper Collection: Historical Communist Newspapers”

Something Interesting About Early American Newspapers Series 13

Series 13 of Early American Newspapers boasts over 2,300 titles from the trans-Mississippi west. If you browse the series, however, you might notice something peculiar: over a third of these titles are represented by only a single issue, with all these single issues coming from the year 1876. Why does the collection contain so many random issues from the year 1876?

Continue reading “Something Interesting About Early American Newspapers Series 13”

New Online Resource: Neues Deutschland Archive

We now have access to the Neues Deutschland Archive. Neues Deutschland began publication in 1946 as the official newspaper of the East German Communist Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands). Since the Wende, the newspaper has remained a socialist organ, even as its circulation has plummeted.

Continue reading “New Online Resource: Neues Deutschland Archive”

The Watseka Wonder

“The case of Lurancy Vennum, a bright young girl of fourteen years, has been the subject of much discussion in Watseka during the past year, and there is a good deal in it beyond human comprehension.” – “Mesmeric Mysteries,” Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, OH), Jun. 22, 1878 [1]

            Ever since Regan MacNeil crawled backwards down the stairs in The Exorcist, possession has been a cornerstone of American horror movies. The very idea of losing control of ourselves to something otherworldly fills us with fear. The fear of possession, of course, has been around since long before the 1970s. Cases of possession have featured on the pages of newspapers across the country since the Salem witch trials in the 1690s. We don’t have to look far to find one such case.

Continue reading “The Watseka Wonder”