Digital Resource: Historical Newspapers Online

Given the rapid deterioration of paper files and the unwieldy and incomplete runs of microfilm, recent years have seen a great increase in efforts to digitize historical newspapers all over the world. Nearly every major library and many national and state governments have projects in process, making it impossible to list all the websites. The following list provides some useful links to meta-sites and major projects, with emphasis on freely accessible sites. Companies such as Readex, Gale, and ProQuest have subscription-based historical newspaper collections, which may be available via academic affiliation. Among those, the new Readex Mercantile Newspapers collection is especially relevant to business historians.
Meta-Sites (include both free and fee-based sites)

Online Historical Newspapers (maintained by genealogist Miriam Robbins Midkiff) [and see also her blog, where she posts news of updates)
Digital Historical Newspapers (Family Search genealogy site)
Online Digital Newspapers (Wikipedia)
Newspaper Digitization Projects (Center for Research Libraries)

National and Trans-National Sites

Chronicling America (Library of Congress)
Trove Digitized Newspapers (Australia)
Delpher (Netherlands newspapers [site in Dutch])
Welsh Newspapers Online
PapersPast (New Zealand)
Europeana Newspapers (The European Library) [also includes links to digitized issues at other libraries]
ANNO--Austrian Newspapers Online
Caribbean Newspaper Digital Library
Gallica: Les principaux quotidiens (France)
ZEFYS (Berlin State Library, Germany)
Historical Jewish Press
L'Emeroteca Digitale (Italy; site in Italian)
Hemeroteca Nacional Digital de Mexico
Hemeroteca Spain

The British Newspaper Archive requires a subscription. Canada does not have a national site, but many provincial libraries have digital newspaper projects, most of which are free; they are listed in the meta-sites, above, and at Historical Canadian Newspapers Online; the Canadiana Portal also provides a gateway. [Update: Donica Belisle and Keira Mitchell have since posted a comprehensive listing for Canada.] Google began a newspaper digitization project, but abandoned it in 2011. One can find the remnants at the Google News Archive site.

Digital Collection: Princeton Exhibit of Subway Posters

The Princeton University Library has digitized a number of posters from the Interborough Rapid Transit Subway Company . The posters, designed by the public relations firm Ivy Lee, were displayed in subway cars to provide information to riders about changes in fares and routes, safety issues, and other matters of interest. The collection consists of 385 images dating from 1918 to 1932; many of them provide financial information about rates, company dividends, and a general look at an early rapid transit system. October 29, update: Jonathan Rees over at "More or Less Bunk" was moved by this post to go off in search of a better site, and found the massive collection of the London Transport Museum , which displays over 5,000 items in a searchable collection .

The Exchange has moved to the BHC's website

Dear members subscribers of The Exchange The Exchange, the weblog of the BHC, is now part of our website ( https://thebhc.org ). We migrated the blog to serve our membership and interested parties best since Blogger is discontinuing its email service. Note that this will be the last message we will send from Blogger . The Exchange was founded by Pat Denault over a decade ago, and it has become an essential channel for announcements from and about the BHC and from our subscribers and members. Announcements from The Exchange will come up on the News section of our website as they did before. However, if you wish to receive these announcements via email, and you have not done so yet, please subscribe to The Exchange by: Going to our website's homepage ( https://thebhc.org ), s crolling down to the end of the page, and clicking on "Subscribe to the Latest BHC News." Or go to the “News” section of our website's homepage ( https://thebhc.org/ ), and click on...

Wilfried Feldenkirchen (1947-2010)

With sadness we report the death of longtime BHC member Wilfried Feldenkirchen. He died in a car accident on June 21, 2010, while test driving a replica of Siemens' 1905 electric car, the Victoria , a project for which he was the manager. He was professor of economic, social, and business history in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. A former trustee of the BHC and a member of the editorial board of Enterprise & Society , Professor Dr. Feldenkirchen specialized in nineteenth- and twentieth-century corporate and financial history, focusing particularly on Siemens. In addition to numerous articles and essays, his works include: The Banks and the Steel Industry in the Ruhr: Developments in Relations from 1874 to 1914 (1981) Werner von Siemens: Inventor and International Entrepreneur (1994) Siemens, 1918-1945 (1999) Siemens: From Workshop to Global Player (2000) "Vom Guten das Beste": Von Daimler und Be...

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