In June 2009, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library received funding under the National Endowment for the Humanities' National Digital Newspaper Program to digitize 100,000 pages of historically significant Illinois newspapers dating from 1865-1922. This funding enabled us to take newspaper preservation into the next stage: digitization. Newspapers digitized as part of this program are available on the Library of Congress' Chronicling America web site.

Titles digitized:

• The Broad Ax (1895-1922), an African American newspaper published by Julius F. Taylor. Taylor founded the newspaper in Salt Lake City in 1895 and moved it to Chicago in 1899.

• The Cairo Evening Bulletin (1868-1870)
  

• The Cairo Daily Bulletin (1870-1872)
  

• The Cairo Bulletin (Cairo, Ill. : Daily) (1872-1876)
  

• The Chicago Eagle (1892-1920) was published by Henry F. Donovan in Chicago, and focused mostly on municipal political affairs.

• The Day Book (1911-1917), E.W. Scripps’s experiment in advertisement-free newspaper publishing was published in Chicago from 1911 to 1917. Carl Sandburg was a staff reporter for the Day Book.
  

In August 2011, the UIUC Library received a second NEH grant which will enable us to continue digitizing historically significent Illinois newspapers, dating from 1836-1922.

For more information:

UIUC Grant application to NEH for 2009-2011 cycle

National Digital Newspaper Program

Chronicling America

Press release from University of Illinois Library