The Universalist

The Universalist (Chicago and Cincinnati, 1884-1897) was a religious newspaper published near the end of the nineteenth century, a century when religious newspapers proliferated alongside the denominations they documented. Denominationalism was a distinctive feature of the nineteenth century American religious landscape, and European observers frequently remarked upon it, usually attributing the phenomenon to religious disestablishment. […]

The National Prohibitionist

From 1907 to 1911 the National Prohibitionist was the official organ of the Prohibition Party, an influential “third party” of the Progressive Era. The Progressive Era produced at least twenty “third” parties, and the Prohibition Party was among the more influential, certainly the most enduring. The newspaper was formed by the consolidation of multiple Prohibition […]

Newly Digitized Immigrant Newspaper: Irish Republic

The Fenian Brotherhood, a secret society of Irish nationalists, founded the Chicago Irish Republic in 1867. At the time, Chicago had the fourth largest Irish population in the United States and was considered a “hotbed” of militant Fenianism: for example, in 1864 the Chicago Fenians tried to declare war on England; in both 1865 and […]

The Daily Worker: A Communist Newspaper out of Chicago

The 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 […]

A Twentieth Century Church-State (in Illinois)

Zion City was a utopian religious community founded in July 1901 by John Alexander Dowie, an evangelical minister and pioneer of Pentecostalism in the United States. Dowie emigrated from Australia in 1888, and eventually settled in Chicago where, in 1893, he established a ministry near the World’s Columbian Exposition. Central to Dowie’s ministry was the […]

Newly Digitized Newspaper: Workingman’s Advocate

The Workingman’s Advocate was established in the fall of 1864 by members of the Chicago Typographical Union. At the time, the union was striking against the Chicago Times, and the union felt the strike was receiving unfair coverage in the local press. Even newspapers traditionally hostile to the Times, like the Chicago Tribune, opposed the […]

Our Current Banner Image: Newspaper Hawker Selling the Chicago Defender

Our current banner image comes from the Farm Security Administration Photograph Collection at the Library of Congress. This photograph of a young, Chicago newspaper hawker (a familiar sight in American cities from the 1830s) was taken by Jack Delano , an immigrant who achieved considerable renown as a documentary photographer. The original film negative of […]

From the INP Archives: Women Diversifying Illinois Newspapers

For the most part the women’s movement was ignored by the press. When newspapers in the 19th century did address women’s rights and suffrage, it was from the negative perspective. Women realized early on that newspapers could reach greater numbers of people than the conferences and lectures most often attended by wealthy women.

The INP and Newspaper Digitization at Illinois

Newspaper digitization at University of Illinois began in 2004, under the leadership of Professor Mary Stuart, History Librarian and head of the History and Philosophy Library. At the time, Stuart was developing a plan to merge the History and Philosophy Library with the Newspaper Library, to form a single unit: the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper […]

How the INP Began

The INP began in 1987, as part of the United States Newspaper Program (USNP), a project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities(NEH) to identify, catalog, and preserve American newspapers. Since that time, the INP has been staffed by librarians from the Illinois State Historical Library (ISHL), the Chicago Historical Society (CHS), and the […]