Learn more about the INP and the NDNP Digitization Opportunity

Check out the digital flyers to learn more about the history of the Illinois Newspaper Project (INP) and the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Also learn about the current opportunity to nominate newspapers for a chance to be made freely available online. Click on either image to open the full flyer PDF.   Interested in […]

Opportunity to participate: nominate a newspaper to be digitized and made freely available for research!

The Illinois Newspaper Project (INP) is now accepting nominations for newspapers to be digitized as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. All Illinois cultural heritage institutions (including libraries, museums, archives, and historical and genealogical societies) are invited to nominate newspapers on microfilm […]

Illinois Newspaper Project Seeks Nominations for Digitization

Do you know of a historic Illinois newspaper that you think should be digitized and made freely available online? The Illinois Newspaper Project is pleased to announce a proposal-based process for selecting Illinois newspapers for digitization, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Selected titles will receive long-term digital preservation and […]

Illinois Newspaper Project Receives NEH Grant

We are delighted to announce that we’ve received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to participate in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) again in 2022-2024. The Illinois Newspaper Project has contributed more than 500,000 pages of Illinois newspapers to the NDNP (all available in Chronicling America as well as in the […]

The National News: A Trade Unionist Newspaper

The National News was created by editor Carl E. Person after the shutdown of the Strike Bulletin in May 1915. National News began publication only a few months later in October of that year. Person was a famous labor activist who had been put on trial in 1914 for shooting a strike breaker and was later acquitted on the basis of self-defense. Much […]

The Illinois Issue and the American Issue: Powerful Forces in Prohibitionist Politics

The Illinois Issue was a weekly newspaper created in January 1906 for an audience of prohibitionist readers. The Illinois Issue was centered in Chicago, IL, and published in Downers Grove, IL. In February 1912, the Illinois Issue ceased production. Starting in July 1913, the Illinois Issue merged with a weekly national publication called the American Issue. Both papers were organized by a political group called the Anti-Saloon League. The American […]

Vandalia Whig and Illinois Intelligencer: An Early Illinois Newspaper

The first newspaper in Illinois, the Illinois Herald, was founded as a weekly publication in 1814 based in Kaskaskia. It soon became the Western Intelligencer and carried the title Intelligencer in one form or another for the rest of its existence. The town of Kaskaskia was the Illinois Territory’s capital until 1818 when it became the state capital after Illinois […]

The Strike Bulletin: A Chronicle of a Failed Strike

The Clinton (IL) Strike Bulletin began publication in April 1913. The Strike Bulletin was a weekly paper marketed to labor unionists in the railroad industry. It was published from Clinton, Illinois for the entirety of its run. The Strike Bulletin was the creation of a labor organization called the Illinois Central System Foundation and was edited by Carl E. Person. Person was […]

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 […]