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Re: Index to African-American Newspapers



Many people use the N.Y. Times index to pinpoint dates of events of national interest and then check their local newspapers (that aren't indexed) for the date of interest.  This doesn't help, of course, if the event of interest didn't appear in the N.Y. Times.

Years ago I was told that the Schomburg Branch of the New York Public Library had created a computerized index (in Advanced Revelation software running in DOS) to a major N.Y. Black newspaper (maybe the Afro-American or the Amsterdam News (?)) over many years.  I was told that it was the largest database running in Advanced Revelation and that the company that made the software would telephone the library to ask questions about how it behaved under certain circumstances.  I hope it is still in working order or has migrated successfully to other software.  Perhaps it could help you pinpoint events of wide interest to African Americans if not local Providence news. 

The Chicago Historical Society holds the Claude A. Barnett papers.  Barnett operated the Associated Negro Press, a news service (1919-1964) that provided news releases (3 mailings a week) to nearly all of the Black newspapers in the U.S.  The ANP's news releases are included in the collection from 1929-1964, filed in chronological order.  There is no index to the news releases.  However, some articles from the news releases (and from newspapers) were clipped by the ANP's office staff and kept in topical files with correspondence.  In other words, the topical files in the original collection provide an incomplete guide to some ANP news articles by topic.

Much of the Claude A. Barnett papers were microfilmed commercially by University Press of America (now owned by Lexus/Nexus?) in 3 parts: 1. ANP News Releases (also in 3 parts), 2. ANP Operating Files (including the ANP's files on business dealings with the newspapers that subscribed to the ANP service), and 3. Topical Files on Black Americans.  The "Africa & Other Foreign" series in the original collection wasn't microfilmed and neither were many of the clippings and miscellaneous notes filed with the Topical Files.

The Chicago Historical Society is prohibited by its contract with the microfilm company from interlibrary loaning the microfilm.  However, some libraries that purchased the microfilm cataloged it in OCLC, and you may be able to find it at a library near you.

When newspapers published articles that they acquired through the ANP service, they were supposed to print an ANP credit line with the article.  This often didn't happen.  Therefore, some articles that you may find in one newspaper were published also in other newspapers, with or without the ANP credit line.  Newspapers were free to shorten ANP articles or rewrite them before publishing.  Therefore, if you find a particular ANP article in one newspaper it may be somewhat different from a matching ANP article published in a different newspaper.

The Barnett papers include some letters to/from the Square Deal-Boston Chronicle Publishing Company (ca. 15) but no copies of the newspaper as far as I can tell.

If you want to send a specific reference request to the Chicago Historical Society, address it to:
Research Center
Chicago Historical Society
1601 North Clark Street
Chicago, IL 60614

Good luck,
Linda
-------------------------------------------------------
Linda  J. Evans, Ph.D.,
Chief Cataloger, Chicago Historical Society
1601 North Clark St., Chicago, IL 60614-6071
phone: 312-799-2036; fax: 312-799-2336; email: evans@chicagohistory.org
CHS switchboard: 312-642-4600; Web-site: www.chicagohistory.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Jane M. Jackson [mailto:jjackson@POSTOFFICE.PROVIDENCE.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 11:54 AM
Subject: Index to African-American Newspapers
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Does anyone know of a site or printed index for African-American newspapers
that are no longer in publication?  I am looking for some sort of finding aid for BOSTON
CHRONICLE (published 1915-1966)and PROVIDENCE CHRONICLE (published 1939-1957).
Jane M. Jackson, Director of Archives
Providence College
Phillips Memorial Library Room 108
Providence, Rhode Island     02918
JJackson@providence.edu
tel.  401  865-2578/2377, fax   401  865-1578

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