Friday, June 19, 2009

19th Century Newspapers


Are you ever curious about what happened on June 19, 1838? Or, perhaps, November 11, 1885? Maybe you want to know what was going on on Christmas Day, 1859? The British Library is putting online 2 million pages of newspapers from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

From the story in the Guardian about the new treasure trove...

Half a century earlier the news was no ­better. On June 18 1809 the Examiner warned of the alarming advances of the Emperor Napoleon against the Austrians, while its correspondent in Bohemia reported the confident prediction of Archduke Charles: "The days of the 21st and 22nd of May will be eternally memorable in the history of the world."

The shocking spectacle of drunken working men, women and even children was a recurring concern, but there was rare good news in 1840, when a correspondent to the Leeds Mercury reported the success of Father Mathew's temperance crusade in Dublin: "We still have abundance of poor, but our streets are not filled with the haggard and bloated faces they once were."

1 comment:

Christopher Newton said...

Looks pretty cool, although it's more for real research than idle surfing, as it costs 6.99 (pounds) to download 100 articles in 24 hours. Or you can buy a weekly pass. Free content is limited to The Graphic and the Penny Illustrated Paper. I searched on "balloon race" and checked the box by "display only free content". I learned the Crystal Palace was going to hold a balloon race on September 26, 1874. Oboy!