Readex Announces Completion of Digital Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876

[Loiterstein, David]

Readex Announces Completion of Digital Early American Newspapers, Series
I, 1690-1876

Digital Edition Provides Fully Searchable Facsimiles of More Than 700
18th- and 19th-Century American Newspapers

NAPLES, Fla./Wednesday, June 21, 2006 - Readex, a leading publisher of
online historical collections, announced today the completion of Early
American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876. An integral part of Readex's
acclaimed Web-based Archive of Americana, this digital edition offers
fully searchable, cover-to-cover reproductions of nearly 350,000 issues
from over 700 historical American newspapers, totaling more than 1.5
million pages. Digitized primarily from the extensive historical
newspaper holdings of the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), and
published in cooperation with the AAS, Early American Newspapers, Series
I is a collection of great significance for historical researchers at
all levels. 

Early American Newspapers, Series I provides unprecedented access to
America's past by documenting daily life, popular issues and events and
both majority and minority views in hundreds of communities. Focusing
largely on the 18th century and offering titles from 23 states and the
District of Columbia, this comprehensive resource is based on Clarence
S. Brigham's "History and Bibliography of American Newspapers,
1690-1820" and other authoritative bibliographies. Users can easily
view, magnify, print and save items and limit searches to items that
fall into such categories as news/opinion, election returns, letters,
poetry, legislative acts or legal proceedings, prices, advertisements,
matrimony notices and death notices. 

"The joint effort of Readex and the American Antiquarian Society has led
to the creation of a digital historical newspaper collection of
unparalleled breadth and depth," said Ellen S. Dunlap, President of the
American Antiquarian Society. "We are pleased to see our vast newspaper
holdings serve to further contribute to fresh understandings of our
nation's past." 

"Now, Web-based access to one of the most valuable sources for 18th- and
19th-century historical research is enabling students and scholars at
hundreds of institutions worldwide to explore nearly every aspect of
early America," said Remmel Nunn, Readex Vice President of New Product
Development. 
Benjamin Reiss, Associate Professor of English at Tulane University,
said, "How jealous I am of the students who will be able to use this
wonderful resource! The digital version of Early American Newspapers
gives them an unfair advantage over all previous generations of scholars
who had to spend months or even years seeking-and perhaps never
finding-what can now be found with a few keystrokes." 

As part of the America's Historical Newspapers collection, Early
American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876 shares a common interface with
Early American Newspapers, Series II, 1758-1900 and Early American
Newspapers, Series III, 1829-1922. 

For more information on the digital edition of Early American
Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876, the Archive of Americana or other
Readex products, visit www.readex.com. 

About the American Antiquarian Society 
Founded in 1812 as the country's first national historical organization,
the American Antiquarian Society is both a learned society and a major
independent research library. The AAS library today houses the largest
and most accessible collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides,
newspapers, periodicals, sheet music, and graphic arts material printed
through 1876 in what is now the United States, as well as manuscripts
and a substantial collection of secondary works, bibliographies, and
other reference works related to all aspects of American history and
culture before the twentieth century. The Society sponsors a broad range
of programs-visiting research fellowships, research, education,
publications, lectures, and concerts-for constituencies ranging from
school children and their teachers through undergraduate and graduate
students, postdoctoral scholars, creative and performing artists and
writers, and the general public. 

About Readex 
For more than 50 years, the Readex name has been synonymous with
research in historical printed materials and government documents.
Recognized by librarians, students and scholars for its efforts to
transform academic research, Readex offers a wealth of Web-based,
primary source materials in the humanities and social sciences. Today,
Readex, a division of NewsBank, inc., has established a leadership
position among publishers by creating the digital Archive of Americana,
a family of online collections that provides unprecedented access to the
history, culture and daily life of the United States over more than
three centuries. 

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For more information or to speak with a Readex expert, contact Readex
Marketing Manager David Loiterstein by calling 1.203.421.0152 or
emailing dloiterstein at readex.com. 

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org