NEWS FLASH: HISTORICAL WASHINGTON POST AVAILABLE ONLINE (1877-1988)

McConnell Library now provides electronic access to every backfile issue of The Washington Post from 1877 to 1987 (The Historical Washington Post can be located from a link on the library catalog entry for Washington Post or by searching “ProQuest Historical Newspapers.”)

Funds donated to the Radford University Foundation for the Library in support of scholarship were recently used to purchase the backfile. The Post joins two other ProQuest Historical Newspapers provided by McConnell Library: The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

The Post was recently digitized from cover to cover, including news stories, editorials, photos, graphics, and advertisements.  The database includes each page from every issue, cover to cover, in PDF files. More than 2.6 million pages of articles comprise the newly digitized archive.

Searchers can use basic keyword, guided, publication specific, and relevancy search techniques to locate information.  Or, they can browse through issues page by page, as one would browse a printed edition.   Users may choose to display the full-page image of any page in any issue.

While The Post is often frequently associated with its role in Watergate, it was founded in 1877 by Stilson Hutchins and has a long and storied history. While the early years of The Post brought financial woes and a string of owners, The Post was also marked by its involvement with great writers and historic events: among The Post's early contributors were Robert Louis Stevenson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Joseph Pulitzer. The archive offers a unique perspective on national events. Every sitting president from Rutherford B. Hayes to Ronald Reagan fills its columns with the stories of their successors still to come. ProQuest will add a year of coverage every year.