This guest post is by Kitty Felde who shares her experiences using Chronicling America* to research her writing. Kitty is the author of “State of the Union” and “Welcome to Washington Fina Mendoza,” a mystery series for children designed to introduce civics education. They are also available as an episodic podcast “The Fina Mendoza Mysteries.” Kitty is an award-winning public radio journalist and Host/Executive Producer of the award-winning Book Club for Kids podcast.
I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of research. Dangerous, I know, because researching is a great excuse for not writing. But often you find unexpected treasures that can sometimes become an essential part of your novel or play.
I’ve been using the vast newspaper records available online at the Library of Congress. Chronicling America, a partnership between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, is a free, searchable database of American newspapers from 1777 to 1963.
There’s a map where you can discover ethnic newspapers across the country. Who knew there was a German newspaper in San Diego and a Finnish one in Washington state? There were dozens of African-American newspapers from Butte, Montana to Miami, Florida.
I fumbled around at first, but found absolute gold in the digital pages of Chronicling America.