Historical Magazines - Digitized, Print, and Microfilm - (The Magazine Finder)

Magazines published from 1802 to 1890, and digitized by university libraries (HathiTrust), the Internet Archive or Google (Google Books), are generally freely available to the public.

Lists of digitized magazines can be found on this website (Historical Magazines) and the extensive Serials page of the University of Pennsylvania Online Books project.

While it is possible to locate articles by browsing or searching these options, indexes of magazine articles - arranged by subject - were compiled in the 19th century and published as Poole's Index to Periodical Literature (see an early description of this work - "A Wonderful Index" from Chambers's Journal 1883). 

HathiTrust provides digitized copies of Poole's Index to Periodical Literature as follows:

Poole's Index - 1802-1881 A-J (part 1)

Poole's Index - 1802-1881 K-Z (part 2)

Magazine Abbreviation Guide for 1802-1881

Poole's Index - 1882-1886

Magazine Abbreviation Guide for 1882-1886

Poole's Index - 1887-1892 

Magazine Abbreviation Guide for 1887-1892

Poole's will provide the title, the author (if listed), the abbreviated name of the magazine, the volume of the magazine, and the first page number.

With this information head for the Historical Magazines portion of this guide (or the University of Pennsylvania Serials page or HathiTrust) and locate the magazine. After clicking on the magazine, scroll through the volumes until you arrive at the one you seek (click on this). Once you've opened a specific volume of the magazine either scroll to the page, search for the title, or use the page locater is available.

Unless you are UNI student or UNI staff or faculty member HathiTrust, you will only be allowed to download one page at a time. However, if you scroll down through the options on the left-hand side of the viewing frame you will find that HathiTrust does provide a permanent link to any page you are viewing (the "Link to this page" option). Copying this link and the article information provides quick return access for a later date.

HathiTrust Log-In instructions for UNI students and faculty:

Click on the yellow LOG IN button

Type Northern Iowa in the Choose your partner institution blank

Click on the University of Northern Iowa option and then click on CONTINUE

Log in with your CAT ID.

Now when you want to download multiple pages of a book or magazine article:

Open (view) the source.

Find the first page you wish to copy.

Click on the Download option on the left-hand column of the viewing screen

Then check the option Selected page scans.

Then check the selection-box in the upper-right hand corner next to the black page-number box.

... and continue scrolling and checking the selection-box for each page of interest.

When all pages of interest have been selected - click on the Download option in the left-hand column of the viewing screen.

Note #1 - you can choose to download pages in either PDF, JPEG, TIFF, or even TEXT format.

Note #2 - it is also possible to select the option Whole Book which will allow you to download the entire book or volume of a magazine.

Members of UNI and visitors to the UNI Rod Library have access to the Historical Periodicals Collection from EBSCO that provides access to British and American newspapers and magazines from 1684 to roughly 1850.