This guide is intended to help in locating older Iowa newspapers, either online, on microfilm, or in print.
The criteria for adding newspaper titles to this guide:
1) the print or microfilm version of a newspaper - published before 1975 - is available to those using the Rod Library building
or
2) the newspaper is available online to the general public
The first newspaper in Iowa was the Du Buque Visitor, established in 1836 before Iowa was a state. The current Dubuque paper, the Telegraph Herald, can trace its history back to the Visitor.
Pages from the first issue of the Visitor are reproduced in the book The Pageant of the Press: a Survey of 125 Years of Iowa Journalism 1836-1961.
Click the first link below to see the library catalog record for this book, a copy of which is in the UNI Stacks.
Click on the second link below for the catalog record of A Decade of Printing in Territorial Iowa (UNI Stacks), another book which chronicles the history of the Du Buque Visitor (The Dubuque Visitor).
The Du Buque Visitor (The Dubuque Visitor) and other early Dubuque newspapers such as Fest – Chronic (Dubuque) (1892), Iowa News (Dubuque) (1837-1838), Luxemburger Gazette (Dubuque) (1871-1918), Miners’ Express (Dubuque) (1849-1854), and Weekly Miners’ Express (Dubuque) (1847-1849) have been digitized as part of the Chronicling America site by the Library of Congress and the State Historical Society of Iowa. To search one of these papers - such as the Miners’ Express - click on “Advanced Search” - then scroll down the “Or Select Newspapers” option until you find Miners’ Express - click on this option and then use the various other search options found in Advanced Search.
