Searchable full-text database with digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals that originated between 1741 and 1900. Based on the American Periodicals Series microform collection. As of June 2003, more than 900 of a projected 1,100+ titles were available.

The following is a detailed description of this database:

Series I: Beginnings (1741-1800)

All 89 titles from this era provide invaluable insights into America's transition from British colony to emerging nation with its own culture and politics.

Franklin's General Magazine and Bradford's American Magazine mark the birth of American periodical journalism in 1741. Other titles support research in a wide range of disciplines:

• Massachusetts Magazine (1789-96), with the first American short stories
• The Independent Reflector (1752-53), one of the best examples of essay journalism from that era
• Thomas Paine's Pennsylvania Magazine (1775-76), reporting on the latest inventions
• Medical Repository (1797-1800), America's first scientific journal

Literature, science, religion, the arts...all are represented in this slice of 18th century American life.

Series II: Growth and Change (1800-1850)

The 911 titles from this era reflect the growing debate over slavery as the U.S. edged closer to civil war. Abolitionist periodicals include The Genius of Universal Emancipation (1821-39) and William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator (1831-65), countered by pro-slavery journals such as Southern Quarterly Review (1842-57).

Also included are hard-to-find materials such as Poe's contributions to Southern Literary Messenger (1831-64); Hawthorne's New England Magazine (1831-35); the venerable North American Review (1815-1940), first to print William Cullen Bryant's poem "Thanatopsis, " and many other titles devoted exclusively to literature or drama.

Series II also includes over 20 women's magazines, such as Godey's Lady's Book, as well as children's magazines. Users will find primary resources in religion, science, and history here as well.

Series III: Crisis and Reconstruction (1850-1900)

This series includes 118 periodicals from the Civil War and Reconstruction eras in the last half of the 19th century. It focuses on many of the early important professional journals, such as Publications of the American Economic Association and Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

It also includes many celebrated titles issued by publishing houses, such as Scribner's, Harper's Bazaar, Lippincott's, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, and Ladies' Home Journal. Students of marketing and advertising will find these popular periodicals useful in exploring the first examples of modern advertising slogans.

Titles covered in American Periodical Series.