The Washington State Library recently contributed another 23,000 historic newspaper pages from seven newspapers to “Chronicling America,” making Washington State’s contribution to the program a total of 23 papers and over 115,000 pages. The seven additions are Cayton’s Monthly (Seattle), Industrial Freedom (Edison), Islander (Friday Harbor), Seattle Star and Washington Socialist (Everett), which later morphed into Northwest Worker and Co-operative News. Chronicling America is a project of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.

There are now 23 newspapers from Washington State currently included in Chronicling America:

— Cayton’s Monthly (Seattle), 1921

— Cayton’s Weekly (Seattle), 1917-1921

— Co-operative News (Everett), 1917-1921

— Colfax Gazette, 1900-1912

— Colville Examiner, 1907-1922

— Commonwealth (Everett), 1911-1914

— Daily Republican (Seattle), 1896

— Industrial Freedom (Edison), 1898-1901

— Islander (Friday Harbor), 1891-1898

— Leavenworth Echo, 1904-1922

— Northwest Worker (Everett), 1915-1917

— Pullman Herald, 1888-1922

— The Ranch (Yakima), 1894

— The Ranch (Seattle), 1902-1914

— Ranche and Range (Yakima), 1897-1902

— The Republican (Seattle), 1896-1898

— San Juan Islander, 1898-1914

— Seattle Republican, 1900-1913

— Seattle Star, 1899-1910

— Tacoma Times, 1903-1918

— Washington Farmer (Spokane), 1914

— Washington Socialist (Everett), 1914-1915

— Yakima Herald, 1893-1912

People can read and research issues from these and other newspapers around the U.S. for free at http://www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov .

“These historic newspapers are a rich resource for historians, genealogists and other researchers,” said Acting State Librarian Rand Simmons. “They provide names, dates, images and tell the story of a community or region in such a comprehensive way. They bring local history alive.”

Chronicling America provides access to nearly 2.7 million full-text searchable pages from 348 titles published between 1860 and 1922 in 22 states and the District of Columbia. The Washington State Library’s National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) grant was renewed through June 2012, allowing more pages from other newspapers around Washington State to be uploaded over the next two years.

“It’s exciting to have this collection in Chronicling America,” said Deputy State Librarian Marlys Rudeen. “It will give researchers the ability to search across multiple collections of newspapers from various states at once.”

Part of the mission of the Washington State Library is to collect, preserve and make accessible to Washingtonians materials on the government, history, culture and natural resources of the state.