Primary Sources

Tips for Searching

  • Many newspapers can be searched via the free Chronicling America database via the Library of Congress.
  • Other papers may be available via paid subscription databases through your local public or university libraries. Many university libraries allow access to non-university users who visit the library and show a valid ID. Specific library rules will vary, so check with the institution before visiting.
  • Local newspapers that can’t be found online may be available at your public library, archives, or historical society.
  • In this time period, the common term used to describe African American people was “colored.” While this term is no longer acceptable, searching it in historical newspaper databases may yield more relevant primary resources.
  • When searching for a particular organization or individual, you may need to put quotation marks around the name, depending on the database you are searching. For example, searching “Political Equality League” will often search for this exact term as opposed to Political Equality League, which will expand your search to include items with any or all of the words.
  • When searching for particular women, remember that during this time period, most women went by Miss if they were not married or Mrs. if they were. In the latter case, they may have used Mrs. with their own name or Mrs. with their husband’s name. This means that you can search for “Carrie Horton” or “Mrs. Carrie Horton” but that you should also search for Mrs. and the husband’s name if you know it, such as “Oscar Horton” or “Mrs. Oscar Horton”. This may yield results you didn’t get from only searching the woman’s name.

African American Newspapers to Search for Suffrage

The Broad Ax.

The Chicago Defender.

The Colored American.

The Denver Star. (1913-1963). Denver, Colorado.

The New York Amsterdam News.

Pittsburgh Courier.

The Washington Bee.

Selected Citations

Barnwell, L.R. (1918, May 30). Why not now? French Broad hustler [Hendersonville, N.C.]. Retrieved from Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91068161/1918-05-30/ed-1/seq-4/

  • While explaining reasons why women should be allowed the vote, the author points out that doing so would “mean Anglo-Saxon supremacy in the South” because of the higher number of whites there than Blacks.

Bars Colored women. (1914, Feb. 7). Evening capital and Maryland gazette [Annapolis, MD]. pg. 1. Retrieved from Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88065726/1914-02-17/ed-1/seq-1/

  • Describes a women’s suffrage bill introduced in the Maryland legislature by Sen. Ogden in 1914. The bill allows white women to vote but not Black women.

Davis, E.L. (1916, Oct. 28). Woman’s power felt in politics – Colorado has her woman’s clubs. The Denver Star [Denver, CO]. Retrieved from Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84025887/1916-10-28/ed-1/seq-3/

  • Discusses the first Colored Women’s Hughes’ Republican Headquarters located in Chicago, IL.

A Slander on our Colored women. (1888, March 17). The Washington bee. [Washington, D.C.]. Retrieved from Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84025891/1888-03-17/ed-1/seq-2/

  • Discusses a letter from Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Douglass in 1888 in which Douglass expresses his belief that Black women were “not sufficiently advanced in their ideas” to vote. Reactions from others are included.

Woman’s case in equity. (1900, Feb. 17). The Colored American [Washington, D.C.]. pp. 1, 4. Retrieved from Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83027091/1900-02-17/ed-1/seq-4/

  • Focused on a speech made by Mary Church Terrell made at a Washington, DC, suffrage convention in 1900. Excerpts of the speech included.