HIST288: Historical Voices of Oceania: Other Voices: Newspapers

Many historic newspapers have over the last few years been made available online, which has been a boon to researchers: Most of these papers have not been indexed in any meaningful way, so having full-text searchable pages allow for deep content searches that were formerly impossible. However, there are some things to keep in mind:

1) What is currently online is nowhere near the total output of historic newspapers;

2) As historians, you should always be thinking about biases in what you are reading, but when using online collections that hold multiple newspapers (like Chronicling America) you also have to be aware of biases in terms of what you are not reading: In the case of Hawai'i newspapers, for a variety of reasons that relate to the requirements of the grant that funded the creation of Chronicling America, many of the papers in its database fall into the category that historian Helen Chapin labels "Establishment." In 19th century Hawai'i, "Establishment" papers were those that were aligned with forces that sought to overthrow the Hawaiian Monarchy. The site holds fewer of what Chapin labels "Alternative" papers, which we would today read as pro-Monarchy papers. Papers published in the continental United States also have their own biases. 

If you are unsure of the biases of Hawai'i papers, you can find a searchable PDF of Chapin's categories (along with her entire Guide to Newspaper of Hawai'i: 1834-2000) here: http://www.hawaiianhistoricalsociety.org/ref/chapinpdfs.html

For a more comprehensive guide to newspapers of Hawai'i, see also: https://guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/c.php?g=105233&p=686713