New News!: Virginia Chronicle Updates

As the page count on Virginia Chronicle approaches seven million, the already wide array of digitized newspapers available continues to grow. This month, over 310,000 pages and nearly 60 new titles were added to the Library of Virginia’s freely-accessible, digital newspaper database. Among the items researchers can now access are new weeklies from across the Commonwealth, new and updated Black newspaper collections, additional Civil War and Early American newspapers, and a variety of historic Northern and Southwestern Virginia newspapers. Supplementary issues of newspapers already on Virginia Chronicle have also been added.

Before diving into the new titles on Virginia Chronicle, a brief note about its homepage: the homepage has been altered slightly for a more streamlined look, but all of the links previously available are still available, with the addition of a link to the Library of Virginia’s comprehensive Newspaper Research Guide. The menu options are the same as well but have been consolidated. Users can still browse by title, date and place of publication by clicking the “Browse” option in the homepage menu and find the Google Map and the County Map by clicking the “Maps” menu option. We hope users find these updates helpful, but if you have feedback or suggestions, contact us at virginiachronicle@lva.virginia.gov.

Now, onto the many new titles Viriginia Chronicle has to offer. Extensive collections of local weeklies from across Virginia were made available this month, including: 1935-2022 of the Crewe, Burkeville Journal and the Crewe Chronicle; 1925-1963 of the Eastern Shore News (also called the News) of Onancock as well as 1920-1924 of the Eastern Shore News of Cape Charles; 1891-1963 of the Enterprise of Stuart (earlier called the Stuart Enterprise), 1947-1978 issues of the King George News, and 1959-1961 of Petersburg’s Lee Traveller (with much more coming soon). Also added were 1875-1921 issues of the Loudoun Mirror (also called the Mirror and the Washingtonian-Mirror) as well as 1918-1924 of the Loudoun Times; 1930-1964 of the Northampton Times; 1911-1963 of the Northumberland Echo; 1926-1963 of the Smyth County News; 1927-1963 of the South Hill Enterprise; and finally 1911-1920 of the Tidewater Index (precursor to the Rappahannock Times).

The Virginia Newspaper Program is also thrilled to announce the addition of the Informant to Virginia Chronicle, a monthly African American newspaper serving Buckingham County since 1987. Published by educator and historian Charles White and his wife, Margaret, the Informant is a rich source of local history that has highlighted and celebrated the achievements of Buckingham’s Black community for nearly 40 years. The Farmville Herald, reporting on the paper in 2017, explained that “according to Charles, the newspaper was started following an interview about a book he had published in 1985, ‘The Hidden and the Forgotten: Contributions of Buckingham Blacks to American History.’” After hearing the interview, the publisher of the Charlottesville Tribune encouraged White to start his own newspaper to record the stories of Buckingham County, and the publication is still going strong today. In September of last year, the Whites loaned a collection of the Informant from their private archive to be microfilmed, digitized, and hosted on Virginia Chronicle to ensure that current and future generations of researchers have access to the invaluable history contained within its pages. 1987-2006 of the Informant is now available on Virginia Chronicle, and 2007-2024 will be added soon.

Another noteworthy addition to Virginia Chronicle comes thanks to a donation of newspapers from Richmond’s Beth-Ahabah Congregation. Needing to create space in its own archive, Beth-Ahabah donated numerous Jewish publications to the Library of Virginia that were previously not held by the Library, including 1951-1987 issues of the Reflector, “The voice of the Richmond Jewish Community.” The Reflector reported on a range of community-focused topics, including temple activities, social events, charitable campaigns, service award recipients, performances, summer camp opportunities, and the happenings of various Jewish organizations. 1988-2022 issues of the Reflector are now on Virginia Chronicle, and the earliest issues, 1951-1987, will be added in the coming months.

Previously unrepresented regions of Virginia also now have much-needed digital representation on Virginia Chronicle with additions from the counties of Grayson and Carroll and the city of Galax. New titles from these localities include the Carroll News, Galax Gazette, the Galax Post Herald, the Grayson Clipper, the Grayson Journal, the Grayson Star, the Grayson Sun, and the Hillsville News. This coming spring, the Virginia Newspaper Program will visit the Carroll County Historical Society to borrow additional historical newspapers from the region for digitization. More Southwestern newspapers from Abingdon, Bland, Marion, Norton, Rural Retreat and Wytheville have also been added to Virginia Chronicle with the digitization of the Abingdon Democrat, the Coalfield Progress, the Journal Virginian, the Patriot and Herald, South-West, Wytheville Journal, Wytheville Republican, and the Wytheville Telegraph. Regrettably, many of these titles are single issues or comprised of sparse runs, but there is still a great deal of history packed into each and every page.

With the assistance of generous donor funding, more Early American newspapers have also been added to Virginia Chronicle. Spanning 1783-1793, these titles come from Richmond and include the Virginia Gazette, and General Advertiser, the Virginia Gazette and Independent Chronicle, the Virginia Gazette, and Public Advertiser, the Virginia Gazette, or, the Independent Chronicle, the Virginia Independent Chronicle, and the Virginia Independent Chronicle, and General Advertiser. These resources, vital to the study of Early American history, greatly enhance the varied collection of the oldest newspapers Virginia Chronicle has to offer. In addition to Early American newspapers, one Civil War-era issue of the Army and Navy Messenger, published out of Petersburg, is also new to the site.

Along with the many new titles added to Virginia Chronicle in February, additional years of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Tribune (also called the Tribune), the News Progress of Richlands, the Rappahannock Times, the Richlands Press and the Richmond Planet have also been added.

There is so much great new content to discover in Virginia Chronicle and much more to come in 2026, so stay tuned!