In June 1845, publisher William Neale and editor Cassius Clay established their abolitionist newspaper the True American on Mill Street in downtown Lexington, just a block away from one of the largest slave markets in the United States.
The son of wealthy slaveholders in Madison County, Kentucky, Clay anticipated the ire that he would raise: he had already survived one assassination attempt for his views. As described by Herndon J. Evans in The Newspaper Press In Kentucky, the True American office was
armed with two brass cannons, iron barred windows, and an arsenal of Mexican lances and pikes. A trapdoor in the roof provided an escape route in case the editor and his helper found they could not hold the fort in an attack. In the basement, Clay had rigged up an "infernal machine" with a powder keg that he could set off from the outside to blow up the building and whoever was in it should the attackers succeed in taking over the [office].
Only two months after establishing the paper, a mob of nearly 60 men broke in and seized the printing equipment, driving Clay from town. Clay would begin printing again from Cincinnati in September 1845, with issues printed weekly until the paper folded in October 1846.
In June 1847, John Champion Vaughan, a former co-editor of the True American, began printing the Examiner in Louisville, together with fellow abolitionists from the First Unitarian Church. The four-page weekly was printed until December 1849 when Vaughan became more active in the national abolitionist movement.
UK Libraries has digitized 67 issues of the True American and 129 issues of the Examiner. Both are publicly available through the Kentucky Digital Newspaper Program (KDNP), the Libraries’ online newspaper repository.
As we consider anew the work that justice requires, remember what it means to be sitting in the viper’s nest and still put up a fight!
UK Libraries’ newspaper collections include contemporary local, national, and international papers and historical papers from across Kentucky, the US, and the world. Search for newspapers or newspaper articles using InfoKat Discovery and filtering your results by resource type and publication date.
InfoKat searches many newspaper databases to which we subscribe, including the KDND and UK Libraries’ microfilm and physical newspaper holdings.
While many of our newspaper materials are available in digital formats, some newspapers are only available as paper copies or on microfilm. Our librarians can assist you with locating particular papers or finding articles about specific events, either in our collections or from other institutions via Interlibrary Loan.
UK Libraries has the world’s largest collection of Kentucky newspapers.
Many Kentucky newspapers are available digitally or on microfilm, including historic papers filmed as part of the Kentucky Newspaper Project. Approximately 175 active newspapers are regularly filmed. Visit the Kentucky Microfilm Holdings Database or the Kentucky Digital Newspapers Database to browse our collections. Through cooperative endeavors with the Kentucky Press Association and the Internet Archive, the KDNP provides access to nearly a million pages of Kentucky newspapers, with content growing daily.
Physical copies of our newspapers are held on the Second Floor of William T. Young Library. We subscribe to every active Kentucky newspaper and keep paper copies of current issues and issues from the previous two months in the South Wing on the Second Floor.
Our newspaper databases provide access to an incredible range of contemporary and historical papers. View our full list of newspaper databases, or explore some of our most-used:
You can also search for a specific newspaper by title in our Journals A-Z index.
UK Libraries subscribes to many local, national, and international newspapers that are available for browsing on the Second Floor, including the Lexington Herald-Leader, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the New York Times, and the London Times.
Additionally, UK community members have free digital access to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Many periodicals and newspapers are available on microfilm or microfiche, along with a variety of older archived materials not readily available in digital formats, including document sets, archives, manuscripts, and books.
You can search for many of our microform materials using InfoKat Discovery, or by browsing the Kentucky Microfilm Holdings Database, but be aware that not all of our microform sets are listed in the catalog.
To view microform materials, please make an appointment. While same-day appointments may be possible, 24-hour notice is appreciated (and required on weekends).
