16Titles
Explore publications and collections from the past.
Community History Archive Partner
Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County
Steubenville, Ohio
Explore this community history collection to discover the people, places, organizations, and events of Steubenville.
1806 to 1888Dates represented
See individual titles for available dates.
103,712Archive pages
Historical pages reported for this collection.
Explore local history
Discover the people, places, and stories of Steubenville, Ohio.
Get to know Steubenville, Ohio in earlier years through the newspapers shared in Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County's digital archive. Its sixteen titles include material from 1806 to 1888.
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Selected titles
In the collection shared by Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County, you will find “American Union” as well as “Western Herald And Steubenville Gazette”.
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Free and open access
No subscription or payment required.
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A closer look
Newspaper pages connect individual accounts with a wider story, preserving how events were reported and presented to the readers of the day.
Historical newspapers can connect a family name with the events and everyday concerns of an earlier time, offering more than a date or a name on its own. Bring a family connection, a question about a familiar place or an interest in local history, and see where the sources lead. Explore the archive online for free, without a subscription.
Explore the collection
Titles in this collection
Browse sixteen titles and 103,712 digitized pages, with material from 1806 to 1888. A partnership between Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County and Advantage Archives makes this collection available. Some years or items may be missing between the dates shown.
If you are tracing a family connection or exploring local history, the titles below offer a place to begin and a thread to follow.
American Union
7,596 pages from 1837 to 1859
Mammoth Weekly Herald
2,212 pages from 1850 to 1856
Ohio Republican Ledger
824 pages from 1826 to 1828
Steubenville Courier
304 pages in 1864
Steubenville Daily Herald And News
3,508 pages from 1874 to 1875
Steubenville Weekly Herald
12,282 pages from 1848 to 1888
Steubenville Weekly Herald And News
504 pages from 1874 to 1875
The Ohio Press
6,088 pages from 1879 to 1886
The Philanthropist
836 pages from 1817 to 1818
The Steubenville Daily Herald
53,144 pages from 1847 to 1887
The Steubenville Daily News
836 pages in 1873
The Steubenville Gazette
364 pages from 1874 to 1875
The Steubenville Weekly Gazette
8,572 pages from 1870 to 1886
The Western Herald
1,620 pages from 1806 to 1818
True American
1,688 pages from 1855 to 1858
Western Herald And Steubenville Gazette
3,334 pages from 1819 to 1833
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About the Library
About The Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County
The Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County serves residents across southeastern Ohio with a network of branches, including locations in Steubenville, Toronto, Adena, Dillonvale, Brilliant, Tiltonsville, and the Schiappa Branch at 4141 Mall Drive. The system provides books, multimedia collections, research databases, makerspaces, and educational programming that encourage learning, discovery, and community engagement. Serving a population of nearly 70,000 residents, the library system maintains a collection of more than 190,000 volumes and circulates hundreds of thousands of items each year. Through its local history services and digital archives, the library continues to expand accessibility to regional historical resources for both in-person visitors and online researchers.
Library History
The History Of The Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County
Library service in Jefferson County dates back to 1815 when the Steubenville Library Company operated as a subscription library inside a local drug store. Members could access books by purchasing a share and visiting on designated days. In 1830, future U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton opened a small circulating library from his home while apprenticing at a bookstore, further expanding access to reading materials in the community. The City Library Association followed in 1845 with a collection of about 450 volumes, reflecting the region’s early commitment to literacy and learning. Over time these efforts evolved into the publicly supported Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County, which now operates multiple branches and continues its long tradition of providing free access to knowledge and historical resources.
About the Community
About Steubenville, Ohio
Steubenville, located along the Ohio River in southeastern Ohio, is the county seat of Jefferson County and one of the region’s earliest settlements. Founded in 1797 by Bezaleel Wells and James Ross, the city developed as an important commercial and industrial center in the Ohio Valley. The establishment of the Steubenville Federal Land Office in 1800 helped coordinate land sales and settlement throughout the Northwest Territory. Over the years, the city has built a strong tradition of education, culture, and community institutions, including universities, museums, and public libraries that help preserve the region’s collective history.
More ways to explore and share local history
Research Guidance
Look for the story behind a result
Start with something you would like to understand about the past of Steubenville. It might be a person, a neighborhood or an event remembered in your family. Use the digital archive shared by Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County to follow that question into the historical record. When using historical newspapers, try alternate spellings and nearby dates, then read the surrounding page to place a local story in its time. Compare later reporting or another available title to explore different perspectives rather than treating one account as the whole story. Search a person, place, or event with a second term, then compare the date and context of each result. A repeated name needs more evidence before it identifies the same person or connects two parts of a story.
After recording the issue and page, search a second term tied to the result and compare the surrounding dates and accounts. Keep matching names provisional until the place and context fit. This can turn one result into a better question without turning a repeated name into a confirmed story.
Capture the title, date, and page or item location for a detail you may want to revisit. Label your interpretation as your reading, not the source's own words. Keep enough context with the note that another reader can retrace it.
Community Partnership
Keeping local history a community resource
This community archive is made possible by the collaboration of Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County, its community, and Advantage Archives. Together, these partnerships preserve local sources and give people a way to explore, learn from, and share the history around them.
Advantage Archives covers ongoing archive hosting, storage, development, and maintenance. The institution and its community do not pay a subscription, seat license, annual support contract, or other recurring archive-service charge. Local history remains a community resource, not a subscription to maintain.
Would you like to see more of your community's history preserved and accessible? Start a conversation with your library, newspaper publisher, historical or genealogical society, museum, or school about the materials they would like to share and a possible partnership with Advantage Archives.
Learn about partnerships
Stories, research tips, and archive news
Read All About It connects archive research with the people and institutions preserving local history. Explore partner and community stories, project updates, research ideas, and perspectives on digitization, education, and working with primary sources. Use the articles as a starting point for your next question or a new way to share a discovery.
May 7, 2025
Why Microfilm is still important in 2023
Preserving documents on microfilm has been a popular method of storage for many years, and it still holds many benefits today. Here…
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May 7, 2025
Don’t Search For An Obituary By Only Searching For An “Obituary”
In the quest to trace our roots and understand our heritage, obituaries often serve as a crucial starting point. Obituaries are undoubtedly…
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April 9, 2025
Unveiling the Hidden Mysteries: Exploring Cold Cases and Unconventional Clues
Even the most esteemed police forces in the county encounter perplexing cold case files. These unsolved mysteries often leave investigators and genealogists…
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April 1, 2025
This Week in History: March 31st through April 6th
Discover History in The Community History Archives. This week in history, there is absolutely nothing to talk about… April Fools! April…
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March 24, 2025
This Week in History: March 24th through March 30th
Discover History in The Community History Archives. It has officially been a year since I started writing This Week in History,…
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March 18, 2025
It’s Your Community’s History, So Why Rent Something You Own?
We believe that history belongs to the communities where it was made - not locked behind paywalls or inaccessible due to budget restrictions. Subscription-based services and large content aggregators are generally more concerned with "content" and less concerned with the history that content contains. Their models typically involve a reoccurring charge for a plan that renews annually or licensing agreements with the library based on population served or circulation numbers. You are essentially Renting Access To YOUR History.
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