Chronicling America

aid: chroniclingamerica
name: Chronicling America
description: >-
  Chronicling America is a Library of Congress initiative providing free public access to a searchable
  database of historic American newspaper pages from 1770 to 1963. The platform hosts over 20 million
  digitized newspaper pages from hundreds of US newspapers contributed by institutions in the National
  Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). The API exposes search, title, issue, batch, and OCR text endpoints
  with no authentication required, returning responses in JSON and Atom feed formats.
image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/chroniclingamerica/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
type: Index
tags:
  - Newspapers
  - Historical
  - Archives
  - Library of Congress
  - Government
  - Digitized
  - OCR
  - Search
  - Cultural Heritage
apis:
  - aid: chroniclingamerica:chronicling-america-search-api
    name: Chronicling America Search API
    description: >-
      The Chronicling America Search API provides full-text search across over 20 million historic
      American newspaper pages digitized under the National Digital Newspaper Program. Callers can
      search by keyword, date range, state, newspaper title (LCCN), and page-level fields. Responses
      are available in JSON or Atom format. No authentication or API key is required.
    image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
    humanURL: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/api/
    baseURL: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
    tags:
      - Newspapers
      - Search
      - Historical
      - OCR
      - Full-Text
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/api/
      - type: OpenAPI
        url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/chroniclingamerica/refs/heads/main/openapi/chroniclingamerica-openapi.yml
      - type: TermsOfService
        url: https://www.loc.gov/legal/
      - type: PrivacyPolicy
        url: https://www.loc.gov/legal/privacy-policy/
    contact:
      - FN: Library of Congress
        url: https://www.loc.gov/about/contact-us/
  - aid: chroniclingamerica:chronicling-america-titles-api
    name: Chronicling America Titles API
    description: >-
      The Titles API exposes bibliographic metadata for every newspaper title in the Chronicling
      America collection. Callers can retrieve the full title list, look up a specific title by LCCN
      (Library of Congress Control Number), list all digitized issues for a title, and retrieve
      individual batch records. Responses are available in JSON and Atom formats.
    image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
    humanURL: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/api/
    baseURL: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
    tags:
      - Newspapers
      - Titles
      - LCCN
      - Bibliographic
      - Metadata
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/api/
      - type: OpenAPI
        url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/chroniclingamerica/refs/heads/main/openapi/chroniclingamerica-openapi.yml
      - type: TermsOfService
        url: https://www.loc.gov/legal/
    contact:
      - FN: Library of Congress
        url: https://www.loc.gov/about/contact-us/
  - aid: chroniclingamerica:chronicling-america-pages-api
    name: Chronicling America Pages API
    description: >-
      The Pages API provides access to individual newspaper page records including OCR text, IIIF image
      service URLs, PDF downloads, and JP2 image files. Pages are addressed by LCCN, date, edition,
      and sequence number. OCR text can be retrieved as plain text or coordinates. The underlying image
      files are available in JP2, PDF, and TIFF formats hosted on LOC storage services.
    image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
    humanURL: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/api/
    baseURL: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
    tags:
      - Newspapers
      - Pages
      - OCR
      - Images
      - PDF
      - JP2
      - IIIF
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/api/
      - type: OpenAPI
        url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/chroniclingamerica/refs/heads/main/openapi/chroniclingamerica-openapi.yml
      - type: TermsOfService
        url: https://www.loc.gov/legal/
    contact:
      - FN: Library of Congress
        url: https://www.loc.gov/about/contact-us/
common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/api/
  - type: About
    url: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/
  - type: GithubOrg
    url: https://github.com/LibraryOfCongress
  - type: X
    url: https://twitter.com/librarycongress
  - type: LinkedIn
    url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/library-of-congress
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.loc.gov/legal/
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.loc.gov/legal/privacy-policy/
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/chroniclingamerica-plans-pricing.yml
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/chroniclingamerica-rate-limits.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/chroniclingamerica-finops.yml
  - type: JSONLd
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/chroniclingamerica/refs/heads/main/json-ld/chroniclingamerica.jsonld
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: [email protected]