This year, The New York Public Library celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. The Bernstein Award honors working journalists whose books shed light on issues, events, or policies, such as this year's nominees, whose reporting addresses gun violence in America, the spread of cholera, and Syria. Helen Bernstein (Fealy) was a columnist, whose work often appeared in the Palm Beach Daily News. This award was created in honor of Bernstein's strong support and appreciation of journalism and its role in our society. For over a century, The New York Public Library has built an important collection of journalistic works as evidenced by the current exhibition, Celebrating Excellence in Journalism: Freedom of Press in America, which displays materials ranging from coverage of the Pentagon Papers in the New York Times to a work by the 17th Century English poet John Milton that serves as a foundation to the First Amendment. In addition to our expansive print collection, patrons can explore the work of notable journalists using NYPL's electronic resources. In honor of Helen Bernstein, take a look at some of the work by famous women journalists from our databases.

Ida B. Wells

In addition to being a prominent civil rights and anti-lynching activist, Wells wrote a number of columns for the African-American newspaperThe Chicago Defender.

Dorothy Thompson

A journalist who began her career in Germany, and was later expelled from the country for her articles on Hitler, continued her journalism career in the United States in print and on radio.

Francis Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald provided extensive coverage of the Vietnam War, and authored the influential book Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

Ethel L. Payne

Payne became widely known as the "First Lady of the Black Press," and wrote widely about the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950's and 1960's and went on to build a career at CBS covering national and international news.

Find More

Anyone can read articles by these, and many other journalists, by exploring our many online collections of newspapers, periodical, and journals, below are just some of the e-resources NYPL patrons can access. This blog post was researched entirely using NYPL's electronic resources. With more than 500 online research options available, many accessible from home with a library card, we challenge you to go beyond the search engine and dig deeper online with NYPL.

Historical Newspapers Databases

America's Historical Newspapers | British Library Newspapers | ProQuest Historical Newspapers | Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 | Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers | ProQuest Historical African American Newspapers

Contemporary Newspapers Databases

National Newspaper Premier | New York Times (1851-2013) | Chicago Tribune | Washington Post | Ethnic News Watch | Independent Voices | PressReader

World Newspapers Databases

Newspaper Source (EBSCO) | South Asian Newspapers | Caribbean Newspapers (1718-1876) | African Newspapers (1820-1922) | World Newspaper Archive (1800-1922) | Times of London Digital Archive

Periodicals

Flipster | Time Magazine | Life Magazine | The New Yorker