History: Cincinnati History

Local Archives

Cincinnati Historical Society
See the online catalog and Index to Local History Sources.
Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
Begin with the genealogy and history department. You may also find information in the Government and Business Department and Rare Books and Manuscripts.

Readers' Guide Retrospective
Oxford campus users only. Index only to popular magazines (primarily United States) in the 20th century. 1890-1982.

Cincinnati Newspaper Index (NEWSDEX)
Created and maintained by the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County staff, this database indexes selected articles on local topics from area newspapers, currently including the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Cincinnati Post, the Cincinnati Herald, the Business Courier, Cincinnati Magazine, and the Downtowner. Some topics can be traced back into the 19th century, although the years since 1990 are covered more fully. There is no full-text in the database.

Some topics can be traced back into the 19th century, although the years since 1990 are covered more fully. There is no full-text in the database.
Cincinnati Enquirer Historical (1841-2009)
Full-text page and article images for the Cincinnati Enquirer from 1841-2009.

Cincinnati and Hamilton Co Public Library Photographs & Prints
Images from Cincinnati Public Library's collections
Greater Cincinnati Memory Project
Collection of images
Fire Insurance Maps
Digitized by the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.
Cincinnati City Directories
Historical Cincinnati Maps
University of Cincinnati Archives.
Cincinnati Transit History
Not exactly a collection of primary sources, but lots of links to transportation history in Cincinnati.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps (OPLIN Interface)
Another source. large scale street plans produced by the Sanborn Fire Insurance company from 1867 to 1970. Sanborn maps show the outline of each building including the location of windows and doors together with street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers.

These maps are used by a wide range of researchers including local historians to locate and identify buildings and neighborhoods, urban historians to study the growth of towns and cities, and environmentalists concerned about impact of new developments.

Subjects: History