Circulation numbers for the black press?

[BigBlue]

(Moderators, feel free to move to another forum if necessary.)

I'm hoping someone here might be able to help me. I'm preparing a historical essay on the black press in the 20th century and have been looking for circulation numbers for some of the nation's largest papers - the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier, the Kansas City Call, the Baltimore Afro-American, to name a few.

I'm trying to see if I can spot trends from year to year (but most likely the decade) and match events and their impact with the circulation numbers. I've spent hours upon hours looking over the microfilm reels of so many of these papers but don't have the slightest idea of where to turn for circulation numbers of papers that have folded.

If anyone could point me in the right direction, I'd be more than thankful.

 

[mdpoppy]

Scarborough Research does a lot of studies on newspapers. Just read one on how the Spanish-based newspapers in the U.S. are booming, maybe there will be something along the lines you're looking for.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

I would try the journalism department at Howard University. Howard University Press published "A History of the Black Press" in 1997, so I would try that book, too. I don't think E&P ever did much in the way of monitoring black papers, but if you live near NYC, they might let you look at the yearbooks. I know they used to have a section on black papers. But I doubt they'd have time to do the research for you.

There were black papers in a lot of smaller cities even as late as the 1970s -- I mean cities with 50K or 100K population.