06 · 16 · 15

Historical Cinema Publications Free to Read Online

Ma. Cristina Alemán, editora en jefe (@mcristina)

Are you working on a research project about cinema, radio or television? Lantern is a great tool for academics and anyone else interested in this history of audiovisual media. It is a free, searchable, online platform that includes Media History Digital Library (MHDL) collection, an online library of books, newspapers and magazines.

The creators and directors of the initiative are academics David Pierce and Eric Hoyt, who work in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States. Lantern was made possible thanks to the support of the owners of the material, who allowed it to be digitalized, and donations that covered the cost of scanning the material.

The materials available on Lantern are public domain (which is to say that there are no issues with author’s rights), and all are available to download free of charge. The only stipulation for their use is that the files must not be embedded on your own website, and that Lantern is always notified if you plan to use the files for commercial ends.

Are you curious to read an edition of Variety from 1905? Or maybe you’re more interested in the magazine Cine Mundial from 1916? What about an edition of Photoplay from 1942 with Rita Rayworth on the cover? You can also explore various decades of publications like Screen, Movie Makers and Ciné-Journal, among many others. With Lantern, if you don’t want to spend hours browsing historical gems in an arbitrary way, they also have an effective search tool to help you find exactly what you need among their 1.3 million pages of material.

Visit Lantern in: lantern.mediahist.org