The full run of The Washington Post from 1877 to 1987 offers a unique perspective on national events. Every sitting president from Rutherford B. Hayes to Ronald Reagan fills its columns – with the stories of their successors still to come. ProQuest will add a year of coverage every year. The database includes each page from every issue, cover to cover, in PDF files. More than 2.6 million pages of articles comprise the newly digitized archive.

The Washington Post is just one of the famous mastheads featured in the ProQuest Historical Newspapers program. It joins The New York Times (1851-1999) and The Wall Street Journal (1889-1985) in the exclusive database created and distributed by ProQuest Company’s (NYSE:PQE) Information and Learning unit to educational institutions and libraries around the world. The Christian Science Monitor digital backfile (1908-1990) was completed this spring as well.

The ProQuest Historical Newspapers project was initiated in January 2001 as part of the company's ongoing Digital Vault Initiative™. The collection offers ready access to the full content of each newspaper starting from its very first issue. Other titles in the ProQuest Historical Newspapers collection will include The Chicago Tribune, set to begin manufacture soon, and The Los Angeles Times with manufacture already underway.

Information Today columnist Peter Jacso hails ProQuest for launching “the most important newspaper archive” (February 2003). This unparalleled resource gives users the tools to study specific historic events, compare coverage in different newspapers, or follow trends across more than a century of change. ProQuest Historical Newspapers offers an unmatched depth and breadth of national and international news, analysis and political commentary, all searchable through a modified version of the powerful ProQuest® platform.

Full text of The Washington Post dating from 1988 forward is also available electronically in ASCII full text from ProQuest. The complete Washington Post product in ProQuest provides access to more than 125 years of a leading news source. Both the archive and the current file are accessed by subscribers using the ProQuest Web-based online information service.

The flagship newspaper of the nation’s capital leads the nation in political and government coverage, available in print and through an internationally recognized Web site at www.washingtonpost.com . The Washington Post is known worldwide for the Pulitzer-winning coverage of the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon administration, a story which began when a security guard discovered a piece of tape across a door lock at the soon to be notorious office building. The story is only one of dozens published in the Post to have been awarded the prestigious Pulitzer medal.

Today's top stories had their roots in the earliest days of the Post's publishing life. In 1877, the first commercial telephone was introduced. By 1987, 1 million mobile phone subscribers crammed the airwaves, transforming politics, the media, and every other aspect of life in the United States. The Washington Post covered the story.

While The Post is often frequently associated with its role in Watergate, it was founded in 1877 by Stilson Hutchins and has a long and storied history. While the early years of The Post brought financial woes and a string of owners, The Post was also marked by its involvement with great writers and historic events; among The Post's early contributors were Robert Louis Stevenson, Theodore Roosevelt and Joseph Pulitzer.

However, the successes could not match the mismanagement, and the paper was eventually sold at a bankruptcy auction in 1933.  In retrospect, this would be the best thing to ever happen to The Post as new owner Eugene Meyer quickly turned the paper around and built it into the premier paper in the nation's capital.  Throughout the last half-century, The Washington Post has remained a newspaper dedicated to covering the events in Washington and around the world.

In association with Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, every backfile issue of The Washington Post has been digitized from cover to cover, including news stories, editorials, photos, graphics, and advertisements.  Searchers can use basic keyword, guided, publication specific, and relevancy search techniques to locate information.  Or, they can browse through issues page by page, as one would browse a printed edition.  Search results lists provide bibliographic information, including date, issue, article headline, page number, and byline (where given).  Users may choose to display the full page image of any page in any issue.

Free trials are available. Libraries may receive more information by contacting their account representative at 1-800-521-0600, ext 3183 or 3452 (outside the U.S., call +44-1-223-215-512) or pqsales@il.proquest.com. Editors may call 1-800-521-0600, ext 6489 or email pr@il.proquest.com.

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive is the new-media and electronic publishing subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE:WPO). Its mission is to develop the company's editorial products and businesses on the Internet and across all electronic content delivery platforms.  WPNI's flagship products include washingtonpost.com and Newsweek.com on MSNBC.com.  The company is headquartered in Arlington, VA.

ProQuest Company (NYSE: PQE) is based in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is a leading provider of value-added information and content to the library, classroom, automotive, and powersports markets. We provide products and services to our customers through two business segments: Information & Learning and Business Solutions. Through our Information & Learning segment, which primarily serves the library and classroom markets, we aggregate and publish value-added content from a wide range of sources including newspapers, periodicals, and books. Our Business Solutions segment is primarily engaged in the delivery in electronic form of comprehensive parts and service information to the automotive market. It also provides dealers in the powersports (motorcycle, marine, RV, and outdoor power) markets with management systems that enable them to manage their inventory, customer service, and other aspects of their businesses.

ProQuest Information and Learning is a world leader in collecting, organizing, and distributing information worldwide to researchers, faculty, and students in libraries and schools. Known widely for its strength in business and economics, general-reference, humanities, social sciences, and STM content, the company develops premium databases comprising periodicals, newspapers, dissertations, out-of-print books, and other scholarly information from more than 8,500 publishers worldwide.  Users access the information through the ProQuest® Web-based online information system, Chadwyck-Healey^TM electronic and microform resources, UMI® microform and print reference products, bigchalk^TM educational resources, and XanEdu^TM online faculty and student resources.  For more information about ProQuest Information and Learning, visit www.il.proquest.com.