Chronicling America Issues API

openapi: 3.0.3
info:
  title: Chronicling America Batches Issues API
  description: Chronicling America is a Library of Congress initiative providing free public access to a searchable database of historic American newspaper pages from 1770 to 1963. The platform hosts over 20 million digitized newspaper pages from hundreds of US newspapers contributed by institutions in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). The API exposes search, title, issue, batch, and OCR text endpoints with no authentication required, returning responses in JSON and Atom feed formats.
  version: 1.0.0
  contact:
    name: Library of Congress
    url: https://www.loc.gov/about/contact-us/
  termsOfService: https://www.loc.gov/legal/
  license:
    name: Public Domain
    url: https://www.loc.gov/legal/
servers:
- url: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
  description: Chronicling America production server
tags:
- name: Issues
  description: Endpoints for retrieving newspaper issue metadata.
paths:
  /titles/{lccn}/issues.json:
    get:
      operationId: listIssuesByTitle
      summary: List issues for a newspaper title
      description: List all digitized issues available for a specific newspaper title identified by its LCCN. Returns date and URL for each issue.
      tags:
      - Issues
      parameters:
      - name: lccn
        in: path
        required: true
        description: Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) for the newspaper title.
        schema:
          type: string
        example: sn84026749
      responses:
        '200':
          description: List of issues for the title
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/IssuesListResponse'
        '404':
          description: Title not found
  /titles/{lccn}/issues/{date}/ed-{edition}.json:
    get:
      operationId: getIssue
      summary: Get a specific newspaper issue
      description: Retrieve metadata for a specific issue of a newspaper title, identified by LCCN, publication date, and edition number. Returns links to individual page records.
      tags:
      - Issues
      parameters:
      - name: lccn
        in: path
        required: true
        description: Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) for the newspaper title.
        schema:
          type: string
        example: sn84026749
      - name: date
        in: path
        required: true
        description: Publication date in YYYY-MM-DD format.
        schema:
          type: string
          format: date
        example: '1900-01-01'
      - name: edition
        in: path
        required: true
        description: Edition number (usually 1 for the first daily edition).
        schema:
          type: integer
        example: 1
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Issue metadata including pages
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/IssueDetail'
        '404':
          description: Issue not found
components:
  schemas:
    IssueDetail:
      type: object
      description: Detailed metadata for a newspaper issue.
      properties:
        url:
          type: string
          description: URL to this issue record.
        date_issued:
          type: string
          description: Date the issue was published (YYYY-MM-DD).
          example: '1900-01-01'
        volume:
          type: string
          description: Volume number.
        number:
          type: string
          description: Issue number within the volume.
        edition:
          type: integer
          description: Edition number.
          example: 1
        edition_label:
          type: string
          description: Human-readable edition label.
        batch:
          type: string
          description: Digitization batch name.
        title:
          $ref: '#/components/schemas/TitleSummary'
        pages:
          type: array
          description: List of pages in this issue.
          items:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/PageSummary'
    IssuesListResponse:
      type: object
      description: List of all issues for a newspaper title.
      properties:
        issues:
          type: array
          description: Array of issue records.
          items:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/IssueSummary'
    IssueSummary:
      type: object
      description: Summary of a single newspaper issue.
      properties:
        url:
          type: string
          description: URL to the issue JSON record.
        date_issued:
          type: string
          description: Date the issue was published (YYYY-MM-DD).
          example: '1900-01-01'
    TitleSummary:
      type: object
      description: Summary record for a newspaper title.
      properties:
        lccn:
          type: string
          description: Library of Congress Control Number.
          example: sn84026749
        title:
          type: string
          description: Name of the newspaper.
          example: Chicago Tribune
        url:
          type: string
          description: URL to the full title JSON record.
          example: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749.json
        state:
          type: array
          items:
            type: string
          description: State(s) where the newspaper was published.
        county:
          type: array
          items:
            type: string
          description: County or counties of publication.
        city:
          type: array
          items:
            type: string
          description: City or cities of publication.
        start_year:
          type: string
          description: First year of publication.
          example: '1849'
        end_year:
          type: string
          description: Last year of publication (or "present" if ongoing).
          example: '1920'
    PageSummary:
      type: object
      description: Summary of a single newspaper page within an issue.
      properties:
        url:
          type: string
          description: URL to the page JSON record.
        sequence:
          type: integer
          description: Page sequence number (1-based).
          example: 1
        pdf:
          type: string
          description: URL to the PDF version of the page.
        jp2:
          type: string
          description: URL to the JP2 image version of the page.
        ocr:
          type: string
          description: URL to the plain text OCR of the page.
externalDocs:
  description: Chronicling America API Documentation
  url: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/api/