Running through dust, rain, snow and mud, Thomas Longboat pulls ahead of his competitors, easily winning the Boston Marathon in April, 1907, and smashing the current record by more than five minutes despite the terrible weather conditions. In the next few years the marathon craze would move outside of Boston to sweep across the country with races run "in nearly every big city," turning the ancient Greek tradition into an American phenomenon. Read more about it!

The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.

The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.