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Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
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Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
The passenger pigeon was once the most abundant bird in North America, so numerous that they “darkened the sun with their flights.” In 1915, the passenger pigeon officially becomes extinct as the last bird dies in Chicago. How could this have happened? In the early 19th century, massive deforestation and overhunting leads to the passenger pigeon's ultimate demise. Efforts to conserve the species are too little and too late. 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.
| November 28, 1889 | Passenger pigeons, once populous, have now become a “rarity”; however, they are still actively hunted. |
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| May 4, 1908 | An article calls for the protection of passenger pigeons from overhunting, listing facts about the species. |
| December 8, 1910 | There is only one passenger pigeon left, spending its days in the Zoological garden in Cincinnati. |
| April 15, 1911 | An article documents the disappearance of the passenger pigeons, and how there is a $400 cash reward for anyone who finds the nest of a passenger pigeon. |
| February 1913 | The last passenger pigeon in the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens falls ill. |
| May 1915 | The last passenger pigeon dies in Chicago at the age of twenty-seven years. |
| June 1915 | There is an unfounded rumor that the US Department of Agriculture is offering a $10,000 reward for the person who finds a passenger pigeon nest. |
| June 22, 1916 | An article claims that the passenger pigeon is not extinct, and that the bird will once again become numerous. |
