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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.
One of the most famous sets of conjoined twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, or “Left” and “Right”, were the original “Siamese Twins”. The twins led relatively normal lives; they married, worked as farmers, and had 21 children between them. 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.
| 1844 | The Siamese twins have reportedly settled down as farmers, are married, and have children. | July 29, 1869 | Mark Twain writes satirical essay “The Personal Habits of the Siamese Twins” as a metaphor for post-Civil War problems. |
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| January 17, 1874 | Death of the Siamese Twins. |
