Newspapers and Periodicals

The articles selected for this bibliography demonstrate the wide and varied impact of The Horn Papers forgery on historical and genealogical research. These articles are available to view in the Library of Congress Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room or through the Library of Congress E-Resources Online Catalog.

You can further explore the topic of The Horn Papers using the following search strategies:

Use the following terms in combination, proximity, or as a phrase: Greene County Historical Society, The Horn Papers, William F Horn, W F Horn.
To narrow results to the time of the scandal, limit the search to dates between 1946 and 1948.

Newspapers and Magazines
Scholarly Journals

The subscription resources marked with a padlock are available to researchers on-site at the Library of Congress. If you are unable to visit the Library, you may be able to access these resources through your local public or academic library.

EBSCO Research Databases External
A multi-disciplinary full text resource that covers the social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts and literature, medical sciences, military and defense issues, and religion. Updated on a daily basis.

The Great Horn Swoggle External
TIME Magazine 50, no. 18 (1947): 48-51.

NewspaperARCHIVE External
NewspaperARCHIVE.com is the world's largest online newspaper archive. Featuring billions of articles from historical newspapers around the U.S. and the world, All of our historical newspapers are full-page and fully searchable.

Amazing Forgery External
Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette, 3 March 1948, page 6, column 2.
County School to Get Report on Horn Paper Fabrication External
Hagerstown (Maryland) Daily Mail, 19 December 1947, page 4, column 3.
Experts Expose Fake Manuscripts; Adair’s Article Explains Forgery External
Williamsburg (Virginia) Flat Hat, 14 October 1947, page 4, columns 4-5.
Faces Are Red: ‘The Horn Papers’ Claimed to Be ‘Great Historical Hoax’ External
Chester (Pennsylvania) Times, 15 January 1948, page 10, columns 1-2.
Great Horn Swoggle External
Hagerstown (Maryland) Daily Mail, 13 November 1947, page 14, column 1.
Greene County Paid $20,000 for ‘History’ External
Chester (Pennsylvania) Times, 4 November 1947, page 14, column 1.
Historical Volumes Drawing Attention External
Uniontown (Pennsylvania) Morning Herald, 4 January 1946, page 1, columns 1-2 and page 3, column 4.
Horn Papers to be Ready Soon External
Hagerstown (Maryland) Daily Mail, 20 September 1944, page 3, column 5.
School Receives Horn Papers Set External
Hagerstown (Maryland) Daily Mail, 25 April 1946, page 2, column 5.

EBSCO Research Databases External
A multi-disciplinary full text resource that covers the social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts and literature, medical sciences, military and defense issues, and religion. Updated on a daily basis.

Lying to Ourselves External
Winks, Robin W. Humanities 16, no. 2 (1995): 22.
The Horn Papers are included as an example of forged histories.

JSTOR External
JSTOR is a collection of full-text, keyword-searchable academic journals dating back to the late 17th century. Full text is available up to the last 3-5 years for most titles (moving wall). JSTOR allows browsing by title or by discipline(s), and full text searching of individual titles or the entire collection.

Book Review: Other Recent Publications External
James, Alfred P. and Julian P. Boyd. The American Historical Review 51, no. 4 (1946): 771-772.
Cheat River and the ‘Horn Papers’ External
Kenny, Hamill. American Speech 28, no. 1 (February 1953): 65-66.
Negative impact of Horn Papers on local history.
Christopher Gist and the Trans-Allegheny Frontier: A Phase of the Westward Movement External
Bailey, Kenneth P. Pacific Historical Review 14, no. 1 (March 1945): 45-56.
The Horn Papers are addressed on pages 50-51, regarding Horn’s errant account of Gist.
The Mystery of the Horn Papers External
Middleton, Arthur Pierce and Douglass Adair, The William and Mary Quarterly no. 4 (October 1947): 409-445.
Unreliable Sources External
Silver, Peter. Harvard Review 37 (2009): 104-116.

Penn State Libraries Digitized Collections External
Penn State's Digitized Collections cover a wide range of subject areas, including agriculture, the Civil War era, geology and geography of Pennsylvania, labor history, Pennsylvania history, Penn State history, and political protest. Types of collection materials include books, correspondence, exhibits, image collections, indexes, journals, manuscripts, maps, multimedia, newspapers, thematic collections, theses and dissertations, and yearbooks. Many of these collections were digitized from holdings in the Special Collections Library.

Book Review: The Horn Papers - Early Westward Movement in the Monongahela and Upper Ohio, 1765-1795; by W. F. Horn External
Orrill, Lawrence A. Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 29, no. 1-2 (March-June 1946): 73-76.

Springer-Link External
A searchable collection of journals, eBooks and reference works published by Springer Verlag. Full-text access is restricted to select titles and/or journal articles. A key indicating the level of access for a particular book, journal, or article is available within the search results.

Truth without Reference: The Use of Fictional Names External
De Ponte, Maria, Kepa Korta, and John Perry. Topoi 39 (2018): 389-399.
Jacob Horn is featured as an example of a fictional person referenced in a historical debate, demonstrating an error in logic.

Horn Papers: Forged Local History

Local History & Genealogy: Ask a Librarian

Newspapers and Periodicals