10 10 116 https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/4ae91c511f23e71a26e49501e9f75d21.jpg 246b367666657699266aaba51d54c2a5 https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/c4105fd8e306c1195f9e26232b7217cc.jpg 9ee7c9fa43550bb4d4dd136a03d1efb2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Type The nature or genre of the resource Newspaper Title A name given to the resource The Boston Weekly News-Letter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 24 to April 1, 1737 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 33-37 cm. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Boston, Mass. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available John Draper Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=24">AAS Catalog Record</a> <a href="https://gigi.mwa.org/imagearchive/filename/24_">View more issues</a> Description An account of the resource The oldest of the five newspapers in Boston in 1737 was the Boston Weekly News-Letter. <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-colonial-america/item/116">Founded in 1704</a>, it was also the oldest newspaper in America. The proprietor of the News-Letter after 1732 was John Draper (d. 1762), who, like most newspaper publishers of that era, ran a general printing shop. For example, Draper printed the <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-colonial-america/item/106">Benjamin Colman sermon</a> on the Brocas workshop fire for the Boston booksellers Joseph Edwards and Hopestill Foster. Draper was also the official printer to the governor and council of Massachusetts, which placed him at the heart of the political establishment of the province. It was Draper who printed the <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-colonial-america/item/107">official broadside proclamations</a> on the March 1737 market riot. The April 1, 1737, issue of the Weekly News-Letter, seen here, is typical in the range and organization of its news coverage, though the local news that day is unusually dramatic. In this issue, Draper was the first newspaper publisher to print an account of the market riot, in which a mob opposed to regulated markets tore down the public market sheds in the central part of the city. Draper broke the story in part by reprinting a proclamation by Lieutenant Governor Spencer Phips (1685-1757) condemning the rioters, which had already been circulated and formally read at public gathering places in the city. The other Boston papers could have published accounts earlier, but they did not. They seemed content to wait to see how Draper, the governor’s printer, would handle this politically sensitive story. After this issue of the News-Letter was in print, the other newspapers followed suit, publishing accounts of the riot, the official response, and the political aftermath.  Boston 1737 Market Riot John Brocas Woodworking Shop Fire Newspaper https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/7ed8d583dd4e9a880443f3e8b3d0d7f8.JPG 95cdd67e315c60a7734bd61e6eb3658e https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/7b7864f8629a0b38870c42a81f00d78c.JPG 76e8d754d179ced89c1d25f32b22984e https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/af3ab54f2d5c4418ad338600d4f1fb82.JPG 842d5bb041fecb75ecea502cd03b3c3f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Type The nature or genre of the resource Pamphlet Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Colman, Benjamin, 1673-1747 Title A name given to the resource It Is of the Lord's Mercies That We Are Not Consumed. A Sermon. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1737 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 19 cm. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Boston, Mass. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available J. Draper, for J. Edwards, and H. Foster Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=316110">AAS Catalog Record</a> Description An account of the resource In New England, even in the age of newspapers, which began modestly in 1704 with the launch of the <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-colonial-america/item/116">Boston News-Letter</a>, the sermon remained a vital public communication medium for the discussion of news. Though most sermons, especially Sunday sermons, dealt with piety and theology, some sermons were linked directly to public events. For New Englanders the news of the day often carried religious meaning. Preachers discerned in natural and political occurrences the providential hand of God. These event-related sermons sometimes focused on routine and scheduled events such as elections, funerals, or executions. They also commented on unexpected events such as earthquakes, comets, storms, crimes, shipwrecks, and military victories and defeats. In Boston in 1737 one of the most influential ministers was Benjamin Colman (1673-1747), who had assumed the pulpit of the new Brattle Street Church in 1699. Early in the morning of March 4, 1737, a fire swept through the workshop of cabinetmaker John Brocas. The fire was quickly extinguished, but in a crowded, wooden city such as Boston, a building fire was always a terrifying hazard and, therefore, compelling public news. Diarists such as <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-colonial-america/item/103">John Burt</a> and <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-colonial-america/item/23">Thomas Prince</a> noted the Brocas fire in their diaries, and over the following week all the Boston newspapers, including the <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-colonial-america/item/104">Weekly Journal</a>, carried reports of it. And on the very morning of the fire, the Reverend Colman preached a sermon on it. “It is of the Lord’s Mercies that we are not consumed,” Colman declared, quoting from Lamentations, chapter three, “because His Compassions fail not; they are new every Morning.” One of Colman’s listeners was John Burt, who mentioned in his diary that he attended services that day at the Brattle Street Church. John Brocas Woodworking Shop Fire John Burt Pamphlet Sermons Thomas Prince https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/0ff49dba9b5145c0c25f6c176e8d9a16.JPG 0fa7086dc4364929e3f4ab5bd9eb0ade Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Type The nature or genre of the resource Broadside Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Massachusetts. Governor (Belcher, Jonathan, 1730-1741) Title A name given to the resource By His Excellency Jonathan Belcher, Esq;...A Proclamation. Alternative Title An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific. By His Excellency Jonathan Belcher, Esq;...A Proclamation. Whereas on the Twenty-fifth Day of March last...the Lieutenant Governour...issued a Proclamation for discovering and apprehending the Persons concerned... Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 14, 1737 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 47 x 35 cm. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Boston, Mass. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available J. Draper, printer to his excellency the governour and Council. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=350829">AAS Catalog Record</a> Description An account of the resource The most formal medium of news dissemination in colonial New England was the government proclamation, issued by the governor or other high official and printed elegantly in broadside form. Proclamations often announced special days of thanksgiving for military victories or other signs of divine deliverance. Proclamations were designed to be consumed in public: they were posted on public buildings and often formally read aloud in public spaces, sometimes announced by the beat of drums. Newspapers typically reprinted them as well. In Boston two official proclamations were issued in response to the <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-colonial-america/item/105">March 1737 market riot</a>, one by Lieutenant Governor Spencer Phips (1685-1757) and the other by Governor Jonathan Belcher (1682-1757). Both, as expected, denounced the rioters. But Belcher’s proclamation was highly unusual in one regard. It printed the full texts of another important, but completely unofficial, medium of public communication: a manuscript open letter. In response to the first proclamation by the lieutenant governor, the mob leaders had circulated handwritten copies of their own proclamation around town and posted one on the town house door. (No original copies survive.) They demanded that the authorities abandon their efforts to arrest the “good Fellows” who had pulled down the markets. Further investigations, they said, would bring on a “Bloody Ending” and perhaps “Civil War.” They also wrote an open letter to the sheriff of Suffolk County boasting that hundreds of men were ready to resist any use of force against them. The local newspaper editors, who had been wary of publishing the rioters’ words, were delighted to publish them once the governor himself had printed them in his own official proclamation. This document, therefore, illustrates both ends of the news-media continuum in Boston in 1737: the official, top-down flow of news from the government as well as the insurgent, bottom-up flow of news from the streets of the city. Boston 1737 Market Riot Broadside https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/b87f37a265431ed422951cd1f30b62f5.jpg ec18e350be573623dd0702f09a786f85 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Type The nature or genre of the resource Broadside Title A name given to the resource A Poem Occasioned by the untimely Death of Hugh Henderson, alias John Hamilton, who was Hangd at Worcester for House-Breaking. Nov. 24. 1737. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1737 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 33 x 42 cm. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Boston, Mass. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Samuel Kneeland and Timothy Green Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=326841">AAS Catalog Record</a> Description An account of the resource Public executions had long been popular news events in Europe, and they fit well into the news environment of Puritan New England. They were sensational, which appealed to the voyeurism of audiences, but they were also morally instructive, which appealed to the religious sentiments of public officials and ministers. And printers liked executions because accounts of them could be sold in news broadsides, sermons, and newspapers. Indeed, one of the first products of the first commercial press in Boston in 1675 was a sermon on the execution of two men for murder. The author was New England’s most famous collector and interpreter of providential news events in that era: Reverend Increase Mather (1639-1723). In 1737 the execution in Worcester of a habitual criminal named Hugh Henderson was reported in Boston. (There was no printing press in Worcester at that time.) The coverage appeared in three different media formats: broadside, sermon, and newspaper. The broadside, typically a small sheet printed on one side, was a favored medium for getting a news story out quickly, cheaply, and profitably. This one includes both a cautionary poem and Henderson’s confession, which covered the standard list of sins driven by drink: cursing and swearing, gaming, Sabbath-breaking, whoring, robbery, and burglary. The confession was published by the Boston printers Samuel Kneeland (1697-1769) and Timothy Green (1703-63) in two formats: first as a broadside and then as an appendix to the sermon preached by Reverend John Campbell (1691-1761) at Henderson’s execution. The broadside, which reused a woodcut that Kneeland and Green had used in 1734, was rushed into print and available for sale in time for the execution. The execution itself was reported in the Boston newspapers, most fully in the Weekly Journal, which was also published by Kneeland and Green. The printers even tucked an ad for their broadside into the middle of the Journal’s December 6th story on the execution. An <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-colonial-america/item/46">anonymous Boston newspaper indexer</a> was a Kneeland and Green customer: he listed both the broadside and the newspaper story in his 1737 index. Broadside Hugh Henderson https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/cf826f6470cc3caecda2e8f99198e201.JPG 309ac9b43fa7bfd422a8a80c4eee2eb7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Type The nature or genre of the resource Newspaper Title A name given to the resource The New-York Weekly Journal Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 10, 1745 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 30 cm. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant New York, N.Y. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available John Peter Zenger Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=31">AAS Catalog Record</a> Description An account of the resource The first newspaper in New York was the New-York Gazette, founded in 1725 by William Bradford (1663-1752). The New-York Weekly Journal appeared eight years later, and from its beginning it was more than a business competitor to the Gazette; it was a political adversary. In the 1730s, New York was the most politically fractious of the British American colonies, and the Weekly Journal represented the faction of Chief Justice Lewis Morris (1671-1746) against Governor William Cosby (1690-1736). The printer of the Journal, John Peter Zenger (1697-1746), is remembered and celebrated because it was he, not the actual writers of the paper’s political essays, who ended up being prosecuted for seditious libel at the behest of the governor in 1734. Zenger’s acquittal became a cause célèbre in the history of press freedom in colonial America and beyond. After his acquittal, Zenger made his paper less an organ of political faction and more a standard newspaper. The 1745 issue seen here is an example of the Journal in the last year of Zenger’s editorship; he died the next year. It illustrates how war—in this case, King George’s War—could thoroughly dominate the news. In 1745 a New England force was mounting a siege of the French fortress at Louisbourg on <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/items/browse?tag=Cape+Breton+Island">Cape Breton Island</a> at the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Journal reported the news of this important expedition mainly by gathering news from Boston, much as Benjamin Franklin was doing in Philadelphia. This war with France and the later Seven Years’ War of the 1750s and 1760s did not produce an American patriotism in the British colonies. But they did produce among the colonies a sense of shared American interest and identity. From New England down the Atlantic seaboard, newspapers shared and reprinted North American news for people who were beginning to think of themselves as Americans. Click the image below to browse the full issue.  <iframe src="https://fliphtml5.com/embed/dist/html/embed-cover.html#!/?w=0&bc=#000&p=1&l=http://online.fliphtml5.com/xohe/fucf/&t=http://online.fliphtml5.com/xohe/fucf/files/shot.jpg" frameborder="0" width="225" height="350"></iframe> Benjamin Franklin Cape Breton Island Newspaper William Bradford https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/d70aa948a36e3960ed1527dd48935614.JPG b4d1af29bd40c6f73c630bf71eb31a24 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Type The nature or genre of the resource Newspaper Title A name given to the resource The Pennsylvania Gazette Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 6, 1745 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 27-37 cm. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Philadelphia, Pa. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Benjamin Franklin and H. Meredith Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=22">AAS Catalog Record</a> Description An account of the resource Biographers and historians agree that <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/items/browse?tag=Benjamin+Franklin">Benjamin Franklin</a> (1706-90) was the best journalist in colonial America and his Pennsylvania Gazette the best newspaper. Founded in 1728, the Gazette was the second newspaper to be produced in Philadelphia. In 1729, the twenty-three-year-old Franklin and a partner, Hugh Meredith (ca. 1697- ca. 1749), bought the struggling paper and quickly turned it into a well-written, well-edited, and well-printed newspaper. In format, Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette was like other colonial American newspapers. The emphasis was on news, not literary or political essays, and most of that news was copied from European papers. But Franklin had a knack for selecting, editing, and rewriting. And, if his autobiography is to be believed, the Gazette “prov’d in a few Years extreamly profitable.” This 1745 issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette is typical in some ways, atypical in others. As usual, the paper is filled with European news of war and diplomacy. But in 1745 some important war news came to Philadelphia via Boston. Under a “Boston” heading, the Pennsylvania Gazette reported the big news of the day: the siege of the French fortress at Louisbourg on <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/items/browse?tag=Cape+Breton+Island">Cape Breton Island</a> at the Gulf of St. Lawrence, mounted mainly by New Englanders. This issue of the Gazette is quite unusual in that it has two extra pages and a woodcut map, a “PLAN of the Town and Harbour of LOUISBOURGH.” This map, probably cut by Franklin himself, marks the first illustrated news story in American journalism. Yet in the midst of much serious war news, a bit of Franklinesque fluff also appears: “They write from Paris, that the Diamonds of the Lords and Ladies of the Court at Versailles, at the grand Ball on the 25th of last Month, were valued at 250 Millions, which is near 12 Millions Sterling.” Click the image below to browse the full issue.  <iframe src="https://fliphtml5.com/embed/dist/html/embed-cover.html#!/?w=0&bc=#000&p=1&l=http://online.fliphtml5.com/xohe/nush/&t=http://online.fliphtml5.com/xohe/nush/files/shot.jpg" frameborder="0" width="226" height="350"></iframe> Benjamin Franklin Cape Breton Island Newspaper https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/83b28b1f8299fe4ee4fd46feb5bfe5fd.JPG c4b3489def3ad65212b423a5a712a491 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Type The nature or genre of the resource Almanac Title A name given to the resource Poor Richard, 1739. An Almanack for the Year of Christ 1739. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1738 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 18 cm. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Philadelphia, Pa. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Benjamin Franklin Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=326873">AAS Catalog Record</a> Description An account of the resource Throughout the colonial period, almanacs were the best-selling product of the American press. The almanac was one of the first imprints of the Cambridge Press—the first press in British North America—in the 1640s; by the 1760s tens of thousands of copies of almanacs were printed every year by a dozen different printers. Boston’s Nathaniel Ames Almanack alone had a circulation of fifty to sixty thousand. American almanacs shared many characteristics with their British counterparts. All featured monthly calendars, with information on tides, sun and moon rises, movements of the planets, and vague weather forecasts. They also typically carried a variety of lists: court meeting dates, information on roads and mileage, and chronologies of public events and “memorable occurrences.” Almanacs helped readers organize the flow of their daily lives, especially since most colonial-era <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-colonial-america/item/23">diaries were written into almanacs</a>. A very popular and highly profitable almanac was <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/items/browse?tag=Benjamin+Franklin">Benjamin Franklin’s</a> Poor Richard’s, first printed in 1732. Poor Richard’s is remembered as the depository of Franklin’s famous proverbs and aphorisms. Most of these, however, were copied from other sources; in filling the empty spaces in his almanacs with nuggets of wisdom, Franklin was following the conventions of the genre. But as with all his work of borrowing and editing, Franklin had a knack for rewriting with charm and wit. This 1739 issue has a humorous introduction spoofing the weather forecasts in almanacs and extolling the virtues of mixing serious wisdom with amusing trifles. In a satirical essay at the end on almanacs predicting disease outbreaks, Franklin writes: “THIS Year the Stone-blind shall see but very little; the Deaf shall hear but poorly; and the Dumb shan’t speak very plain.” And tucked into the margins of each month’s calendar page are the famous and not-so-famous aphorisms, including “He that falls in love with himself, will have no Rivals.”  Click the image below to browse the almanac.  <iframe src="https://fliphtml5.com/embed/dist/html/embed-cover.html#!/?w=0&bc=#000&p=1&l=http://online.fliphtml5.com/xohe/zupn/&t=http://online.fliphtml5.com/xohe/zupn/files/shot.jpg" frameborder="0" width="236" height="350"></iframe> Almanac Benjamin Franklin https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/271f8b1ae7b167f685f3ab832b9a5387.jpg a145e94384c17c06edcaf55b772df7cc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Type The nature or genre of the resource Almanac Title A name given to the resource "The Colporter." Alternative Title An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific. The American Tract Society's Almanac for the Year of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 1861:...Calculated for Boston, New York, Washington, and Charleston, and four parallels of latitude. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1860 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 19 cm. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Boston, Mass. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available American Tract Society Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=464215">AAS Catalog Record</a> Description An account of the resource This illustration depicts an American Tract Society (ATS) colporteur at work. The term “colporteur” was coined in eighteenth-century France as a name for itinerant peddlers of books, especially religious books. In America, the term came to be closely associated with the traveling agents of the ATS. The ATS, founded in 1825 in New York City, was a pioneering, multidenominational religious publisher. For decades the society flooded the nation with religious tracts, newspapers, books, almanacs, children’s periodicals, and other publications. In 1850 ATS colporteurs visited 505,422 families, sold nearly half a million volumes, and gave away 35 million pages of books and tracts. Like many institutions with national reach, the ATS in the 1850s was nearly wrecked by the issue of slavery. Some Northerners wanted the society to publish tracts denouncing the sin of slavery; nearly all Southerners wanted no mention of slavery at all. After the Civil War the ATS was gradually displaced by denominational publishers, but during its heyday it was one of the largest publishing houses in America. Other publishers used itinerant peddlers as well, but what set ATS colporteurs apart from others was that they were paid by salary instead of by commission on sales, and they were encouraged to give away tracts and books for free as well as to sell them. This was an important distinction. It meant that ATS colporteurs were not incentivized to stay in more prosperous areas, where people had the money to buy books. It meant that the society’s managers, in theory at least, could do what they believed they were called to do: place religious materials into the hands of every man, woman, and child in America. This was an extravagant and ultimately forlorn hope. It was the dream of universal mass media, somewhat before its time.  Almanac https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/bae5273d6e1894048a81df16e9c66f6a.JPG 28226dc5b940895dd71284a53c72cbb7 https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/78413332a39a669b6e7028a57d03d644.JPG 9cd39f4bdf0407587cc1ad6f3a9f2193 https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/c84d01fc828ddbcf06a206a034e735f8.JPG febb85d6c4230539dfebf8ff4c1f606b https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/c7bf46632b6289752558cf6cfaa44772.JPG 0d7e54ed28fda98ccb07c9b41b1e0d4a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Type The nature or genre of the resource Book Title A name given to the resource The Truant Boy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1839 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 12 cm. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Boston, Mass. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Mass. Sabbath School Society Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=243355">AAS Catalog Record</a> Description An account of the resource The national Sunday school movement, like other religious and reform movements in the early nineteenth century, was fundamentally a publishing enterprise. The goal was to organize and support Sunday schools, but the chief means to that end was the production and distribution of books and periodicals as cheaply as possible. The publications of the Sunday school societies were always religious in character, but the societies’ schools also taught basic literacy, especially in the new settlements of the trans-Appalachian west. Though the books and periodicals were not news media, per se, they helped to teach world geography and American history, which contextualized the news of the day. And they did engage with some current public issues, notably temperance. The Massachusetts Sabbath School Society was formed in 1832 as an orthodox Congregational organization. At first it was affiliated with the nondenominational American Sunday School Union but split from that group in 1839 in order to preserve the doctrinal integrity of its publications and schools. The Truant Boy, however, is not a doctrinal tract; it is essentially a temperance tract. The narrator is a school teacher dealing with a sad, troublesome child. It turns out that the child’s mother is a hopeless alcoholic who eventually drinks herself to death. Like many temperance publications of the time, this one offers a glimpse into the distillery business as well as a sentimental story—declared to be entirely true, not fictional—about degradation and eventual salvation.  Book Temperance https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/55e04c9602c9dad111c63f5859ea3516.JPG 1a81980b5516bf625131372727af58c3 https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/2637ab0e78258dd3c3d11bd56e6bc02f.JPG 9c3896db7723e689bb2863a4d467dc82 https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/07ed94847a6ab0658134977e5e8317ef.JPG d474fdae0632e495b342b943c93f4acf https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/8ad39fdf9892aab25905eecacda1dd1a.JPG bca145fb0a990ff495540432694eb08f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Type The nature or genre of the resource Newspaper Title A name given to the resource Boston Daily Journal Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 7, 1863 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 68 cm. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Boston, Mass. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Sleeper & Rogers Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=5831">AAS Catalog Record</a> Description An account of the resource One of the few battlefield reporters to cover the Civil War from beginning to end—from Bull Run to the fall of Richmond—was <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-and-the-civil-war/item/85">C.C. Coffin</a> (1823-96) of the Boston Journal. After the Battle of Gettysburg, when the outcome was assured by late July 3, 1863, Coffin made his way by horse and train to Baltimore. After telegraphing a quick story to his newspaper, he set out for Boston by rail, writing his main story along the way, and sending bulletins and paragraphs by wire at station stops. When he arrived at the Journal office on July 6, a crowd of anxious Bostonians had gathered to greet him. He finished writing his story for the July 7 edition, then sprawled out on a pile of newspapers in his office and slept for the first time in days. On July 8 he headed back to Pennsylvania to try to catch up with General Meade (1815-72) and the Army of the Potomac. This July 7 edition of the Boston Journal includes some of Coffin’s telegraphic bulletins on page 1 and his main story on page 4. The material in this issue illustrates the range of Civil War newspaper journalism. The single large sheet, folded once to make four pages, is typical. Advertising is prominent on pages 1 and 3. During the war the Journal published two editions per day, morning and evening. Wire news usually consisted of short pieces under a general headline, such as “Latest by Telegraph,” and a stack of subheadings. In this issue, a potpourri of facts and rumors have been collected from Harrisburg, Fredericksburg, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. On page 2, breaking news from the Union victory at Vicksburg also appears. Telegraph briefs were typically written in the terse style and present-perfect tense that we still associate with news bulletins: “Gen. Meade has telegraphed that Lee is retreating.” Coffin’s main story, however, is literary journalism. Writing in the romantic style he learned from Victor Hugo and other authors, Coffin seeks to draw his readers into the experience of battle. Page 4 also includes two other staples of Civil War journalism: a long editorial on military strategy and a woodcut map of the Gettysburg battlefield.  C. C. Coffin Newspaper