12 10 116 https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/c102fa21659197d1613478437b30bb8a.jpg 1533de16fb4a553f8c469f5f5bb2c294 https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/2475a932db1d5228decd64f3b1808b74.jpg a963eb8b91a712afa02d775866974023 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 "Worcester, May 3. Americans! forever bear in mind the Battle of Lexington!" Alternative Title An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific. The Massachusetts Spy, or, American Oracle of Liberty Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 3, 1775 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 44 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 Worcester, Mass. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Isaiah Thomas Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=152">AAS Catalog Record</a> <a href="https://gigi.mwa.org/imagearchive/filename/152_">View more issues</a> Description An account of the resource While most colonial newspapers had circulations of between 300 and 600, the Massachusetts Spy had a circulation of 3,500 from subscribers throughout the thirteen colonies, making it the most popular American newspaper at the time. Designed specifically for the middle class, the paper was founded in Boston in 1770 by <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/items/browse?tag=Isaiah+Thomas">Isaiah Thomas</a> (1749-1831) and his former master, Zechariah Fowle (1724-76). Later, Thomas would buy Fowle out and publish the Spy on his own. While Thomas initially tried to make the Spy politically impartial, he soon found it impossible to do so in Boston, the epicenter of the growing imperial crisis. Thomas’s strident Whig position is evident in his writing and in his text above the masthead: “Americans!---Liberty or Death!---Join or Die!”  Thomas’s views frequently got him in trouble with the royal authorities, and under the advisement of John Hancock (1737-93) and with the assistance of Timothy Bigelow (1739-90) and Joseph Warren (1741-75), Thomas smuggled his press out of Boston during the night of April 16, 1775. He removed it to the inland Whig stronghold of Worcester, where he set it up in Bigelow’s basement. When paper finally arrived in early May, he was able to publish this issue of the Spy, the first thing ever printed in Worcester. As was customary with colonial newspapers, the breaking news appeared on the inside of the publication, and thus on page 3 in column 1 is Thomas’s account of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Far from objective, Thomas’s partisanship shines through. He ends the introductory paragraph by claiming that the British troops had “wantonly, and in a most inhuman manner fired upon and killed a number of our countrymen, then robbed them of their provisions, ransacked, plundered and burnt their houses! nor could the tears of defenseless women, some of whom were in the pains of childbirth, the cries of helpless, babes, nor the prayers of old age, confined to beds of sickness, appease their thirst for blood!—or divert them from their DESIGN of MURDER and ROBBERY!” Battles of Lexington and Concord Isaiah Thomas John Hancock Newspaper Timothy Bigelow https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/70eed116346fc92ff38d60bd3fe6af79.JPG 78b07f671b597bd134478d01f9955ddd 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 Cincinnati Post and Anti-Abolitionist Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 7, 1842 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 36 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 Cincinnati, Ohio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available L. Greely Curtiss Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=5334">AAS Catalog Record</a> Description An account of the resource Cincinnati had a powerful pro-slavery faction that published the Cincinnati Post and Anti-Abolitionist, edited by L. Greely Curtiss, from 1841 to 1842. By 1842 the paper boasted that it had the largest circulation of any newspaper in the West. Counted among its subscribers was the Honorable N. C. Read, a member of the Ohio Supreme Court. The newspaper also frequently printed the names of abolitionists in an effort to publicly censure them. According to another sympathetic newspaper from Mississippi, the Guard, the Post was “designed as a check upon the mad proceedings of the abolitionists of the west, and a defense to Southern rights and interests.” Cincinnati was often at the center of struggles for racial equality in the nineteenth century. Situated just across the Ohio River from the slave-holding state of Kentucky, the city was the scene of three major race riots in 1829, 1834, and 1841. It was also the home of prominent abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-96) of Uncle Tom’s Cabin fame, who came to Ohio with her father, Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), when he became the first president of the city’s Lane Theological Seminary in 1832. In 1834 Lane was the scene of prominent “debates” on slavery that profoundly impacted the nation’s thinking about the issue.  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/ayzh/&t=http://online.fliphtml5.com/xohe/ayzh/files/shot.jpg" frameborder="0" width="280" height="350"></iframe> Newspaper Slavery https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/7d07fba1045dc09ddab98ffb70aa8a37.JPG 9a1b92846484c3e7cc64fe3c1c5152ab 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 Liberator Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 10, 1838 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 39-64 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 William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=3662">AAS Catalog Record</a> <a href="http://www.theliberatorfiles.com/">Full issues can be found at The Liberator Files</a> Description An account of the resource An important category of newspapers in antebellum America was the organizational paper. Every religious or reform movement seemed to have its national and state associations and every association its newspaper. That certainly was true of the abolition movement. The major national association, the American Anti-Slavery Society, depended heavily on organizational newspapers and periodicals. William Lloyd Garrison’s (1805-79) famous antislavery newspaper, The Liberator, was different. Garrison was often a prominent figure in antislavery and reform societies, but The Liberator was always entirely his own—and that’s what makes it an especially interesting form of journalism. Garrison believed that the role of a newspaper was two-fold: strident agitation and free discussion. He insisted on declaring, in his own sure voice, the truth as he understood it. “My confidence in the unconquerable energy of Truth is absolute,” he wrote. Yet he also made The Liberator an open forum for other voices, including those hostile to his own views. Thus, the paper was always filled with letters, speeches, statements, and rebuttals from all points of view. As Garrison grew to condemn all government as inherently coercive, he idealized journalism as a kind of democracy without coercion. And he believed that “slavery and freedom of the press cannot exist together.” This issue of The Liberator offers a glimpse of the roles of journalism that Garrison championed: agitation and discussion. The nameplate banner was always one of the paper’s most provocative forms of agitation. It shows, graphically, two of the worst cruelties of slavery: brutal whippings of slaves and the sale of young children away from their parents. And both of those cruelties are shown happening in the nation’s capital. The stories on the front page include a speech by John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) on Texas and Mexico as well as a clever editing exercise in which Garrison turns a sermon on dueling by Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) into a sermon on slavery. Newspaper Slavery William Lloyd Garrison https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/40d19257ef54c3adeaad346b79d5b6a9.jpg 9af1d4454827bbfafa4546570d8964ff 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 Circumstantial Account Of an Attack that happened on the 19th of April 1775, on his Majesty's Troops Alternative Title An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific. A Circumstantial Account Of an Attack that happened on the 19th of April 1775, on his Majesty's Troops, By a Number of the People of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1775 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 36 x 22 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 Howe Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=315888">AAS Catalog Record</a> <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/transcription-circumstantial-account">Transcription</a> Description An account of the resource The British version of the events leading to and including the Battles of Lexington and Concord is presented in this broadside. The calm tone of the language and the lack of any graphic images is an intentional attempt to downplay the significance of the “unfortunate affair,” while it clearly blames “a few people” for instigating the violence. This broadside also accuses the Americans of scalping and mangling one British soldier while he was still alive. This broadside was printed in Boston in 1775 by John Howe (1754-1835) who, along with Margaret Draper (1727- ca.1804), published the <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/items/show/60">Massachusetts Gazette; and the Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser</a>. This paper frequently received commissions from the royal government for printing and was clearly sympathetic to the Crown and its officials in the colony. A transcription of the broadside can be found <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/transcription-circumstantial-account">here</a>. Battles of Lexington and Concord Broadside https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/f8f5aa47faa14b8c17c34d151519bdc6.JPG ef06c7ba91590ad89d993f4ea8992376 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 Penfield Extra: Little Nellie's Little Paper Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 20, 1862 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 31 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 Penfield, N.Y. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Nellie Williams Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=394124">AAS Catalog Record</a> (newspaper) <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=479456">AAS Catalog Record</a> (tintype of Nellie) Description An account of the resource With the ubiquity and voracious appetite for news throughout the country, it is no surprise that the publication of amateur newspapers became a popular hobby in the nineteenth century. Though the first amateur newspaper in the United States is believed to have been published in 1805, the pastime proliferated in the 1840s and 1850s and reached its heyday in the 1870s and 1880s following the invention of an inexpensive tabletop press in 1867. The Penfield Extra, subtitled “Little Nellie’s Little Paper,” was a weekly amateur newspaper published in Penfield, New York, between 1862 and 1866. Started by twelve-year-old Nellie Williams (1849-75), the paper boasted a circulation of more than three thousand copies at the height of its popularity. At a cost of two cents an issue and fifty cents for a yearly subscription, readers were treated to local news, a description of local weather, a robust advertising section, and puns and jokes. Nellie herself described the paper in its masthead as “Devoted to News and Literature and Neutral in Politics.” Born in 1849, by the age of eight Nellie was working with a press. She began by distributing type after her older brother had finished printing a job on a press their father had won in a card game. When the Civil War broke out, Nellie’s brother enlisted, leaving her in charge of the press. Her first issue of the Penfield Extra was published in December 1861 and she described herself to her audience as “A little Lass not yet in her teens who is the sole Editress, and Compositor, and probably the youngest Publisher, and Editress in the world. The reader will of course over-look a little bad spelling and typo-graphical errors.” After the first year, the circulation of her paper increased tenfold, and the next year she doubled readership, in the process becoming something of a local celebrity. Though most amateur newspapers were published for the enjoyment of its editor, publisher, and readers, Nellie also sought to make a profit. With her mother dead, a brother off to fight in the Civil War, and a sickly father, Nellie wanted her newspaper to be successful. An aggressive advertiser, Nellie campaigned locals to publicize their business in her paper: “You might ‘bout as well go a fishing without any bait, as to undertake to do a large paying business…without advertising in a local newspaper.” Taking advantage of the relatively new and cheap availability of photography, she included in her promotional package a nickel-sized <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/items/show/43">tintype portrait of herself</a>, attached to her business card. Though Nellie mostly focused on local news, weather, jokes, and ads (the latter usually filling two to three pages), rather than the Civil War that was in many ways the impetus for her undertaking, her paper and her story clearly struck a chord with a war-weary public. Advertising, humor, connection to the community, and the success of a young girl editress provided hope and an underlying current of morale in difficult times. And Nellie did not ignore the war entirely; in this issue, she mentions the death of a former resident due to war wounds and includes a joke featuring a rebel sympathizer living in the county. In 1866 Nellie closed her paper, citing that the price of newsprint was too costly. At age nineteen, she married Henry Braden, giving birth to two children before her death of consumption at age twenty-five. 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/ecel/&t=http://online.fliphtml5.com/xohe/ecel/files/shot.jpg" frameborder="0" width="284" height="350"></iframe> Newspaper Photography https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/files/original/975317fff69c160aa75ba788487eccfd.jpg dbfacf55a325d9659b31ce90c046ae3c 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 Lithograph Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fanoli, Michele, -1876, after Woodville, Richard Caton, 1825-1855 Title A name given to the resource Politics In an Oyster-House. Les Politiques au Cabaret. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1851 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image and text 47.5 x 35 cm., on sheet 53 x 45 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 Goupil & Co. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=396371">AAS Catalog Record</a> <a href="https://gigi.mwa.org/imagearchive/filename/396371">View larger images</a> Description An account of the resource This 1851 <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-and-the-civil-war/visual-culture-and-the-civil-w">lithograph</a>, after an 1848 painting by <a href="https://collections.americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/exhibits/show/news-in-antebellum-america/item/22">Richard Caton Woodville</a> (1825-55), encapsulates the central role the newspaper played in American politics. In the image, two men sit across the table from each other in an oyster house, an establishment used commonly as a meeting spot and watering hole. The younger man, dressed all in black and wearing his top hat indoors, is leaning across the table toward his middle-aged companion, arguing some political point. He tightly clutches a newspaper, suggesting that something he has read has instigated the argument. The older man looks out at the viewer, rather than at his young, fiery companion, with a slightly bemused look, perhaps implying that the situation is a familiar one and that he has heard—and probably disagreed with—all of the younger man’s points before. Though we have no way of knowing what the argument is about, the image captures a scenario typical at the time, in which a political argument, instigated or fueled by the latest news, takes place in a public meeting space. Woodville, the painter, belonged to a prominent Baltimore family but left the United States for Europe at the age of twenty. There he spent several years studying under Karl Ferdinand Sohn (1805-67) in Düsseldorf, Germany. Woodville was known for painting contemporary interior scenes with exquisite detail and color. Many of his paintings, including Politics in an Oyster House, were exhibited in the United States, often at the American Art-Union. The painting was commissioned by a prominent Baltimore citizen named John H. B. Latrobe (1803-91), and it hung in his private residence after its exhibition at the union. Latrobe also loaned it out for the first annual exhibition of paintings at the Maryland Historical Society, and Woodville made a copy that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. The popularity of the painting led to its lithographic version, seen here, which was distributed by the New York branch of the famous French lithography company Goupil & Co.  Lithograph Richard Caton Woodville