Browse Items (116 total)

Public readings of the newly minted Declaration of Independence took place in taverns, churches, town greens, or anywhere else people could gather. In New England, the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence is believed to have taken…

The Continental Congress charged five men with the responsibility to commit to paper the American colonies’ Declaration of Independence from Britain: Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), John Adams (1735-1826), Robert…

Although breaking news usually appeared on the interior of colonial newspapers as that side of the paper was generally printed last, this copy of the New-Hampshire Gazette—published by Daniel Fowle (ca. 1715-87)—leads with a front-page…

James Rivington (1724-1802), publisher of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, was born in London and was a bookseller in his native land before immigrating to the colonies in 1760. He eventually established a bookstore in New York and then ventured into…

As they had been in the pre-war years, broadsides continued to be a way to spread and provide commentary on the news. This broadside features two poems about the surrender of Yorktown. The first is “A Poem Spoken Extempore, by a Young Lady, on…

This engraved map was published in London in March 1787. It details the siege of Yorktown in 1781, the last great battle of the American Revolution. It clearly shows the American and French forces as they surround the British forces under the command…

Maps were an important form of news gathering and reporting during the American Revolution. Most were created by engineers in the British army and often they depicted military campaigns or battles, providing not only important intelligence about the…

This broadside, printed in Boston in April 1773, contains the text of a letter from the Virginia House of Burgesses informing Boston of the creation of a standing Committee of Correspondence and assuring the New Englanders of Virginia’s…

In 1690, a recent immigrant to Boston, Benjamin Harris (d. 1716), decided the time was right to launch a newspaper. In the wake of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the royal regime change in England, colonists longed for news from home. Harris,…