This issue of the Virginia Gazette includes a summary of a meeting held to discuss resolutions with the representatives from Richmond County who would be attending the First Virginia Convention on August 1, 1774. (There would eventually be five…
This May 6, 1775, issue of John Dixon (d. 1791) and William Hunter’s Virginia Gazette illustrates how news of Lexington and Concord spread throughout the colonies.On the first page in the middle column are extracts of letters from Boston about…
The royal governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage (1719-87), responded to the flurry of news reports of the Battles of Lexington and Concord by sending official accounts of the confrontation to high officials in the adjoining colonies. He…
Newspapers in foreign languages catering to the growing immigrant populations popped up throughout the antebellum era. They appeared in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Welsh, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, and Hawaiian.
Chinese…
This is the first volume of the Horseneck Truth-Teller, and Gossip’s Journal, an example of a popular genre of newspaper new in the antebellum era: the gossip and moral-exposure paper. The publisher was given as Diedrich van Tod, but it was…
As the country grew in the antebellum years, so did the diversity of its population. This diversity, which included linguistic, religious, and ethnic differences, was reflected in the types of newspapers that appeared. This paper, The Truth Teller,…
As the number of newspapers grew throughout the United States, so did the frequency of publication. The first daily newspaper in America appeared in Philadelphia in 1783, and by 1800 Philadelphia had six dailies, New York had five, Baltimore three,…
This paper is an example of a presidential campaign newspaper, a form that became very popular during the 1840s and 1850s. This one supports the election of William Henry Harrison (1773-1841). The hotly contested presidential election of 1840…
The Cherokee Phoenix was the first newspaper published by Native Americans. In 1825 the Cherokee Council pledged $1,500 for the purchase of a printing press and type; the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions also pledged assistance.…
As with many other reform movements of the day, temperance activists made use of a variety of print media to further their cause, including the long-popular genre of almanacs. It became common for antebellum reform organizations to publish almanacs…