Video
Transcript
This video on Antebellum American newspapers will introduce you to those newspapers that were published in the country. Although the big metropolitan dailies were tremendously influential,1 fewer than 20% of Americans lived in urbanized areas during this period.2 These statistics actually overstate the size of the urban population, since the Census counts any city with a population over 2,500 as an urban area. Many cities, meeting this criterion, even in the 19th century, more closely resembled country towns in their economies and social organization than they do the big metropolitan areas like New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.3 The vast majority of Americans lived in the country, and the country press served this large segment of the population.4 If you are using antebellum newspapers in your research, then it’s likely that you will encounter country newspapers.
Country newspapers of the early 19th century looked very different from country papers today. They tended to be large by today’s standards–24 by 18 inches would have been typical.5 To illustrated this contrast, here is a country newspaper from the year 2012, next to one from 1854: at 17 by 12 inches, the modern country paper is much smaller than its antebellum counterpart. Even a large city newspaper in 2012 would scarcely measure more than 23 by 12 inches.
An antebellum country newspaper would usually be set in five to eight evenly-sized columns, each column running the full length of the page, with few illustrations, and minimal use of display type. Again, contrast with a newspaper from 2012: four to six columns of varying width, rarely running the full length of a page. A country newspaper from 2012 will make liberal use of illustrations and eye-catching display type.
Not all country newspapers were this large. Some, especially on the frontier, would have been smaller: the Kaskaskia Illinois Intelligencer was 18 by 12 inches, and the New Albany Indiana Tocsin of Liberty was 18 by 10 inches.
Country newspapers were usually 4 pages, formed from a single, large sheet of paper, folded once. In 2012, even a small country newspaper would be at least 8 pages, formed from two or more sheets.
To summarize, antebellum country newspapers, when compared with their counterparts in the year 2012, had fewer pages, but these pages were larger, and more densely packed with text.6 Because of their size and layouts, 19th century country newspapers can be difficult to read, especially when viewed on a computer screen.
Country newspapers were typically published once a week, although this frequency sometimes increased to semi-weekly, or even daily, as the town grew in size.7
Much of the news in a country paper was copied verbatim from other newspapers,8 especially from the big metropolitan newspapers. Proper attribution was expected, but not always provided. The government encouraged this practice of sharing news by waiving the postage on newspapers exchanged between editors, and country editors received dozens of these exchanged newspapers every week.9
Country editors most commonly exchanged with newspapers in bigger cities, especially Washington D.C., the state capitals, and important commercial centers like New York.10 Copying from other newspapers sounds like easy work, but the process of selecting a small number of articles from among the dozens of newspapers received11 could be very labor-intensive.12
After 1845, editors increasingly relied on the telegraph for gathering news, but even then only a small portion of a country newspaper’s content came from the telegraphs, and country editors continued to use newspaper exchanges until the Post Office finally ended the franking privilege in 1873.13
Many people are surprised to discover that the country newspapers of this era included little local news. Today small-town newspapers are valued for their local news. In the first part of the 19th century, however, country newspapers covered primarily foreign and national news—especially political news.14 Some scholars believe that, in neglecting local news, the country newspapers were consciously imitating the big city newspapers;15 others argue that the weekly newspaper was not an efficient instrument for distributing local news: In small, isolated communities, local news was more easily and inexpensively communicated by word of mouth.16 Costly newspapers were valued more for the political and commercial intelligence coming from long distances.
Furthermore, when a newspaper was run by a single person, as many country newspapers were, the operator was simultaneously the publisher, editor, reporter, and printer.17 In such circumstances, the operator had precious little time to do much original reporting.18 It was far easier simply to copy stories from the larger city newspapers that were received on exchange.19
Country newspapers began including some local news in the 1820s in response to increased competition from the less expensive, weekly editions of metropolitan dailies that were becoming popular with country readers.20 Local news appeared with increasing frequency in the 1840s and 1850s. Not until the 1860s and 1870s, however, did local news become standard in country newspapers. The local news that did appear had often been submitted by subscribers and other correspondents, sometimes in response to solicitations published in the newspaper itself.21
International news decreased in significance after the War of 1812, but national news, and especially political news, continued to be heavily emphasized throughout this period.22
Because pages two and three were often printed last, you can expect to find the most recent news there23. Bear in mind, though, that recent news could be up to a month old.24 Political intelligence remained the most important category of news in the country papers,25 which were usually aligned with a particular party, if they weren’t actually operated by the party itself. The editors made no pretense of objectivity. The paper served to propagate party doctrines, and to publicize the party’s official candidates. The party ticket was often printed week after week, right below the newspaper masthead.
Aside from news, you can also expect to find letters to the editor, which were commonly signed with pseudonyms. Country newspapers also printed editorials. Editorials often appeared near the masthead. You will also find a lot of fiction and poetry in country newspapers.26 Like the news, the fiction and poetry was usually reprinted from other newspapers, sometimes pirated from abroad, but you will find original works as well.
As with city newspapers, advertisements could appear anywhere, even on the front page, and were usually set in the same column format as the news articles.
In-town subscribers received their newspaper either through publisher-provided home-delivery, or by picking up their newspapers at the printing office. Out-of-town subscribers received their newspapers through the mail. Since there was no home mail delivery during this period, subscribers who received their newspapers through the mail had to pick them up at the nearest post office. In rural areas, a round-trip to the nearest post office could require a full day of travel.27 Because country newspapers often served an entire county or region, out-of-town subscribers were common.
You might be wondering, what motivated printers to launch newspapers in small, isolated communities? The speculative fever and optimism of the age may have encouraged some to establish newspapers in even the least likely places,28 and town boosters encouraged printers to do so, since a proper newspaper was thought essential to the dignity of any up-and-coming town.29 Newspapers were also valued as tools for promoting the town to potential settlers: Country editors published articles extolling the advantages of their communities, hoping that, through the newspaper exchanges, news of the town would spread across the country and attract new settlers.30 Unfortunately, news of hardships and horrors often spread through the exchanges as well.
Historians agree, however, that the most common motive for launching a country newspaper was politics.31 Even very small towns commonly had two newspapers, one for each political party, despite the meager potential for subscriptions and advertisements.32 Whatever the reason for launching a country newspaper, few were very profitable,33 and many quickly failed,34 often within 3 years.35
It took between 400 and 1,500 dollars to launch a country newspaper.36 That would be roughly six thousand to thirty five thousand dollars in today’s money.37 Because few publishers possessed the necessary capital,38 they usually had to borrow the money, or solicit donations.39 Whether credit or gift, the money often came from either political leaders or community boosters.40 In either case it inevitably had strings attached, as the person or organization supplying the capital usually expected to influence the paper’s editorial stance.41
Country newspapers had few employees beyond the editor. One person, for a small paper, to five for a larger operation.42 If an editor did employ extra workers, they were usually involved with the printing-side of the business. Editors often relied on subscribers to contribute news items, usually without compensation, and sometimes without attribution,43 though correspondents actually seem to have preferred anonymity.44
Once the paper was launched, there were a few main sources of income. The most obvious sources, subscriptions and advertisements, were usually not adequate even to cover operating expenses, much less to make a profit. Although advertising commonly filled as much as half of the space in a newspaper,45 the actual revenue it generated was insufficient, due both to the scarcity of cash in the rural economy,46 and to the limited range of goods and services to be advertised.47 The same advertisements appeared week after week, and month after month.48 Legal notices were the most valuable sources of advertising revenue.49
Revenue from subscriptions was also comparatively small.50 Many country newspapers had circulations of only a few hundred.51 Scholars estimate that about 1,500 paying subscribers were needed before a paper could expect to turn a profit.52 East coast newspapers commonly had 1,000 or more subscribers, but the western and frontier newspapers usually counted theirs in the hundreds.53 There were few enough potential subscribers in the countryside to begin with, but the problem was compounded by the wide-spread practice of sharing a single newspaper issue among multiple readers.54 The sharing of newspapers further reduced an already-limited field of potential-subscribers.
Even where there were advertisers and subscribers, both were notorious for not paying their bills,55 and publishers were often compelled to accept payment in kind.56
Due to insufficient income from subscriptions and advertisements, country publishers had to supplement their incomes. The two most important sources of supplementary income were job printing and government printing.57
Job printing was work done for hire. Examples of job printing included:
- broadside advertisements,
- circulars, often called handbills, leaflets, or fliers,
- lottery tickets,
- and even books.
Government printing was essentially job printing contracted by federal, state, territorial, county, or municipal governments.58 Government printing business was commonly given as a reward for party loyalty.59 Examples of government printing included:
- laws,
- proclamations,
- legislative journals,
- tax-delinquent land lists,
- and militia orders.60
The government printing business often brought with it the obligation to support the party in power, if it wasn’t actually given as a reward for having done so.61 Political patronage was well-understood and openly practiced throughout this period. The establishment of the Government Printing Office in 1860 largely ended the practice of newspaper patronage at the federal level,62 but throughout the period covered in this tutorial government printing remained an important source of revenue for country newspaper publishers.63
The business model of the country newspaper more closely resembled the early, colonial newspapers than it did its contemporaries in the city.64 Throughout this period, city printing offices increasingly specialized in newspaper printing, book printing, magazine printing, or job printing, 65 while the country printer continued to handle all kinds of printing work. The country newspaper served many functions, but among the most important functions were enabling the government to communicate with its citizens, and enabling political parties to mobilize support for their candidates. The country newspaper also served to bring news from long distances to people living in isolated, rural communities.66 Finally, to a lesser extent, the country papers served to communicate information about these rural communities to people living elsewhere.
Learn More
Learn more about antebellum American newspapers from our guide to American Newspapers, 1800-1860.
Notes
1. Richard B. Kielbowicz, News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700-1860s (New York: Greenwood, 1989), 141.
2. Michael R. Haines, “Population Characteristics,” in Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present, ed. Richard Sutch and Susan B. Carter (New York City: Cambridge University Press), 1:17-25.
3.For more on the on the rural-nature of many so-called “urban” centers, especially on the frontier, see Donald F. Carmony, “The Pioneer Press in Indiana,” Indiana History Bulletin 31, no. 10 (October, 1954): 197.
4.There were more country papers than city papers in this period, see David J. Russo, The Origins of Local News in the U.S. Country Press, 1840s-1870s (Lexington, Ky: Association for Education in Journalism, 1980), 6. Most of the newspapers from this period, whether urban or rural, were small weeklies, see: David Paul Nord, Communities of Journalism: a History of American Newspapers and Their Readers (Urbana: University of Illinois, 2001), 88. For the growth of the country press, see: Rollo G. Silver, The American Printer, 1787-1825 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967), 133; Milton W. Hamilton, The Country Printer: New York State, 1785-1830 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), 49; George Henry Payne, “Emigration and the Papers of the West,” in History of Journalism in the United States (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1920), 205; William Henry Lyon, “The Significance of Newspapers on the American Frontier,” Journal of the West 19, no. 2 (April, 1980): 5; William Henry Lyon, The Pioneer Editor in Missouri, 1808-1860 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1965), 18; Gerald J. Baldasty, The Commercialization of News in the Nineteenth Century, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), 16. On the geometric growth of start-up newspapers, see Carolyn Stewart Dyer, “Economic Dependence and Concentration of Ownership Among Antebellum Wisconsin Newspapers,” Journalism History 7, no. 2 (Summer, 1980):42.
5. Lewis A Pryor, “The ‘Adin Argus’: The End of the Hand Press Era of Country Weeklies,” Pacific Historian 17, no. 1 (January, 1973):3; Carmony gives 16-34 inches high by 10-18 inches wide as typical, in “The Pioneer Press”, 224.
6. Carmony, “The Pioneer Press”, 224.
7. John W. Tebbel, The Compact History of the American Newspaper, Rev. ed. (New York: Hawthorn, 1969), 249; Hamilton, Country Printer, 75; and George S. Hage, Newspapers on the Minnesota Frontier, 1849-1860 ([St. Paul]: Minnesota Historical Society, 1967), 47. For example, in 1840 the city of Quincy, Illinois had a population of 2,319, and by 1850 it had grown to 6,900. By 1852, two of its newspapers had changed from weeklies to dailies. Franklin Scott, in Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879 (Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1910), lxx, argues that the switch to daily publication had more to do with the availability of telegraph service. According to David Wilcox, in Quincy and Adams County: History and Representative Men (Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1919),1: 460, and Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, lxix, telegraph service began in Quincy on July 8, 1848, provided by Henry C. O’Reilly’s Atlantic, Lake, and Mississippi company. However, if one examines the newspapers, the percentage of telegraphic news in each issue is very small–sometimes zero. The Quincy Daily Morning Courier began publication in 1845, before the arrival of the telegraph; the Quincy Herald introduced its daily edition in 1849; the Quincy Daily Journal began and ceased publication in 1851; the Quincy Tribune began daily publication with its first issue in 1852; and the Quincy Whig introduced its daily edition in 1852. According to Carmony, in “Pioneer Press,” 230, some frontier weeklies increased publication frequency to two or three issues per week during sessions of the state legislature, or during important political campaigns.
8. Terence A. Tanner, “Newspapers and Printing Presses in Early Illinois,” American Periodicals 3 (1993): 100; Kielbowicz, News in the Mail, 147; Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 153.
9. Kielbowicz, News in the Mail, 148-149.
10. Kielbowicz, News in the Mail, 149-150; John W. Miller, in “Frontier Newspapers and National News: Indiana in the Early Nineteenth Century,” Maryland Historian 14, no. 2 (Fall/Winter, 1983): 1, notes as an example that Indiana’s editors would have received most of their exchanges from either the Eastern seaboard, or from “regional centers such as Louisville or Cincinnati”.
11. Kielbowicz, in News in the Mail, 149-150, writes that in 1843 each publisher received, on average, 364 newspapers through the exchanges, though that average includes the big city newspapers as well as the country newspapers.
12. Miller, “Frontier Newspapers,” 1.
13. Richard B. Kielbowicz, “News Gathering by Mail in the Age of the Telegraph: Adapting to a New Technology,” Technology and Culture 28, no. 1 (January, 1987): 33-34; Kielbowicz, News in the Mail, 142 and 154; The east and west coasts were not connected by the telegraph until 1861.
14. Kielbowicz, News in the Mail, 141; Lyon, “Significance of Newspapers,” 141; Miller, “Frontier Newspapers,” 1; and Hamilton, Country Printer, 109 and 139.
15. Tebbel, Compact History, 248.
16. Why wait to read in an expensive weekly newspaper what your neighbor can tell you today for free? Russo, Origins of Local News, 2-3; Baldasty, Commercialization of News, 49; Bill Reader, “Local News,” in Encyclopedia of American Journalism, ed. Stephen L. Vaughn (New York: Routledge, 2008): 274; Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 141; Miller, “Frontier Newspapers,” 1; Hamilton, Country Printer, 139; see also Hazel D. Garcia on the role of personal correspondence in supplementing the lack of local news published in newspapers, in “Letters Tell the News (Not “Fit to Print?’) About the Kentucky Frontier,” Journalism History 7, no. 2 (Summer, 1980): 49.
17. Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism: A History, 1690-1960. 3d ed. (New York: MacMillan, 1962), 205.
18. Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 162; Hamilton, Country Printer, 146.
19. Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, xxxiii.
20. Kielbowicz, News in the Mail, 63; William E. Huntzicker, “Historians and the American Frontier Press,” American Journalism 5, no. 1 (Winter, 1988): 35; Russo, Origins of Local News, 6.
21.Russo, Origins of Local News, 2-4, and 20.
22. Mott, American Journalism, 196.
23. Carmony, “Pioneer Press,” 224.
24. David L. Jamison, “Newspapers and the Press,” in Encyclopedia of the United States in the 19th Century, ed. Paul Finkelman (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001)2:419.
25. Baldasty, Commercialization of News, 154.
26. Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, xxxvi; Tebbel, Compact History, 250.
27. Rita L. Moroney, History of the U.S. Postal Service, 1775-1984 (Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Postal Service, 1985), 5.
28. Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, liii; Hamilton, Country Printer, 51; James E. Davis, Frontier Illinois (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1998), 274.
29. Payne, “Emigration,” 201 and 213; Huntzicker, “Historians and the American Frontier Press,” 28; Hamilton, Country Printer, 51 and 53.
30. See for example Silver, American Printer, 130; Huntzicker, “Historians and the American Frontier Press,” 36; Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 38-39; Barbara L. Cloud, “A Party Press? Not Just Yet! : Political Publishing on the Frontier,” Journalism History 7, no. 2 (Summer, 1980):54; Dyer, “Economic Dependence,” 44; Russo, Origins of Local News, 26; Hage, Newspapers on the Minnesota Frontier, 3-25; Davis, Frontier Illinois, 380. Examples cited by Lyon, in Pioneer Editor, 161, are: Western Emigrant (Boonville, MO), January 24, 1839, p. 3, col. A ; Boonville Observer (Boonville, MO), April 28, 1846, p. 1, col. A; and Wisconsin Territorial Gazette and Burlington Advertiser (Burlington, Wisconsin Territory), July 10, 1837, p. 2, col. B.
31. Mott, American Journalism, 282; Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, liv-lv; Cloud, “A Party Press?,” 54; and Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 26.
32. Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, liii-liv; Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 25; Tebbel, Compact History, 250; and Payne, “Emigration,” 205.
33. Silver, American Printer, 118, Payne, “Emigration,” 213, Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 8 and 87; and Dyer, “Economic Dependence,” 42.
34. Huntzicker, “Historians and the American Frontier Press,” 37; Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 21, 25, and 31; Tebbel, Compact History, 250; Silver, American Printer, 123; and Tanner, “Newspapers and Printing Presses in Early Illinois,” 100.
35. Dyer, “Economic Dependence,” 42; For more on the transient “tramp printers”, see Huntzicker, “Historians and the American Frontier Press,” 32; Silver, American Printer, 123; Tebbel, Compact History, 248; and Tanner, “Newspapers and Printing Presses in Early Illinois,” 103-104.
36. Dyer, “Economic Dependence,” 42; Fred F. Endres, “‘We Want Money and Must Have It’: Profile of an Ohio Weekly, 1841-1847,” Journalism History 7, no. 2 (Summer, 1980):69; and Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, xxxvii. See also Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 23 and 105. Hamilton gives “several hundred dollars” as the minimum for even a small operation, in Country Printer, 57.
37. Scott Derks and Tony Smith, The Value of a Dollar: Colonial Era to the Civil War, 1600-1865 (Millerton, N.Y.: Grey House, 2005), 231, 305, and 381.
38. Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 26 and 103; and Dyer, “Economic Dependence,” 43.
39. Hamilton, Country Printer, 52-53.
40. Cloud, “A Party Press?,” 72 and 54; Huntzicker, “Historians and the American Frontier Press,” 39; and Mott, American Journalism, 282.
41. Hamilton, Country Printer, 110-111. In the newest territories, the government sometimes paid a printer to set up a newspaper: see Payne, “Emigration,” 204-205; and Michael Emery and Edwin Emery, The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media, 8th ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1996), 80.
42. Lyon, in Pioneer Editor, 23, notes that in 1840 country newspapers employed and average of four workers. According to Lyon, one country paper in 1808 used a press that required two men to operate, and could print one side of 75 sheets in an hour. Such a paper would probably have been a screw press. Another paper, in 1822, was using a lever press, which could produce 125 papers in an hour. By 1837, this same newspaper had increased to daily publication, and was using the newly invented Adams steam-powered printing press, capable of printing four hundred sheets an hour; six years later the paper added a rotary press that could print 1,200 sheets an hour. According to John Nerone and Kevin G. Barnhurst, in “U.S. Newspaper Types, the Newsroom, and the Division of Labor, 1750-2000,” Journalism Studies 4, no. 4 (2003):438, few country newspapers of this period would have used a steam press, and the newspaper cited by Lyon was the St. Louis Missouri Republican, which really ceased to be a country newspaper after 1835. Lyon, in Pioneer Editor, 109-111, notes that this period was one of instability and decline in the apprentice system. Apprenticeships often amounted to child enslavement. The experience was rarely a happy one, for either master or apprentice, and apprentices often ran away. Silver, American Printer, 6-7; George G. Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6: Study of a Modern Trade Union and its Predecessors (Albany, N.Y.: J.B. Lyon, 1913), 65-68; and Hamilton, Country Printer, 39; describe how these runaway apprentices became “half-way journeymen”, who knew the craft of printing, but were willing to work for less because they had not yet received their indentures. Halfway journeymen frequently became wandering, “tramp printers”. Relations between newspaper operators and their printing staff were generally characterized by ill-will on both sides.
43. Hamilton, Country Printer, 146-147.
44. Russo, Origins of Local News, 15-17.
45. Hamilton, Country Printer, 156.
46. Hamilton, Country Printer, 59; Carmony, “Pioneer Press,” 193; and Davis, Frontier Illinois, 273.
47. Payne, “Emigration,” 202.
48. Hamilton, Country Printer, 157.
49. Hamilton, Country Printer, 62-63, and 131. Legal advertising, or “legal notices”, continued to be an important source of revenue for country newspapers well into the twentieth century. See John V. Lund, Newspaper Advertising (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1947), 398. A newspaper had to meet certain requirements before it could accept legal advertising. These requirements were set by the state governments, but usually the paper had to demonstrate a record of continuous publication–at least six months–and proof of general circulation. In some states, each county officially designated a paper for legal advertising. Legal notices often paid at a higher rate than display advertising, if for no other reason than that newspapers often gave discounted rates to advertisers who took out space for long periods, and legal advertisements usually appeared for a shorter period of time.
50. Hamilton, Country Printer, 59.
51. Mott, American Journalism, 303; Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, xxxix; Carolyn Stewart Dyer, in “Census Manuscripts and Circulation Data for Mid-19th Century Newspapers,” Journalism History 7, no. 2 (Summer, 1980):67, gives 670 as the mean circulation for Wisconsin newspapers in 1860.
52. Tebbel, Compact History, 251.
53. Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 93.
54. Huntzicker, “Historians and the American Frontier Press,” 30; Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 94.
55. Huntzicker, “Historians and the American Frontier Press,” 36; Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, xxxix; Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 87-91; Clarence S. Brigham, Journals and Journeymen: A Contribution to the History of Early American Newspapers (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959), 23; and Hamilton, Country Printer, 60 and 65.
56. Mott, American Journalism, 203; Endres, “‘We Want Money and Must Have It’,” 68; Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, xxxix-xl; and Hamilton, Country Printer, 65.
57. Tanner, “Newspapers and Printing Presses in Early Illinois,” 105; Karolevitz, Newspapering in the Old West, 19-20; Hamilton, Country Printer, 64; Huntzicker, “Historians and the American Frontier Press,” 36; Emery, Press and America, 80; Hage, Newspapers on the Minnesota Frontier, 2; Carmony, “Pioneer Press,” , Sometimes job printing was the most profitable part of the business, and it outlived the newspaper. For more on job printing, see Ryan A. Ross, Early Illinois Newspapers and Job Printers: the Terence A. Tanner Collection (Urbana, Ill.: Graduate school of Library and Information Science, 2010), 23-35.
58. Hamilton, Country Printer, 129-131, see especially p. 131.
59. Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 14 and chapter 50; and Silver, American Printer, 115, and 120.
60. Lyon, Pioneer Editor, 50. All of the above could be printed either in the newspaper itself, or as separate publications.
61. Dyer, “Economic Dependence,” 44; Government also generated revenue indirectly for newspapers, by requiring legal notices to appear in newspapers. See Pryor, “Adin Argus,” 2.
62. Mott, American Journalism, 257.
63. Since 1814, two newspapers in every state or territory were paid to publish the federal laws. See 3 Stat. 145. This number was increased in 1818 to three newspapers. See Emery, Press and America, 81; and 3 Stat. 439. In 1846 the number was set back to two newspapers by 9 Stat. 76.The country printers most likely to receive business from the federal government were on the frontier. In the more densely populated states, the laws would more likely be printed in the larger metropolitan newspapers. On the frontier, by contrast, there was no competition from big city newspapers, and in the newest territories these contracts were usually awarded to the first three printers to publish a newspaper, so that in every new territory there was an artificial demand for at least three newspapers. See Lyon, Country Editor, 19; and Carmony, “Pioneer Press,” 195.
64. Tebbel, Compact History, 251; and Lucy Maynard Salmon, The Newspaper and the Historian (New York: Oxford University Press, 1923), 152.
65. Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 537.
66. Although people in the country were certainly isolated by today’s standards, it’s easy to exaggerate what that would have meant. City newspapers were available in the countryside, typically as weekly editions of a daily newspaper. See Andie Tucher, Froth and Scum: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and the Ax Murder in America’s First Mass Medium (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 171; and Kielbowicz, News in the Mail, 62. City newspapers aggressively courted the country market, and in the 1840s and 1850s had become quite successful at attracting country readers. See Russo, Origins of Local News, 6-7. The weekly edition of the New York Tribune was the most successful of all at cultivating the country market: see Kielbowicz, News in the Mail, 62. These city newspapers were usually taken by community “opinion leaders”: business people, politicians, professionals, and clergy, and the success of the city newspapers was bitterly resented by country editors, even as they borrowed heavily from the city papers to fill their own columns. See Kielbowicz, News in the Mail, 4.
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