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American Newspapers, 1800-1860

A guide to understanding and using antebellum American newspapers. Includes video tutorials, downloadable data, data visualizations, glossary, recommended readings, artifact galleries, and more.

Secondary Sources: A-J

  • African American National Biography. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 8 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 
  • Alexander, John K. Review of The Press of the Young Republic, 1783-1833 by Carol Sue Humphrey. William and Mary Quarterly 55, no. 1 (January, 1998): 167-170. 
  • Atwood, Roy Alden. "Handwritten Newspapers on the Iowa Frontier." Journalism History 7 (1980): 56-67. 
  • Baker, Cathleen A. From the Hand to the Machine: Nineteenth Century American Paper Mediums: Technologies, Materials, and Conservation. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Legacy Press, 2010. 
  • Baldasty, Gerald J. The Commercialization of News in the Nineteenth Century. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. 
  • Barnhurst, Kevin G., and John Nerone. The Form of News: A History. New York: Guilford Press, 2001. 
  • Barth, Gunther. City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-Century America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. 
  • Bass, Harold F., Jr. Historical Dictionary of United States Poltical Parties. 2d ed. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2009. 
  • Bohde, Cheryl D. Review of Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America by Hazel Dicken-Garcia. American Periodicals 1, no. 1 (Fall, 1991): 107-108. 
  • Brawley, Benjamin. Early Negro American Writers. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1935. 
  • Brier, Warren J. "The 'Flumgudgeon Gazette and Bumble Bee Budget.'" Journalism Quarterly 36 (1959): 317-320. 
  • Brigham, Clarence S. Journals and Journeymen: A Contribution to the History of Early American Newspapers. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950 
  • Brown, Warren. Check List of Negro newspapers in the United States, 1827-1946. Jefferson City: School of Journalism, Lincoln University, 1946. 
  • Carey, Helen H., and Judith E. Greenberg. How to Read a Newspaper. New York: Franklin Watts, 1983. 
  • Carey, James W. "The Discovery of Objectivity." American Journal of Sociology 87, no. 5 (March, 1982): 1182-1188. 
  • Carmony, Donald F. "The Pioneer Press in Indiana." Indiana History Bulletin 31, no. 10 (Oct., 1954): 187-232. 
  • Cayton, Andrew. Review of The Press of the Young Republic, 1783-1833 by Carol Sue Humphrey. Historian 60, no. 3 (Spring, 1998): 634-635. 
  • Chambers, William Nisbit. Political Parties in a New Nation: The American Experience, 1776-1809. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963. 
  • Cloud, Barbara L. "A Party Press? Not Just Yet! Political Publishing on the Frontier." Journalism History 7, no. 2 (Summer, 1980): 54-73. 
  • Collins, Ross F. Review of The Press of the Young Republic, 1783-1833 by Carol Sue Humphrey. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 74, no. 1 (Spring, 1997): 218-219. 
  • Crouthamel, James L. Bennett's New York Herald and the Rise of the Popular Press. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1989. 
  • Danky, James P., and Maureen E. Hady. Native American Periodicals and Newspapers, 1828-1982: Bibliography, Publishing Record, and Holdings. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984. 
  • ------. African American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. 
  • Dann, Martin E. The Black Press, 1827-1890: The Quest for National Identity. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1971. 
  • Davis, James E. Frontier Illinois. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1998. 
  • DeBow, James D.B. Statistical View of the United States, Embracing its Territory, Population--White, Free Colored, and Slave--Moral and Social Condition, Industry, Property, and Revenue. Washington, D.C.: A.O.P. Nicholson, 1854. 
  • Derks, Scott, and Tony Smith. The Value of a Dollar: Colonial Era to the Civil War, 1600-1865. Millerton, N.Y.: Grey House, 2005. 
  • Dicken-Garcia, Hazel. Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. 
  • Dubin, Michael J. United States Presidential Elections, 1788-1860 : the Official Results by County and State. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2002. 
  • Dyer, Carolyn Stewart. "Census Manuscripts and Circulation Data for Mid-19th Century Newspapers." Journalism History 7, no. 2 (Summer, 1980): 47-67. 
  • -----. "Economic Dependence and Concentration of Ownership Among Antebellum Wisconsin Newspapers." Journalism History 7, no. 2 (Summer, 1980): 42-46. 
  • Eaman, Ross. Historical Dictionary of Journalism. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2009. 
  • Emery, Michael, and Edwin Emery. The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media. 8th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1996. 
  • Endres, Fred F. "'We Want Money and Must Have It': Profile of an Ohio Weekly, 1841-1847." Journalism History 7, no. 2 (Summer, 1980): 68-71. 
  • Field, Alexander J. "Newspapers and Periodicals: Number and Circulation By Type, 1850-1967." Historical statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present. Millennial ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 4:1055.
  • Finkenbine, Roy E. "Newspapers." Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass. Edited Paul Finkelman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 2:446. 
  • Fogelson, Raymond D. "Sequoyah." In Encyclopedia of North American Indians, edited by Frederick E. Hoxie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996, 580-82. 
  • Folkerts, Jean. Review of Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America by Hazel Dicken-Garcia. in Journalism Quarterly 67, no. 3 (Autumn, 1990): 606-607. 
  • Franklin, Bob, Martin Hamer, Mark Hanna, Marie Kinsey, and John E. Richardson. Key Concepts in Journalism Studies. London: Sage, 2005. 
  • Garcia, Hazel D. "Letters Tell the News (Not 'Fit to Print?') About the Kentucky Frontier." Journalism History 7, no. 2 (Summer, 1980): 49-53. 
  • Garmoe, Kimberly. Review of The Popular Press, 1833-1865, by William E. Huntzicker. 2 (2000): 253. 
  • Giles, Vic, and F.W. Hodgson. Creative Newspaper Design. 2d ed. Oxford, Eng.: Focal Press, 1996. 
  • Gollin, Albert E. "Critiques and Celebrations of the Newsmaking Process: An Expository Review." Public Opinion Quarterly 44, no. 2 (Summer, 1980): 276-283. 
  • Green, Ralph. "Early American Power Printing Presses." Studies in Bibliography 4 (1951-1952): 143-153. 
  • Hage, George S. Newspapers on the Minnesota Frontier, 1849-1860. [St. Paul]: Minnesota Historical Society, 1967. 
  • Haines, Michael R. "Population Characteristics." In Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present, 1:17-25. Edited by Richard Sutch and Susan B. Carter. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 
  • Hall, Linda, ed. Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations Dictionary. 40th ed. Detroit: Gale, 2008. 
  • Hamilton, Milton W. 1936. The Country Printer: New York State, 1785-1830. New York: Columbia University Press, 1936. 
  • Harnett, Richard M. Wirespeak: Codes and Jargon of the News Business. San Mateo, Calif.: Shorebird Press, 1997. 
  • Hodges, Willis. Free Man of Color: The Autobiography of Willis August Hodges. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982. 
  • Hoffert, Sylvia D. Jane Grey Swisshelm: An Unconventional Life, 1815-1884. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. 
  • Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 
  • Humphrey, Carol Sue. The Press of the Young Republic, 1783-1833. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996. 
  • Huntzicker, William E."Historians and the American Frontier Press." American Journalism 5, no. 1 (1988): 28-45. 
  • -----. The Popular Press, 1833-1865. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. 
  • Hutt, Allen, and Bob James. Newspaper Design Today: A Manual for Professionals. London: Lund Humphries, 1989. 
  • Hutton, Frankie. The Early Black Press in America, 1827 to 1860. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993. 
  • Jamison, David L. "Newspapers and the Press." In Encyclopedia of the United States in the 19th Century, 2:418:426. Edited by Paul Finkelman. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001. 
  • Jansen, Reamy. Review of Discovering the News by Michael Schudson. Radical Teacher 24 (1983): 32-33. 
  • Jansen, Sue Curry. Review of Discovering the News by Michael Schudson. Theory and Society 10, no. 1 (January, 1981): 143-148. 
  • Junger, Richard. Becoming the Second City: Chicago's Mass News Media, 1833-1898. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010. 

Secondary Sources: K-W

  • Karolevitz, Robert F. Newspapering in the Old West: A Pictorial History of Journalism and Printing on the Frontier. Seattle: Superior Publishing, 1965. 
  • Kennedy, Joseph Camp Griffith. Catalogue of the Newspapers and Periodicals Published in the United States: Showing the Town and County in Which the Same are Published, How Often Issued, Their Character, and Circulation. New York: John Livingston, 1852. 
  • Kielbowicz, Richard B. News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700-1860s. New York: Greenwood, 1989. 
  • -----. "News Gathering by Mail in the Age of the Telegraph: Adapting to a New Technology." Technology and Culture 28, no. 1 (Jan., 1987): 26-41. 
  • Kleppner, Paul. The Third Electoral System, 1853-1892: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979. 
  • Knight, Oliver. Review of Discovering the News by Michael Schudson. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 443 (May, 1979): 175-176. 
  • Leonard, Thomas C. Review of Discovering the News by Michael Schudson. Journal of American History 66, no. 2 (September, 1979): 365-366. 
  • Littlefield, Daniel F., Jr., and James W. Parins. American Indian and Alaska Native Newspapers and Periodicals, 1826-1924. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984. 
  • Lund, John V. Newspaper Advertising. New York: Prentice Hall, 1947. 
  • Lyon, William H. The Pioneer Editor in Missouri, 1808-1860. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1965. 
  • -----. "The Significance of Newspapers on the American Frontier." Journal of the West 19, no. 2 (Apr., 1980): 3-13. 
  • McCormick, Richard P. The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966. 
  • Marzolf, Marion. Up From the Footnote: A History of Women Journalists. New York: Hastings House, 1977. 
  • Mayer, Gordon. "Party Rags? Politics and the News Business in Chicago's Party Press, 1831-1871." Journalism History 32 (2006): 138-146. 
  • Miller, Greg, Elizabeth Novickas, and Gerry Labedz. The Daily Illini Design Guide. Champaign, Ill.: Illini Publishing, 1976. 
  • Miller, John W. "Frontier Newspapers and National News: Indiana in the Early Nineteenth Century." Maryland Historian 14, no. 2 (Fall/Winter, 1983): 1-13. 
  • Mitchell, Catherine C. Review of The Press of the Young Republic, 1783-1833, by Carol Sue Humphrey. Journal of the Early Republic 17, no. 2 (Summer, 1997): 322-323. 
  • Moen, Daryl R. Newspaper Layout and Design: A Team Approach. 4th ed. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 2000. 
  • Moran, James. Printing Presses: History and Development from the Fifteenth Century to Modern Times. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. 
  • Moroney, Rita L. History of the U.S. Postal Service, 1775-1984. Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Postal Service, 1985. 
  • Mott, Frank Luther. American Journalism: A History, 1690-1960. 3d ed. New York: MacMillan, 1962. 
  • Nerone, John. The Culture of the Press in the Early Republic, Cincinnati, 1793-1848. New York: Garland, 1989. 
  • -----. "The Mythology of the Penny Press." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 4 (1987): 376-404. 
  • Nerone, John, and Kevin G. Barnhurst. "U.S. Newspaper Types, the Newsroom, and the Division of Labor, 1750-2000." Journalism Studies 4, no. 4 (2003): 435-449. 
  • Nord, David Paul. Communities of Journalism: A History of Newspapers and Their Readers. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. 
  • North, Simon Newton Dexter. A Century of Population Growth: From the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790-1900. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1909. 
  • ------. History and Present Condition of the Newspaper and Periodical Press of the United States: With a Catalogue of the Publications of the Census Year. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1884. 
  • Okker, Patricia. Our Sister Editors: Sarah J. Hale and the Tradition of Nineteenth Century American Women Editors. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995. 
  • Page, Robert. Review of The Popular Press, 1833-1865 by William E. Huntzicker. Civil War History 45, no. 3 (September, 1999): 282-283. 
  • Pasley, Jeffrey L. Review of The Popular Press, 1833-1865 by William E. Huntzicker. Journal of the Early Republic 21, no. 2 (Summer, 2001): 387-390. 
  • Payne, George Henry. "Emigration and the Papers of the West." In History of Journalism in the United States, 200-216. New York: D. Appleton, 1920. 
  • Phillips, E. Barbara. Review of Discovering the News by Michael Schudson. Contemporary Sociology 9, no. 6 (November, 1980): 812-813. 
  • Potter, Vilma Raskin. A Reference Guide to Afro-American Publications and Editors, 1827-1946. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1993. 
  • Pride, Armistead Scott, and Clint C. Wilson, II. A History of the Black Press. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1997. 
  • Pryor, Lewis A. "The 'Adin Argus': The End of the Hand Press Era of Country Weeklies." Pacific Historian 17, no. 1 (January, 1973): 1-18. 
  • Reader, Bill. "Local News." In Encyclopedia of American Journalism, 273-275. New York: Routledge, 2008. 
  • Reilly, Tom. War with Mexico! America's Reporters Cover the Battlefront. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010. 
  • Roberts, Robert North, and Scott John Hammond. Encyclopedia of Presidential Campaigns, Slogans, Issues, and Platforms. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. 
  • Ross, Ryan A. Early Illinois Newspapers and Job Printers: The Terence A. Tanner Collection. Urbana: The Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 2010. 
  • Russo, David J. The Origins of Local News in the U.S. Country Press, 1840s-1870s. Lexington, Ky: Association for Education in Journalism, 1980. 
  • Salmon, Lucy Maynard. The Newspaper and the Historian. New York: Oxford University Press, 1923. 
  • Saxton, Alexander. "Problems of Race and Class in the Origins of the Mass Circulation Press." American Quarterly 36 (1984): 211-234. 
  • Schiller, Dan. Objectivity and the News: The Public Rise of Commercial Journalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981. 
  • Schilpp, Madelon Golden, and Sharon M. Murphy. Great Women of the Press. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983. 
  • Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. Running for President: the Candidates and their Images. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. 
  • Schudson, Michael. Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. New York: Basic Books, 1978. 
  • Scott, Franklin W. Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879. Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1910. 
  • Silver, Rollo G. The American Printer, 1787-1825. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967. 
  • Smith, Culver H. The Press, Politics, and Patronage: The American Government's Use of Newspapers, 1789-1875. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1977. 
  • "A Staunch Foe of Slavery" [Obituary for Jane Grey Swisshelm].” New York Times, 23 July, 1884, p. 5. 
  • Stevens, George G. New York Typographical Union No. 6: Study of a Modern Trade Union and its Predecessors. Albany, N.Y.: J.B. Lyon, 1913. 
  • Sutton, Albert A. Design and Makeup of the Newspaper. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1948. 
  • Tanner, Terence A. "Newspapers and Printing Presses in Early Illinois." American Periodicals 3 (1993): 100-113. 
  • Tebbel, John W. The Compact History of the American Newspaper. Rev. ed. New York: Hawthorn, 1969. 
  • Tucher, Andie. Froth and Scum: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and the Ax Murder in America's First Mass Medium. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994. 
  • Washburn, Patrick S. Review of Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America by Hazel Dicken-Garcia. American Historical Review 96, no. 2 (April, 1991): 605. 
  • Wilcox, David F. Quincy and Adams County: History and Representative Men. Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1919.&
  • Winfield, Betty Houchin. Review of Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America by Hazel Dicken-Garcia. Journal of American History 77, no. 4 (March, 1991): 1345-1346.