Saturday, January 17, 2015

The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 3. Language and the Printed Word. Part 12: A Conservative Press




Chapter 49.  The Decline of the Book
  • output of books very small considering intellectual energy
    • other types of printed grew in profusion
  • reasons for book's lack of development
    • scarcity of type
    • scarcity and poor quality of paper
      • Stamp Act and Townshend Acts both taxed paper among other items
      • correspondence written on any scraps of paper to be found
      • paper that was manufactured was not made to last
    • inferior ink
    • printing presses had to be imported
    • imported book became staple of American bookseller
  • American printing lagged technically behind England's
  • printer tried to cover investment through advance subscriptions
    • had to play it safe
    • solidly conventional list of publications
  • few books of lasting significance appeared
    • religious books proliferated in North
    • legal books in South
Chapter 50.  The Rise of the Newspaper
  • American printers left free to serve special needs of his community
  • presses were flourishing by mid 18th century
  • bulk of printed material was government work in early years
    • statutes
    • votes and proceedings of colonial assemblies
    • legal and commercial forms, a staple commodity
  • almanacs
    • most important printed matter next to Bible for many farmers
    • back numbers kept for reading matter
    • spread up-to-date political information, opinion and argument in pre-Revolutionary era
  • larger income and future lay with newspaper
    • by early 18th century, newspapers had become a familiar institution
    • precocious development
    • growth stimulated by circumstances
      • spread of literacy
      • extent of the country
      • existence of several capitals, each with its own different ways
      • competition among a number of seaboard cities
    • symbol of how Americans broke down all distinctions
      • need to be useful and relevant, not requiring long study and concentration
      • mixed the public and private
      • took the community into account with a view to action and specific events rather than universal principles
  • advertising
    • saved the newspaper from becoming too literary
    • history of journalism shows tie to commercial spirit
  • magazines
Chapter 51.  Why Colonial Printed Matter was Conservative
  • tight, effective control by government
    • no secret presses
    • no real freedom of the press as we know it
  • traditional European idea of a monopoly of the press to cement the social order was successfully transplanted
  • influence of New England
    • more than half the colonial imprints between 1639 and 1763
    • press restrictions were single largest influence
    • government control remained effective into Revolutionary era and during war itself
  • printing began under government supervision in all the colonies
    • no press in Virginia from 1683 until 1730
    • only one until 1767, an official organ of government
    • outside of Boston, Philadelphia and New York were two leading printing centers
    • government support meant government control
  • confinement of the American press
    • government control
    • censorship
    • threat of libel prosecution
  • under these restrictions, colonial presses could hardly be centers of novel, startling or radical ideas
    • printers' need to be a government man acceptable to ruling group
    • only government business made it possible for a man to live by his press
Chapter 52.  "The Publick Printer"
  • steps to success
    • winning confidence of government
    • discovering sources of news
    • finding ways of distributing his commodity quickly
    • results led to the development of an unprecedented network of public information which eventually would link a vast nation together
  • aspects of life which increased printer's influence
    • large number of separate governments
    • this gave a focus and practical purpose to printed matter
    • put printing press in service of entire literate community
  • men qualified to be public printers were always in demand
    • became an American institution
    • influence in public life foreshadowed special American relationship between politics and the press (e.g., Presidential press conference)
  • growth of responsibility
    • printer was chief local customer of post office
      • gathering place for men of affairs
      • postmaster had quickest and most confidential access to news through letters.
    • printer found it convenient to take on duties of local postmaster
    • printer's shop came to resemble a general store
    • advantage of being postmaster kept press in hands of respectable men
    • advantages developed by earliest printers
      • intimately acquainted with public tastes
      • learned the problems of selling and delivering printed matter to a wide audience
  • reason for first U.S post office
    • needs of the Continental Congress
    • new American army
    • rising colonial newspapers
  • system set up on model of William Goddard
    • man who had opposed post office monopoly under Franklin's rule as Deputy Postmaster General
    • Franklin chosen as first postmaster which sealed the continuing close relationship between the post office and politics

Related posts:
The Americans: The Colonial Experience by Daniel Boorstin,  Book 1.  The Vision and the Reality Part 1.  A City Upon a Hill:  The Puritans of Massachusetts.  (12/8/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Part 2. The Inward Plantation: The Quakers of Pennsylvania.  (12/10/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Part 3. Victims of Philanthropy: The Settlers of Georgia.  (12/13/2014)
The Americans;  The Colonial Experience, Part 4.  Transplanters:  The Virginians.  (12/14/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 5: An American Frame of Mind.  (12/17/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 6: Educating the Community
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 7: The Learned Lose Their Monopolies.  (12/24/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 8: New World Medicine.  (12/31/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 9: The Limits of American Science
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 3. Language and the Printed Word. Part 10: The New Uniformity.  (1/6/2015)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 3. Language and the Printed Word. Part 11: Culture Without a Capital;  (1/11/2015)

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