The Print Shop at Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial newspapers are unsung heroes of the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War. Specifically, several newspapermen and women deserve recognition for their role in America’s founding, including:

• Benjamin Edes and John Gill, Boston Gazette
• Isaiah Thomas, Massachusetts Spy
• William Goddard, Pennsylvania Chronicle
• Peter Timothy, South Carolina Gazette
• Thomas Green, Connecticut Courant
• John Holt, New York Journal
• Solomon Southwick, Newport Mercury
• William Gradford III, Pennsylvania Journal
• Mary Goddard, Maryland Journal
• Anne Catharine Green, Maryland Gazette
• James Rivington, Royal Gazette
• Paul Revere, engraver for colonial newspapers (e.g., Massachusetts Spy and Boston Gazette)

One author who recognizes the revolutionary role of newspapers, and their printers and journalists, is Eric Burns, author of Infamous Scribblers (2006).

Marrying the story-telling flair of McCullough with the journalism history acumen of Mott and Emery, Burns says that the Boston Gazette, arguably the most influential newspaper the country has ever known, got us into the Revolutionary War, sped up the course of the war and may have even determined the outcome of the war. And a good chunk of Infamous Scribblers is dedicated to supporting this thesis.

As Burns admits, “Perhaps the importance of the press to the outcome of the war can be exaggerated, but not easily and not by much. It was newspapers that kept the colonies informed of the progress of the fighting in a way that letters and patterers could not have done, and in the process united the colonies in a way that was beyond the ability of the jerry-built wartime government.”

Burns points out that newspapers were the only form of media at the time and served as the great unifier of our nation during a time when America “needed unity as much as we needed ammunition.”

Below are a few other highlights from Infamous Scribblers:

On reporting and publishing during the Revolutionary War: “The Revolutionary War was not an easy one to cover. For one thing, once the fighting started there was more news than ever but no more shipments of ink or type or spare parts for the presses coming into American ports. There were no more shipments of paper either, and, as for the quantities still available or smuggled into the colonies from a friend in the motherland or a trader in another European nation, there were higher priorities for it than journalism.”

On a newspaper’s role in the Revolutionary War: “It was Franklin, though, who most succinctly and accurately assessed the role of the media in the days leading up to the war. It was he, astute as ever, who pointed out that the press not only can ’strike while the iron is hot,’ but it can ‘heat it by continually striking.’”

On an unlikely spy embedded as a printer: “Jemmy [James] Rivington’s Tory newspaper, the Royal Gazette, was extremely critical of George Washington. However, Rivington was also a spy who passed along secrets of the British navy to colonial leaders. On one occasion, Rivington helped break a British code that almost surely saved American lives during one of the war’s earlier battles.” Read the Rag Linen blog post on this topic.

Additional resources on the role and significance of colonial printers during the American Revolution:

• Prelude to Independence: The Newspaper War on Britain, 1764–1776 (Arthur Schlesinger, 1958)
• Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism (Eric Burns, 2006)
• Back Issues: The Day the Newspaper Died (Jill Lepore, 2009)
• Boston 1775: Edes and Gill (J. L. Bell, 2006-2010)
• Rag Linen Collections: The Stamp Act of 1765 and 1776

Below is the presentation Eric Burns gave at a book store in Washington, DC, which aired on C-SPAN.