The Early American Press, 1690-1783

Subjects:

• History » American History -- Colonial Era
• Communications » Journalism
• History » American History -- Nineteenth Century

Awards:

• Choice Outstanding Academic Book, 1995

Reviews:

• This excellent book describes the American press's first 93 years within the cultural context of the era. The authors reveal a mosaic of influences and discuss the parallel between the press in the American colonies and Great Britain after about 1750. The book is the first volume in what looks to be a promising new series on the American press. Very highly recommended for all journalism and American history collections, upper-division undergraduate and above.
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  Choice
• ...one of the books greatest strengths is that the early American press is taken seriously, and so the origins of American journalism are closely, astutely, and comprehensively examined and analyzed. Sloan and Williams clearly have made an extremely important contribution to the historical scholarship of this period by demonstrating the high degree of press sophistication that previously has been ignored or disregarded by writers uninterested in the social and intellectual content of early American periodicals. The extensive endnotes, bibliography, and solid historigraphical foundation qualify it as required reading for a graduate course in American journalism history. Furthermore, the high quality of this book holds much promise for a welcomed series of great import to the discipline.
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  Journalism Educator
• By creating a work that is based upon investigation of primary sources, The Early American Press can authoritatively challenge, for example, concepts of journalistic motivation and press influence. The book offers its readers an extensive bibliography and a bibliographic essay that approaches the study of the press of early America from various historic schools. An important step for media history. Through close reevaluation of the press of the eighteenth century, Sloan and Williams are pointing out that there is a complexity in early American printing that belies assumptions of simple four-page, boring sheets of news.
  —Journalism History
• ...a valuable addition to the study of journalism's past.
  —Journalism & Mass Communications Quarterly

Table of Contents:

• Series Foreword
• Preface
• The Boston Press, 1690-1735
• The Philadelphia Press, 1719-1735
• Freedom of the Press, 1638-1735
• The Expansion of the Colonial Press, 1735-1765
• The Stamp Act Crisis, 1765-1766
• The Uneasy Years, 1766-1775
• The Revolutionary Press, 1775-1783
• Reflections on the Early American Press
• Bibliographical Essay
• Sources
• Index