Overheads for Week 3 (updated 10-10-06)

Consequences of enhanced communication technologies:, continued

Frontier Press/Penney Press

Washington Hand Press (in hallway)

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Penney Press: 1833 -- New York Sun

Commercial venture without government subsidy

Per copy sales (one penney), not expensive subscriptions

Dramatic stories, not political polemics

Aimed as mass audience, not specialized readers

Limited but growing advertising, beginning with patent medicines

Viewed as precursor of modern journalism by some historians and disputed by others.

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Press as an advocate of reform: Increased access to marketplace of ideas?

1. Women's suffrage.

Abigail Scott Duniway, New Northwest, 1884-1912 in Oregon (But Harvey Scott Oregonian, raises question about comparative access to the marketplace of ideas.)

Susan B. Anthony, The Revolution

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2. Abolition movement, using new presses

Freedom's Journal, 1827, Russwurm and Cornish, first black-owned newspaper.

William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator

Frederick Douglass, The North Star

Were government, social reactions to abolitionist press an indicator of limits of freedom of expression in pre-Civil War U.S.?

Black press after Reconstruction: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Memphis Free Press

Diversity of views in mainstream (Memphis) press?

Coverage of lynchings

Credibility of non-mainstream journalists

Origins of 'objectivity' in reporting

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Economics of Communication

Transition: 1791-1901: Political/Commercial support

Underlying changes in the post-Civil War Economy:

Manufacturing of branded consumer products

National/local changs in transportation (distribution)

Urbanization/City Center retailing to middle class

Marketing/department store advertising in newspapers

Changes in Communication

First 'Mass' Media:

Urban daily newspapers

National consumer magazines

Catalogs