American Journalism

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James Franklin

• More than a printer.• New-England Courant, started 1721• Attacked clergy, opposed inoculations.• Allied with Rev. John Checkley, who opposed

Puritan-controlled (Calvinist) government.• Prior restraint ordered by royal government

against Checkley.• Checkley refused, fined six pounds.

Trouble in New England

• Franklin and Checkley allied against Increase Mather and Cotton mather.

Increase Mather

• Hated the Courant.• Part of the old

Guard.

Cotton Mather

• Controversy over smallpox.

• Inoculate healthy people with blood of the infected.

• Cotton’s son Rev. Thomas Walter publlished the Anti-Courant, favoring inoculation.

The Courant

• Accused Rev. Walter of drunkenness.• Checkley and Franklin fought over how to

proceed.• Courant supporters called “The Hell-Fire

club.”• Continued to publish anti-inoculation pieces.• Mather supporters used the Boston Gazette to

support inoculation.

Smallpox innoculation

• Inoculation introduces smallpox virus into the recipient. Vaccination introduces vaccinia virus into the recipient. Vaccinia confers protection against smallpox infection, but with far fewer side effects, since it is a much less virulent virus. Edward Jenner, the inventor of vaccination, should be high on everyone's list of greatest-ever human beings.

Inoculation actualy worked, though poorly

• John Adams, later to be president, was inoculated in 1764.

• Adams was spent three weeks in the hospital, suffering headaches, backaches, knee-aches, gagging fever, and eruption of pock marks.

James Franklin

• His journalistic rambunctiousness came when the governor’s licensing power was being disputed.

• Governor asked for licensing power.

• Printers gained some freedom.

• 1722: Courant criticizes Massachusetts General Court on pirates.

Franklin imprisoned

• Got one month’s term.• Ran the paper from jail while his

younger brother Benjamin did the work.• Ben was 17.• General Court studied the Courant:

– Paper mocked religion, profanely abused the Scriptures

– Affronted government.

James Franklin

• Ordered to be on his best behavior.

• Refused to obey.

• Instead, he went into hiding.

• Reappeared, rearrested.

• Grand jury refused to indict.

• James released Ben from indenture.

Ben Franklin

• 1723: Ben emerges as a front man for James.

• Wrote essays under the name of “Silence Dogwood.”

• Even James didn’t know the author.

• Amusing, spirited, Ben was set to have a life as a publisher.

Ben leaves

• He quarreled with James.• Left Boston for Philadelphia.• Courant not financially successful.• James got sick and died in 1732, leaving the Courant

to his wife Anne.• She made it successful, after it moved to Rhode Island.• Her two daughters were geniuses in publishing. So

was Anne’s son James Jr.• James Jr. established the Newport Mercury in

Philadelphia, which ran until the 20th century.

Ben Franklin as Silence Dogwood

• “ ’Tis true, drinking does not improve the Faculties, but it enables us to USE them; and therefore I conclude, that much Study and Experience, and a little Liquor, are of absolute Necessity for some Tempers, in order to make them accomplish’d Orators.”

William Bradford

The Bradfords

• First newspaper in Pennsylvania, The American Mercury.

• Later, The American Magazine.

• Cornelia, Bradford’s stepmother, competed with him.

Ben Franklin now in Philadelphia, 1720s

• Pennsylvania Gazette• Published ads• Printed both sides of the page.• “The merchant may buy and sell with

jews (cq), Turks, Hereticks and Infidels of all sorts, and get money by every one of them, without giving offense to the most orthodox” — but not the publisher.

Competition

• The Gazette vs. the Mercury

• Franklin sponsored printers in the South. (The Virginia Gazette)

• Poor Richard’s Almanack.

• Southern printer Lewis Timothy died; his wife, Elizabeth, took over — successfully.

Elizabeth Timothy

Elizabeth Timothy

• First successful female publisher in colonies.

• How wretched is a woman’s Fate,• No happy change her Fortune knows,• Subject to Man in every state.• How can she then be free from woes?

• In Youth a Father’s stern Command,• And jealous Eyes control her will;• A lordly Brother watchful stands,• To keep her closer Captive still.• The tyrant Husband next appears,• With Awful and Contracted Brow;• No more a lover’s form he wears.• Her slave’s become her Sov’reign now.

Conclusions

• 15th century revolution changed the world from oral and scribal to printed.

• Printing developed in England despite edicts prohibiting it.

• Information became highly prized.

• Intolerance characterize early use of the printing press in America.

More conclusions

• Proclamations, religious and later political pamphlets.

• James Franklin introduced controversy, wit and humor.

• Franklin helped to proliferate printing.

• Women were crucial to early success.

• Soon, everyone had a press.

Next:

• Resistance and liberty.

• Zenger, Bradford, & Alexander

• The Boston Tea Party was for journalism!