DOCUMENT RESUME ED 396 326 CS 215 381 TITLE Selected Papers
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 396 326 CS 215 381 TITLE Selected Papers Presented at the Annual Convention of the American Journalism Historians Association (Tulsa, Oklahoma, September 28-30, 1995). Part I. INSTITUTION American Journalism Historians' Association. PUB DATE Sep 95 NOTE 371p.; For Part II, see CS 215 382. PUB TYPE Collected Works Conference Proceedings (021) Reports Research/Technical (143) Historical Materials (060) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC15 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Colonialism; *Journalism; *Journalism History; Journalism Research; *Mass Media Role; *Newspapers; Press Opinion; Social History; *United States History IDENTIFIERS Historical Research; *Journalists ABSTRACT The 13 papers presented in this collection all deal with journalism and journalists from colonial Americathrough the 19th century. The papers and their authorsare: "'The Presence of God Was Much Seen in Their Assemblies': Religious News in Colonial America" (David A. Copeland); "And So They Came:The Persuasive Effect of American Settlement Literature during the ColonialEra" (Julie Hedgepeth Williams); "The Impact of theAmerican Revolution on the Occupational Ideology of Journalists: A Comparison ofPre- and Post-Revolution Prospectuses" (Patricia L. Dooley); "Trade, Treachery, and Daily Necessities: The Significance of theSea to Colonial Newspapers" (David A. Copeland); "The Pressand the War of 1812" (Susan Thompson); "'A Tincture of Madness':The Failure of Benjamin Franklin's West Indies Printing Partnerships"(Ralph Frasca); "'The Earnest Endeavor': Andrew Brown'sRole in Philadelphia's 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic" (Mark A. Smith); "Constantine Rea: An Antebellum Editor" (Nan Fairley);"The Rise of the Fact and 'Naive Empiricism' in Journalism andthe Sciences, As Seen in the Great Cholera Epidemics of 1832, 1849,and 1866" (David T. Z. Mindich); "Observers of Crisis and Compromise:The Washington Correspondents of 1850" (Mark J. Stegmaier); "With Respectand Admiration--Walter Mason Camp, Journalist of the Little Big Horn" (Warren E. "Sandy" Barnard); "Domesticityand Municipal Housekeeping Concerns in the Writing of Women Journalists duringthe Nineteenth Century" (Agnes Hooper Gottlieb); and "Froman Incautious Heroine, Ishbel Ross: Arms Outstretched beneatha Backward-Billowing Old Glory" (Beverly G. Merrick). (NKA) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best thatcan be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** Selected Papers Presented at the Annual Convention of the American Journalism Historians Association, Tulsa, Oklahoma, September 28-30, 1995 Part I PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Orr coot EOuCatiOna, ResCarCii DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION HAS BEEN GRANTED BY CENTER (ERIC) CO-his documeed has been reproduced as FYC )`) received from the person Or organization 1n,D_A:j originating it C Minor changes have beenmade to improve reproduction quality TO THE EDUCATIJNALRESOURCES Points of view or opinions stated inthis INFORMATION CENTER (ERICI document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy BEST COPY AVAILABLE "THE PRESENCE OF GOD WAS MUCH SEEN IN THEIR ASSEMBLIES": RELIGIOUS NEWS IN COLONIAL AMERICA by David A. Copeland Assistant Professor Department of Mass Communication Emory & Henry College Emory, Virginia 24327 540-944-4121 Presented at the American Journalism Historians Association Convention, Tulsa, Oklahoma ,$ ABSTRACT Title: "The Presence of God Was Much Seen in Their Assemblies': Religious News in Colonial America" Abstract: This research deals with the religious news presented in colonial newspapers from 1690-1775 by looking at approximately 7,400 newspapers spanning the entire period and representing all extant newspapers. The purpose is twofold. First, this research points out exactly what religious material appeared in newspapers and discovers five basic types of religious news: portrayal of Roman Catholics, documents of colonial religiosity, news of God's providence, news surrounding George Whitefield, and discussions about religious liberty. Second, the research seeks to determine whether religion, as Patricia U. Bonomi has said, was so entwined with life in the eighteenth century that it left its mark indelibly on all aspects of American life. This research discovers that, according to the papers, religion was a vital part of colonial life. Most Americans viewed a relationship with God as important to their well- being, and newspaper stories intimated that God's providence would be there to protect a person if one was in proper relation with God, but religious implications were not present in all news stories. This paper concludes that news of religion was found in all papers throughout the period, that religion was vital to the lives of most colonial citizens, and that religion tinted the news of the period. THE PRESENCE OF GOD WAS MUCH SEEN IN THEIR ASSEMBLIES: RELIGIOUS NEWS IN COLONIAL AMERICA That mankind have a right to be free in the choice of religion, is a tnith that can't be denied, and is a privilege dearer to every sober Christian than any civil privilege whatsoever, and no authority on earth have a right to deprive their subjects of the same. Providence Gazette, 13 October 1770 Early in October 1770, Rhode Island printer John Carter received a letter, its writer requesting it be printed in the Providence Gazette. Signed "A PROTESTANT," the writer was outraged that in such an enlightened time, the lands of people were still being confiscated by governments when those people refused to support the government-prescribed form of religion. "To take by force their estates from them, to support a religion or worship that they donot choose, is a piece of oppression that would make even a moral heathen blush," the writer stated about his own colony of Connecticut. "Yet many instances of the same havewe had, and still have!"1 In an era when Americans were in ever greater numbers calling for political freedom. "the free choice of their own religion,'' as the writer called it,was still being denied to some in colonial America. For the residents of British colonial America, religion had always beena significant issue. Many of the first English settlers to cross the Atlantic made the hazardous journey for religious reasons, and religion was seen as a vital aspect of life. The Biblewas the one book that almost every settler possessed,2 and religious books and commentarieswere basic items on any colonial bookshelf.3 Parents insisted that children learn to read so that they could understand the Bible, and colleges were begun in by colonial American to train ministers.4 Religion was, as Patricia U. Bonomi has observed, so entwined with life in eighteenth-century America that religion's mark was left indelibly on all aspects of life.5 This research deals with the religious news that was presented in colonialnewspapers. For the study, approximately 7,400 editions of all colonialnewspapers available on microfilm were read. Newspapers were read in their entirety to discover religious content.6 A sizable 2 number of religious news items, however, does not mean that all aspects of the news in colonial newspapers were religiously motivated. Nor does it mean that the growing political fervor that captured the attention of many colonial printers from the Stamp Act crisis onward was rooted in the religious beliefs of Americans.' Newspapers in the colonial period, regardless of motivation for news, were a reflection of the society that they served, and they were stocked amply with religious news and news indelibly tinted by religion. Religious news was especially heavy in the 1740s when religious revival was rampant in the colonies. Although many eighteenth-century citizens would no doubt have credited much of the religious interest in revival and discussion of religious issues in print to God's providence, one individual acted as the catalyst for this explosion, and his name was George Whitefield. Whitefield revitalized religion in eighteenth-century America and captured the attention of the colonial press like no other individual. An orator of uncommon ability, Whitefield's first preaching tour, which lasted from October 1739 to January 1741, can be traced accurately through colonial newspapers, and every visit White& ld made to America from that time to his death in Massachusetts in 1770 was noted in newspapers. News of Whitefield, as Charles E. Clark correctly pointed out, helped colonial newspapers focus their news contentupon events that either originated in America or had an immediate impact on American readers.8 Colonial newspapers carried on a relationship with Whitefie Id for thirtyyears, but the Grand Itinerant was far from being the sole source of religious information in colonial newspapers. Newspaper articles credited many events to God's providence, and religious liberty rerhained a source of conversation from about 1730 on.9 Newspapers printed ordination notices of pastors, hymns, scripture passages, and sermons regularly. The religious nature of colonial governments also found its way continually into newspapers through calls tbr days of "Fasting, Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God." The religious news of colonial 6 3 newspapers demonstrates that most colonists were Protestants who brought with them to America an intense hatred of the Roman Catholic Church, a hatred that each generation continued to foster throughout the colonial