“Extracts from Some Rebel Papers”: Patriots, Loyalists, and the Perils of Wartime Printing
1 “Extracts from some Rebel Papers”: Patriots, Loyalists, and the Perils of Wartime Printing Joseph M. Adelman National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow American Antiquarian Society Presented to the Joint Seminar of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies And the Program in Early American Economy and Society, LCP Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust Street, Philadelphia 24 February 2012 3-5 p.m. *** DRAFT: Please do not cite, quote, or distribute without permission of the author. *** 2 The eight years of the Revolutionary War were difficult for the printing trade. After over a decade of growth and increasing entanglement among printers as their networks evolved from commercial lifelines to the pathways of political protest, the fissures of the war dispersed printers geographically and cut them off from their peers. Maintaining commercial success became increasingly complicated as demand for printed matter dropped, except for government printing, and supply shortages crippled communications networks and hampered printers’ ability to produce and distribute anything that came off their presses. Yet even in their diminished state, printers and their networks remained central not only to keeping open lines of communication among governments, armies, and civilians, but also in shaping public opinion about the central ideological issues of the war, the outcomes of battles, and the meaning of events affecting the war in North America and throughout the Atlantic world. What happened to printers and their networks is of vital importance for understanding the Revolution. The texts that historians rely on, from Common Sense and The Crisis to rural newspapers, almanacs, and even diaries and correspondence, were shaped by the commercial and political forces that printers navigated as they produced printed matter that defined the scope of debate and the nature of the discussion about the war.
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