ABSTRACT

Although colonial towns and villages had published newspapers and magazines as early as the 1600s, periodicals changed dramatically over the course of the mid-nineteenth century, and by the Civil War journalism had emerged as a well-established profession. Known for their political partisanship, the papers of the early 1800s were often edited by politicians rather than by writers or intellectuals. Joseph Dennie’s Port Folio was an important pro-Federalist magazine in the early 1800s, and Duff Green edited the United States Telegraph in the 1820s and 1830s as a mouthpiece for Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party friends. Throughout the antebellum era, American towns often published two newspapers, each supporting the main rival political parties. Even avowedly non-partisan periodicals such as Hezekiah Niles’s Weekly Register, which was published in Baltimore between 1811 and 1836, often staked out bold and strident positions on issues from the Bank of the United States to pistol dueling. Still, for all their advocating for political parties and causes, antebellum newspapers, editors, and journalists began to make significant strides toward establishing professional standards in journalism. Press clubs were formed by the Civil War, and journalists began calling themselves “reporters,” reflecting the newly emerging notion that articles should be presented in an objective fashion.