ABSTRACT
The Republicans extolled the virtues of the common man, using newspapers to spread their views. Getting votes inspired, early on, the use of propaganda in the press, a kind of spin that was to become endemic to the process. Until the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, however, printing presses in South America were largely, if not totally, devoted to religious materials. The 1840s brought important changes to the American newspaper business. First, the so-called penny press evolved because growing circulations permitted the publishers to sell each copy for a penny. The New York Sun was the first newspaper that attempted, in 1833, to become a penny press. The impact the penny press had on the newspaper business included larger circulation for the dailies and frequent changes in the style and character of editorial matter. During the Civil War many states exempted newspaper men from military duty because of the importance of gathering and disseminating information about the conflict.
