For Free Press and Equal Rights: Republican Newspapers in the Reconstruction South - Rilegato

Abbott, Richard H.; Quist, John W.

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0820325279 ISBN 13: 9780820325279

Casa editrice: Univ of Georgia Pr, 2004

Riassunto

For Free Press and Equal Rights is an exhaustive study of the newspapers published in the Reconstruction South that had ties to the pro-Union, northern-based Republican party. Until now, no book has been devoted entirely to this subject. Richard H. Abbott's research draws on his readings from some 430 southern Republican papers. This figure accounts for literally hundreds more papers than are cited in the handful of previously published related studies--none of which makes more than passing reference to any of the topics that Abbott covers in detail.

Abbott first traces the origins of the southern Republican press from its lone stronghold in antebellum northwest Virginia to its wartime expansion in the wake of the Union Army's occupation of such far-flung places as Key West, Florida, and Port Royal, South Carolina. Abbott then discusses the challenges of establishing and sustaining a Republican press where the most likely readership--freed slaves--was usually illiterate and too poor to subscribe, much less to contribute advertising revenue. Looking at the different ways white and black editors faced common problems from ostracism and libel to vandalism and physical assault, Abbott also discusses the mixed blessings of patronage, by which Republican officials steered printing business to their party organs. Abbott's state-by-state, year-by-year analyses look at the fluctuating number of southern Republican papers in terms of their distribution in rural/urban and anti/pro-Republican areas.

For Free Press and Equal Rights reveals a wealth of information about papers ranging from the Visitor of Hot Springs, Arkansas, which lasted less than a year, to the Union Flag of Jonesborough, Tennessee, which ran from 1865 to 1873. It makes a number of new and important points about political patronage and the publishing process, race and print culture, Republican ideology and rhetoric, and our first amendment rights.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Richard H. Abbott (1936-2000) was a professor of history at Eastern Michigan University and the author of The Republican Party and the South and Cotton and Capital. John W. Quist is an associate professor of history at Shippensburg University. He is the author of Restless Visionaries: The Social Roots of Antebellum Reform in Alabama and Michigan.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Univ of Georgia Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0820325279
• ISBN 13: 9780820325279
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 296