Newspapers Conquer America!

Ever dreamed you could visualize the growth of the Newspaper Trade across the country? Well our day has come. This video is based on data from the Library of Congress U.S. Newspaper Program, of which RIHS was a key participant during the 1980′s and 1990′s.

The Growth of US Newspapers, 1690-2011 from Geoff McGhee on Vimeo.

The first newspaper printed in the Rhode Island Colony was the short-lived Rhode-Island Gazette, printed in Newport by James Franklin from September 27, 1732 to May 24, 1733.  Providence’s first newspaper was William Goddard’s Providence Gazette, launched October 20, 1762 and ceased on May 11, 1763 “in the face of poor support and general indifference on the part of the people of Providence”  (McMurtrie, Beginning of Printing in R.I., 1935). The oldest still in print is the Providence Journal, evolved from the Providence  Daily Journal, and General Advertiser which was established in 1829.

The RIHS Library holds the largest collection in the State of Rhode Island Newspapers on microfilm and in hard copy.  Examples of newspapers in over ten different languages are in the collection representing the communities that have built the tapestry of Rhode Island’s people. Newspapers are still collected here at the Library today for posterity and for the research needs of future generations.

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New Online Resource

We’re pleased to announce the availability of a new online resource: The Atlas of the Rhode Island Book Trade in the Eighteenth Century. The Atlas integrates a timeline and a map in an attempt to pinpoint as many participants in the book trade (from printers and booksellers to book binders and rag collectors) as possible in space and time. Dragging the timeline left or right (or scrolling a mouse wheel or double clicking at a point in time) adjusts the map view to show only members of the trade in operation at that point in time. The Atlas also features a searchable or browseable database and a number of viewing options, including the option to view the atlas overlaid with eighteenth-century maps of Newport and Providence.

Geographic visualization of all kinds of information abounds on the internet*, but what kind of questions does this resource answer? First, it’s a great way to get a sense of the spread and development of the book trade in the state over the course of the century. Here’s a rough dramatization of the process in twenty seconds of video:

But more particular elements in the story of the book trade become visible through a geographical lens as well. Take the case of Paul Mumford and Mary Maylem, two merchants and booksellers who, according to the Newport Mercury, were married in 1769. In itself not remarkable, but viewing a map of their locations indicates that they were neighbors, operating just across the street from each other. Romance perhaps aided by location. Or a glance at the static map view indicates how many of the book trade’s members operated in locations used previously by someone else in the trade.

Just considering previous posts from this blog, the Atlas offers a number of insights. In our most recent post, it identified the fact that Old Bet’s exhibition was actually taking place in the location used by the printer of the broadside. We can use the Atlas to chart the progress of  Thomas Truman’s exciting late-night experimentations with glowing water. We mentioned the sign of the bunch of grapes when it marked the location of Gladding’s department store, but you can also use the Atlas to find two earlier uses of the sign. And the broadside advertising the visit of a robot to Providence in 1796 gives “Mr. Todd’s bookstore” as one of the locations for ticket sales. Where was Todd’s bookstore at that time? That’s a perfect question for the Atlas.

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* For instance, find out what people think the boundaries of Providence neighborhoods are, based on their Flickr tags at http://boundaries.tomtaylor.co.uk/#2477058 .

 

An Impartial Hand

In a recent New Yorker article on the history of debtor imprisonment*, Jill Lepore briefly mentions a 1754 Rhode Island imprint titled The Ill Policy and Inhumanity of Imprisoning Insolvent Debtors (Vault, Alden #142). An impassioned appeal for an end to debtors’ prisons, the only title page attribution is to “An Impartial Hand”. (Probably no relation to Learned Hand, Faithful Hand, Disinterested Hand, or any of these Hands.**) The short pamphlet is a mixture of religiously-based admonition (“How just is the Damnation of JUDAS, who for a little MONEY, betrayed Innocent Blood?”) and rational argumentation (“. . . the wise End of all Laws, is the Good of the Society for which such Laws are made. Is it not best therefore, that each Member in Society, should be employed in some useful Occupation . . .”). The author was well ahead of his or her time: as Lepore points out, it would take nearly a hundred more years for the United States to ban debtors’ prisons.

Although the authorship and publishing details are anonymous, it has long been accepted in bibliographies that this is an imprint from James Franklin’s shop in Newport (more about Franklin in an earlier post).

This copy (one of five known) includes evidence of ownership. A bookplate on the front pastedown identifies it as from the “Estate of William P. Sheffield,” most likely the former U.S. Senator from Rhode Island. The title page also includes pen trials (working on that perfect “of”) and the name Mary Marsh[?].

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* Jill Lepore, Annals of Finance, “I.O.U.,” The New Yorker, April 13, 2009, p. 34.

** The English Short Title Catalog lists 59 imprints with “Impartial Hand” as the author. Evan’s Early American Imprints includes A true narrative of a most stupendous trance and vision (requires subscription), written by “An Impartial Hand”. Apparently it was a popular sobriquet.

The Ardent Desire

Picking up on the discussion of broadsides in a previous post, today we’ll highlight another broadside from the collection: The Ardent Desire. No, this isn’t a delayed Valentine’s Day post; instead this broadside deals strictly with religious ardor. Printed in 1728, it is only the fifth item published in the state of Rhode Island*, and it was published by James Franklin, brother of Benjamin and the state’s first printer.

The Dictionary of Literary Biography** describes Franklin as “America’s first crusading editor and first major defender of press freedom,” but this broadside religious poem is not one of his more radical publications. Franklin brought Rhode Island its first press when he moved to Newport from Boston in 1726, and he continued printing there until his death in 1735. (His wife Ann took over after his death and ran the shop for thirteen years before passing it on to her son.) The transfers of location and ownership are evident on the page itself in the ornamental border surrounding the poem. The border is made up of various type ornaments, all of which James had used in Boston and then taken with him when he moved his shop to Newport. The crown and rosette combination in the upper left and right corners, for instance, is first used by James in 1719 in The Isle of Man and then again after the move to Newport in 1728′s Jesus Christ an Example to His Minister. In 1735, the year of James’ death, Ann uses the ornament again in A Brief Essay on the Number Seven; and, finally, James (James’ and Ann’s son) uses them in governmental publications of the 1750s.***

And one more reminder not to miss the opening of the exhibition “Rhode Island in the Time of Lincoln” at 7:00 this evening at the Aldrich House. More information available on the Society’s website.

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* See Alden, Rhode Island Imprints: 1727-1800. New York: Bowker, 1949, #5. Also:

** Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 43: American Newspaper Journalists, 1690-1872. Edited by Perry J. Ashley. The Gale Group, 1985. pp. 212-218. Also see Douglas McMurtrie’s “The Beginning of Printing in Rhode Island,” Americana 39.4 (1935): 607-629.

*** See Reilly, A Dictionary of Colonial American Printers’ Ornaments and Illustrations. Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 1975. Numbers 472, 473, 482, 672, 674 and 709. In the entry for the ornament discussed above (no. 709), The Isle of Man is incorrectly listed as a Newport, rather than Boston, publication.