She was neither beautiful nor wealthy. Nor was Benjamin Franklin’s wife educated or intellectual. Nevertheless in 1724 he proposed to Deborah Read while renting a room from her father, the carpenter John Read of Philadelphia. Was it simply youthful passion that attracted him or did the eighteen-year-old printer ask for Deborah’s hand because she had […]
In early 2017, the Washington Post debuted a new masthead with the motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” At about the same time, the New York Times announced a new advertising slogan: “The truth is more important now than ever.” With their new slogans, these papers hoped to renew their commitments to the value of truth and […]
Historians have long praised newspapers for the role they played during the American Revolution, but they don’t always zero in on specific papers that were particularly important during this time. Rather, they give deserving praise to all of the press for the help they gave in winning independence. But there are particular newspapers that should […]
Because of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” most people think that Revere was critical to the start of the Revolutionary War. In trying to dispel Longfellow’s myth of a lone hero, modern scholars have portrayed Revere as just one rider among dozens on 18-19 April 1775, and argued that his previous rides […]
In the 29 Aug 1765 Pennsylvania Gazette, three area printers leveraged the cursed Stamp Act as incentive to buy their almanacs.
