The Tyranny of Printers": Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic [Paperback]

Jeffrey L. Pasley (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813921775 | ISBN-13: 978-0813921778 | Publication Date: November 22, 2002

Although frequently attacked for their partisanship and undue political influence, the American media of today are objective and relatively ineffectual compared to their counterparts of two hundred years ago. From the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century, newspapers were the republic's central political institutions, working components of the party system rather than commentators on it.

The Tyranny of Printers narrates the rise of this newspaper-based politics, in which editors became the chief party spokesmen and newspaper offices often served as local party headquarters. Beginning when Thomas Jefferson enlisted a Philadelphia editor to carry out his battle with Alexander Hamilton for the soul of the new republic (and got caught trying to cover it up), the centrality of newspapers in political life gained momentum after Jefferson's victory in 1800, which was widely credited to a superior network of papers. Jeffrey L. Pasley tells the rich story of this political culture and its culmination in Jacksonian democracy, enlivening his narrative with accounts of the colorful but often tragic careers of individual editors.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Tyranny of Printers is...an essential journey for those who care about the history of our nation's early years, and the emergence of ordinary artisans as extraordinary leaders, sounding and heeding the call to freedom.

(Washington Post Book World )

This liberal critique should be read by many of the great number who are now exposed to the conservative biography of Adams by David McCullough.... [The Tyranny of Printers] is a sprightly and provocative history, written with far more flair than the usual scholarly treatise.

(St. Louis Post-Dispatch )

Pasley's book is the best ever written about journalism in the early republic and one of the best about the broader political culture of that era.... For the first time, we can see, brightly and clearly, the vital importance of that era in the history of journalism.

(American Historical Review )

The most comprehensive and important work on the partisan printer-editors of the early republic.... [I]t is the first work students and general readers should consult on the subject.

(Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography )

This is a tremendously valuable work.... Anyone interested in journalism, the rise of political parties, or early America should read The Tyranny of Printers at least twice.

(Southern Historian )

This is an important book not just for historians of the press, but for students of the early republic generally. Highly recommended.

(CHOICE )

From the Author

This book presents a side of early American politics not told by Joseph Ellis or David McCullough. Here you can find the stories of the journalists who were jailed by the now-cuddly John Adams or beaten by his supporters. Reader of Richard Rosenfeld's "American Aurora" should particularly enjoy this book. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 540 pages
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press (November 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813921775
• ISBN-13: 978-0813921778
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #787,008 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic new look at Revolutionary journalism, November 28, 2004

By 

C.D. Usselman (Northfield, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tyranny of Printers": Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic (Paperback)

The Tyranny of Printers is a history book that accomplishes a lot at the same time. On one hand, it offers a new and fascinating look at journalism during the Revolutionary Period. Pasley essentially argues that rather than being tools of the parties, journalists themselves were responsible for dictating the rise of party politics.

The book is very well-written and manages to be entertaining enough for a general audience but also incredibly useful for the academic world, which is very tough to do. Pasley mainly uses a series of biographical portraits to construct his narrative, which makes the book easy to digest but does restrict his ability to apply his conclusions to a larger population, but I never doubted his findings.

As with any book, Pasley obviously takes sides. The newspaper men emerge as the true heroes: bold and fearless spreaders of democracy who had a fundamental role in the rise of party politics of the period. Extending that, the Jeffersonians (and not the currently chic Hamiltonians) are the politicians who were more in tough with spirit of democracy that the nation was founded on, and this propellem them to their dramatic victory in the election of 1800.

Pasley's book is inventive, enjoyable, and highly informative. I suggest to any casual or serious student of the Early American Republic. It is a welcome antidote to the current trend in Founding Father hagiography.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Tyranny of Printers: Newspaper Politics, October 15, 2002

By 

Joe Zika "Khemprof" (Cincinnati, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Tyranny of Printers: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic (Jeffersonian America) (Hardcover)

The Tyranny of Printers: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic written by Jeffrey L. Pasley is a book that gives an overall picture of the power of the press in our early American Republic from the Revolutionary period to the Jacksonians. Newspaper based politics is a term used much in this book to describe the type and level associated with the local party.

The classic case of newspaper-based politics was when Thomas Jefferson used one paper in Philadelphia to do his bidding against Alexander Hamilton... not to mention that Jefferson got caught. Newspapers were the central source of news, outside of word of mouth, and a network of newspapers really gave both the candidate and the paper momentum and political life. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was a real hotbed where newspapers breathed, newpapers were the republic's central political institutions, working components of the political system rather than just commentators on it. This was true all the way to the end of the Jacksonian era of democracy.

This book has a narrative that flows quite well and keeps the reader well informed and is full of anecdotes. Jefferson, Madison and Monroe all used the press to their collective advantage as they striped the power away from the Federalists, but not only is this book about how they politician used the press. The most interesting story is how the author enlivens his narrative with accounts of the colorful but often tragic careers of the individual editors.

There is a companion web site that readers should consult at: [url] serving as an extension of the book... this site contains important supporting material information. The book has endnotes rather than footnotes concentrating all of the supporting information toward the back of the book. There is a very good bibliography with this book that supports the writing very well.

As time marchs on... reading this book give us a glimpse in the window of a time where political goals were linked to the newspapers and their editors making the full circle of the political process, linking parties, voters and the government together... the newspapers were the linchpin of early political power. This book is very informative and gives a rare look into the life at times of some of the more interesting minor players of early American Politics the editors.

I enjoyed reading this book as it still had a familiar theme but the players were the most interesting as the Americian political process still worked, a very interesting book, indeed.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How newspaper editors created our political system, September 26, 2001

By 

R. Weir (Columbia, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Tyranny of Printers: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic (Jeffersonian America) (Hardcover)

Jeff Pasley's "The Tyranny of Printers" is a fresh look at American politics and journalism in the early Republic. The traditional narrative of journalism in the early Republic is that a weak press tyrannized by political parties produced some of the most subservient and unfree journalism ever seen in America. Pasley turns this narrative on its head, arguing that printers and newspapers in fact created the modern party system. Far from being party stooges, printers were in fact politicians with a major stake in the issues of the day; far from politically subservient, printers provided the organizational glue that held the early parties together.

Pasley argues that newspaper editors provided the crucial ideological and organizational tools that were needed to negotiate the chaotic political waters of the early Republic in part because printers were the only truly professional politicians of the time. Parties lacked permanent organization in the early Republic; campaign season brought political operatives and candidates out of the woodwork, but for the rest of the year it fell to editors to mediate between politicians and constituents.
Newspaper offices, which often doubled as local post offices and as reading rooms for out-of-town papers, were logical locations for official party meetings and informal affairs. Editors were uniquely placed to gauge public opinion because of the volume of other papers that passed through their offices. By reprinting accounts of party rallies, toasts, speeches and marches, newspapers spread the party's message to many more people than ever could have seen the event in person and created an "imagined community" of party followers spread over the entire nation. The printing of toasts and speeches also allowed editor-politicians to simultaneously forge a national party ideology and to tone down the parts of that ideology that might not play well in certain states or regions.

Pasley argues that the first party to understand and use newspapers in politics was Thomas Jefferson's Republican party. The Republicans were able to deploy the press effectively as a weapon at least partly because of their willingness to let a certain class of people into the political arena - artisan printers. The Federalist newspapers that sprang up to counter the Republican press were generally run by young aristocrats who wrote and copied articles from other papers but didn't actually do the hard manual labor of setting type and printing papers. Republican editors, by contrast, tended to be printers themselves, raised in a declining artisanal tradition and realizing that the road to success might lead them down an untraditional path. By understanding artisanal editors to have played such a large role in the birth of political parties, Pasley provides fresh new evidence for the idea of a great democratization of politics occurring in the early Republic. The party editors of Jefferson's and Jackson's days were certainly not of the lowest class of people, but they were manual laborers who conformed to an old, hard-drinking tradition that was anathematic to refined Federalist or neo-Federalist aristocrats.

The most revolutionary aspect of Pasley's book may be found in the way it understands the relationship between journalists and politicians. The received wisdom of the journalism world focuses on notions of objectivity and partisanship; the era of the political press is seen as a low point of American journalism. Pasley's argument suggests that printers of that era may well have had more influence over politics and that ordinary voters may have been much more well-informed than voters are today. The union of journalism and politics that Pasley describes is one that held many advantages for both the printers and the parties of the day.