Firsthand accounts offer students, scholars, or anyone interested in the pivotal period preceding the Civil War a look at how America's press covered important national issues and events of the day, from the passage of the Missouri Compromise through John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. Using editorials, letters, essays, and news reports that appeared throughout the country, Copeland reveals how editors, politicians, and other Americans used the press to influence opinion. These are the primary documents that displayed the pulse of the nation.

Issues such as abolition, education, and women's rights are discussed along with important events such as the nullification crisis of 1832, the Mexican War, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Each of the 29 chapters introduces an event or issue and includes news articles that represented various American opinions. These introductory essays and primary-source documents illustrate how newspapers and magazines presented matters of great national import, in an age when the opinions of the press frequently in influenced broad American sentiment and action.

The demise of the newspaper has long been predicted. Yet newspapers continue to survive globally despite competition from radio, television, and now the Internet, because they serve core social functions in successful cultures. Initial chapters of this book provide an overview of the development of modern newspapers. Subsequent chapters examine particular societies and geographic regions to see what common traits exist among the uses and forms of newspapers and those artifacts that carry the name "newspaper" but do not meet the commonly accepted definition. The conclusion suggests that newspapers are of such core value to a successful society that a timely and easily accessible news product will succeed despite, or perhaps because of, changes in reading habits and technology.

With this unique collection of primary source documents from colonial newspapers, students will be able to debate the issues of colonial America. Pro and con opinion pieces, letters, essays and news reports that were printed in colonial newspapers will help the reader to understand the differing viewpoints of colonial Americans on the key issues from 1690 to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Nearly 300 documents, organized chronologically by event, will help readers step back in time to debate the issues faced by 18th-century Americans. The work covers 31 events from abolition, religion, and women's rights to the Stamp Act crisis and the Boston Tea Party. For every major event or issue of the colonial period, newspapers printed the opinions of the day, in many cases attempting to influence public opinion. Issues such as medical discoveries, education, and censorship are covered in this collection along with important events such as the French and Indian War, the trial of John Peter Zenger, and the Boston Massacre. Each chapter introduces the event or issue and includes news articles, letters, essays, even poetry representing both sides of the argument as they affected Americans. Each document is preceded by an explanatory introduction. This is the only collection of primary source documents from colonial newspapers on the events of the era and will be a valuable tool for research and classroom discussion.