The Library of Congress has a free section on their website, specifically sharing newspapers throughout American history. It's designated as "Chronicling America" and it pulled me down the rabbit hole. I only paused to write this blog post!
3 Facts about early American newspapers.
1) The first known American newspaper to be printed was in 1704.
I have to give this one to Boston! Even larger cities like New York and Philadelphia were over a decade behind Beantown. Titled the Boston News-Letter, it ran weekly until 1776.
Click here to read the details from the Massachusetts Historical Society (which is history in itself, founded in 1791).
2) The oldest long-running newspaper in America hails from Connecticut.
Another point to New England! Thomas Green started printing the Harford Courant (first-known as the Connecticut Courant) in October of 1764. Extra note for you Sunday-paper lovers- the first Sunday edition of the Courant came out in 1913.
Click here for the history of this early American newspaper, direct from Connecticuthistory.org.
3) 37 newspapers were in print by the time of the American Revolution.
Seeing so many version of the Virginia Gazette, this doesn't surprise me. Being that we were still British at that time, all were formatted like London papers. Like today, printers (publishers) had their own style and since every colony was made up of people with their own ideas, cultures, and needs, the papers reflected the differences.
Click here to learn about early American newspapers from a website titled Colonial Print Culture.
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