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Daniel Walker Howe is a fine
social historian
and historian of ideas. From the end of the War of 1812 through the first railroads and telegraphs, the Mexican-American War which shifted America's center of gravity to the slaveowning south. Meanwhile, evangelism, temperance (anti-alcohol) and anti-slavery movements stirred up the country. |
If you haven't read it yet, maybe now is a good time, and guess what, it's a best-seller which means Amazon is discounting it big. Accept no substitutes (esp. from anybody named Beck). |
Part of the Tales of the Early Republic Web Project
A four page weekly, like most papers of the time, it was fiercely committed to the eradication of slavery. Supported largely by African Americans, it achieved great notoriety, especially for its small circulation, from its many involuntary subscribers - editors of southern newspapers and slavery defenders, who would quote extensively from it in the course of attacking it.
see book of excerpts
A "violently" anti-Jackson and pro-Clay paper which Abraham Lincoln's neighbor and friend, William Jones, storekeeper of Gentryville, subscribed to, and Lincoln borrowed to read. DAB (on Prentice) says it was 1st issued 11/24/1830 by George D. Prentice, in which case Lincoln didn't read it it Jones's store. (Source: Beveridge, Lincoln, I, p97).
Copyright 1998 by Hal Morris, Secaucus, NJ