The Antebellum Press ― Setting the Stage for Civil War

The Antebellum Press: Setting the Stage for Civil War reveals the critical role of journalism in the years leading up to America’s deadliest conflict by exploring the events that foreshadowed and, in some ways, contributed directly to the outbreak of war.

This collection of scholarly essays traces how the national press influenced and shaped America’s path towards warfare. Major challenges faced by American newspapers prior to secession and war are explored, including: the economic development of the press; technology and its influence on the press; major editors and reporters (North and South) and the role of partisanship; and the central debate over slavery in the future of an expanding nation. A clear narrative of institutional, political, and cultural tensions between 1820 and 1861 is presented through the contributors’ use of primary sources. In this way, the reader is offered contemporary perspectives that provide unique insights into which local or national issues were pivotal to the writers whose words informed and influenced the people of the time.

As a scholarly work written by educators, this volume is an essential text for both upper-level undergraduates and postgraduates who study the American Civil War, journalism, print and media culture, and mass communication history.

David B. Sachsman, the George R. West, Jr. Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, is director of the Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression, and editor of After the War.

Gregory A. Borchard, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas professor, has published extensively on journalism history, including A Narrative History of the American Press (Routledge, 2019). He edits Journalism History, a journal for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s History Division.