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Studies in Early American Economy and Society from the Library Company of Philadelphia
Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763–1789
During the American Revolution, printed material, including newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, and broadsides, played a crucial role as a forum for public debate. In Revolutionary Networks, Joseph M. Adelman argues that printers--artisans who mingled with the elite but labored in a manual trade--used their commercial and political connections to directly shape Revolutionary political ideology and mass mobilization. Going into the printing offices of colonial America to explore how these documents were produced, Adelman shows how printers balanced their own political beliefs and interests alongside the commercial interests of their businesses, the customs of the printing trade, and the prevailing mood of their communities.
Adelman describes how these laborers repackaged oral and manuscript compositions into printed works through which political news and opinion circulated. Drawing on a database of 756 printers active during the Revolutionary era, along with a rich collection of archival and printed sources, Adelman surveys printers' editorial strategies. Moving chronologically through the era of the American Revolution and to the war's aftermath, he details the development of the networks of printers and explains how they contributed to the process of creating first a revolution and then the new nation.
By underscoring the important and intertwined roles of commercial and political interests in the development of revolutionary rhetoric, this book essentially reframes our understanding of the American Revolution. Printers, Adelman argues, played a major role as mediators who determined what rhetoric to amplify and where to circulate it. Offering a unique perspective on the American Revolution and early American print culture, Revolutionary Networks reveals how these men and women managed political upheaval through a commercial lens.
Adelman describes how these laborers repackaged oral and manuscript compositions into printed works through which political news and opinion circulated. Drawing on a database of 756 printers active during the Revolutionary era, along with a rich collection of archival and printed sources, Adelman surveys printers' editorial strategies. Moving chronologically through the era of the American Revolution and to the war's aftermath, he details the development of the networks of printers and explains how they contributed to the process of creating first a revolution and then the new nation.
By underscoring the important and intertwined roles of commercial and political interests in the development of revolutionary rhetoric, this book essentially reframes our understanding of the American Revolution. Printers, Adelman argues, played a major role as mediators who determined what rhetoric to amplify and where to circulate it. Offering a unique perspective on the American Revolution and early American print culture, Revolutionary Networks reveals how these men and women managed political upheaval through a commercial lens.
- GenresHistory
280 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2019
2 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 28, 2025
With an extensive list of notable contributions to a variety of publications, podcasts, and institutes, historian Joseph M. Adelman has helped immensely in gaining a better understanding of Colonial and Revolutionary America. Through his research, Adelman sets out to uncover the remarkable effect that printers and their publications had for both the Loyalist whom was bent on recovering His Majesty’s favor, and the Patriot leaning towards separation during the War for Independence. Adelman insists that the role of the printer had profound effects on nationalism and political debate both during the Revolutionary years and into the Early Republic, in which their connections in both business and friendship helped spread the headlines at a then-unprecedented distance and magnitude to behold.
After concisely describing in his introduction the premise of each of the six chapters that follow, Chapter One opens with a fascinating account of printers directly involved in the aftermath of the French and Indian War. Inside, Adelman not only discusses the operations of the printing office, but also the role of women in this prosperous industry—where several family members and widows inherited their husbands’ print shops and assumed the lucrative appointment and position as an official printer for that given colony. He observes through a range of records and accounts that not only were the economics of stocking and running a printing house astronomical and competitive, but even opening up shop put the infant printer deep into debt for years on end.
It goes without saying that networking is a fundamental theme in this book, and Adelman explains that in order to have the most up-to-date books, pamphlets, and newsworthy headlines, a printer had to depend on a social circle of merchants, neighbors, competitors, commercial ties, and—most importantly—the postal office. This was desirable not only for its transatlantic information and rapid movement of news from post riders to the next town over, but also its creation of the local postmaster, a role in which a printer could become elected and hence receive numerous financial and industry benefits from. Adelman’s style is engaging and highly informative, bringing new light on such matters as the Stamp Act crisis—often casually mentioned as a footnote behind the Sons of Liberty’s rise—and its overall financial handicapping of the print industry specifically.
Each chapter is appropriately tied to its attributed title, never straying too far from the topic, nor leading into unnecessary tangents on a broader history of that year. Similarly, Adelman conveniently attaches distinct subchapters throughout, which help to guide the audience between the various subjects and dates discussed. With advancements in both transportation and geographic readership, pivotal events were brought to working class Bostonians and rural Pennsylvanians alike. Indeed, bold headlines, changes in font, and vivid imagery were set to the printer’s engravings in order to present a politically influenced—and at times indeed factual—account for subscribers. About halfway through, Adelman carefully describes the ramifications of the Boston Massacre, just one of the many seminal turning points addressed in his work:
Curiously, however, that was the extent of the publicity. Though historians often point to the Massacre as a seminal event in the run-up to the Revolutionary War, the aftermath of the shootings received little coverage around the colonies. The Massacre, though stark in its potential to provide a lesson about British oppression, nonetheless did not fit a neat narrative that Patriot leaders sought. The violence at the heart of the incident (on both sides) ran counter to years of efforts to portray anti-imperial protests as nonviolent. In the weeks after the Massacre, in fact, Patriots—in particular the Sons of Liberty—sought to moderate the narrative of March 5.
The necessity of a post office is covered in a rather spirited manner for a subject that is often left in the dark, in which Adelman follows the Whig-leaning printers of Boston in their attempts to combat and regain financial control after Parliament’s Coercive and Intolerable Acts inevitably force their hand. Not only does Adelman include relevant photo inserts of actual newspaper headlines and articles of the eighteenth century, but he also adds feasible charts and tables which break down the timing and networking involved for a monumental event to reach each colony or local city’s press. Loyalist printers receive their fair share of attention as much as the famed Patriots Benjamin Franklin and John Holt, as Adelman traces the plights—and in certain cases, flights—of James Rivington, Margaret Draper, and others unwilling to forsake the Crown.
Adelman has researched his subject with devoted attention all the way through to the very opening years of the Early Republic, and compares and chronicles the struggle of having to cope with changes in territory, new competition, and political ideals—showing that printers such as Rivington could be ingenuitive in adapting to a rapidly changing world. As he concludes with a concise look at the political movements and persuasions beginning to take hold after ratification, Adelman closes with the same engaging manner that is found throughout—appropriately leaving his audience curious with the oncoming Alien and Sedition Acts. As mentioned, illustrations and charts are included, as well as an index and a helpful essay on sources.
After concisely describing in his introduction the premise of each of the six chapters that follow, Chapter One opens with a fascinating account of printers directly involved in the aftermath of the French and Indian War. Inside, Adelman not only discusses the operations of the printing office, but also the role of women in this prosperous industry—where several family members and widows inherited their husbands’ print shops and assumed the lucrative appointment and position as an official printer for that given colony. He observes through a range of records and accounts that not only were the economics of stocking and running a printing house astronomical and competitive, but even opening up shop put the infant printer deep into debt for years on end.
It goes without saying that networking is a fundamental theme in this book, and Adelman explains that in order to have the most up-to-date books, pamphlets, and newsworthy headlines, a printer had to depend on a social circle of merchants, neighbors, competitors, commercial ties, and—most importantly—the postal office. This was desirable not only for its transatlantic information and rapid movement of news from post riders to the next town over, but also its creation of the local postmaster, a role in which a printer could become elected and hence receive numerous financial and industry benefits from. Adelman’s style is engaging and highly informative, bringing new light on such matters as the Stamp Act crisis—often casually mentioned as a footnote behind the Sons of Liberty’s rise—and its overall financial handicapping of the print industry specifically.
Each chapter is appropriately tied to its attributed title, never straying too far from the topic, nor leading into unnecessary tangents on a broader history of that year. Similarly, Adelman conveniently attaches distinct subchapters throughout, which help to guide the audience between the various subjects and dates discussed. With advancements in both transportation and geographic readership, pivotal events were brought to working class Bostonians and rural Pennsylvanians alike. Indeed, bold headlines, changes in font, and vivid imagery were set to the printer’s engravings in order to present a politically influenced—and at times indeed factual—account for subscribers. About halfway through, Adelman carefully describes the ramifications of the Boston Massacre, just one of the many seminal turning points addressed in his work:
Curiously, however, that was the extent of the publicity. Though historians often point to the Massacre as a seminal event in the run-up to the Revolutionary War, the aftermath of the shootings received little coverage around the colonies. The Massacre, though stark in its potential to provide a lesson about British oppression, nonetheless did not fit a neat narrative that Patriot leaders sought. The violence at the heart of the incident (on both sides) ran counter to years of efforts to portray anti-imperial protests as nonviolent. In the weeks after the Massacre, in fact, Patriots—in particular the Sons of Liberty—sought to moderate the narrative of March 5.
The necessity of a post office is covered in a rather spirited manner for a subject that is often left in the dark, in which Adelman follows the Whig-leaning printers of Boston in their attempts to combat and regain financial control after Parliament’s Coercive and Intolerable Acts inevitably force their hand. Not only does Adelman include relevant photo inserts of actual newspaper headlines and articles of the eighteenth century, but he also adds feasible charts and tables which break down the timing and networking involved for a monumental event to reach each colony or local city’s press. Loyalist printers receive their fair share of attention as much as the famed Patriots Benjamin Franklin and John Holt, as Adelman traces the plights—and in certain cases, flights—of James Rivington, Margaret Draper, and others unwilling to forsake the Crown.
Adelman has researched his subject with devoted attention all the way through to the very opening years of the Early Republic, and compares and chronicles the struggle of having to cope with changes in territory, new competition, and political ideals—showing that printers such as Rivington could be ingenuitive in adapting to a rapidly changing world. As he concludes with a concise look at the political movements and persuasions beginning to take hold after ratification, Adelman closes with the same engaging manner that is found throughout—appropriately leaving his audience curious with the oncoming Alien and Sedition Acts. As mentioned, illustrations and charts are included, as well as an index and a helpful essay on sources.
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March 2, 2021I had to read this for one of my history courses, and it's quite fascinating. Printers and their newspapers had a crucial role during the imperial crisis, the American Revolution, and after the war. While political opinions were not as masked during this period, printing was still a business, and some decisions were made out of economic necessity to survive against competition.
May 15, 2023
Read for honors thesis
June 3, 2019
Revolutionary Networks is a meticulously documented account of the blossoming of American newspapers in the late 18th century.
This is a historian’s book. I can imagine the kind of person who would think this is a beach book, but you aren’t likely to meet one of them any time soon.
Adelman offers a detailed introduction to the origins of the “free press” mythologies in America. Revolutionary Networks ends with the implementation of the U. S. Constitution in 1789, so there’s a whole lot more to the story.
Newspaper printers initially used the arguable benefits of a “free press” as an argument against taxation of their products, and as a tool to maintain free use of the postal system for newspaper sharing among printers—part of their “networks” of printed and human information sources in the days before Associated Press and the internet.
Many printers largely abandoned the “freedom of the press” mantra in the 1790s as partisan party politics began to take center stage.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com
This is a historian’s book. I can imagine the kind of person who would think this is a beach book, but you aren’t likely to meet one of them any time soon.
Adelman offers a detailed introduction to the origins of the “free press” mythologies in America. Revolutionary Networks ends with the implementation of the U. S. Constitution in 1789, so there’s a whole lot more to the story.
Newspaper printers initially used the arguable benefits of a “free press” as an argument against taxation of their products, and as a tool to maintain free use of the postal system for newspaper sharing among printers—part of their “networks” of printed and human information sources in the days before Associated Press and the internet.
Many printers largely abandoned the “freedom of the press” mantra in the 1790s as partisan party politics began to take center stage.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews