The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

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related, the relationship of printing, printers, and political dissent in Virginia
differed fundamentally from what it was in the colony to the north, leading to an
early recognition of the need for a free press guarantee in Williamsburg. 15
This book begins by exploring the cultural transformation that occurred as
local printing began and printed materials spread farther through the society of
colonial Virginia. As Charles E. Clark wrote, newspapers in London were often
referred to as the “publick prints.” As British-American printers began to publish
local versions, the news truly became more public—readily available to larger
numbers of people. 16 The phrase “public prints” is used here in a larger sense,
relating to a broader range of printed output to include not only newspapers, but
almanacs and pamphlets as well. Much of the output of the colonial presses, such as
specialized collections of laws, or professional books, was aimed at smaller, more
elite groups. The focus here is on the public prints, rather than the more completely
studied area of “the history of the book.” 17
A cultural transition is highly visible in the printed materials of Virginia by
1766, and that change was intrinsic to the political upheavals of 1776. The new
Virginia Declaration of Rights, with its assertion of the right to a free press, was the
15 Arthur Pierce Middleton, Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the
Colonial Era (Newport News: The Mariners’ Museum, 1953), 354-357, notes that except for
government, the Chesapeake Tidewater was a single unit. This is also an excellent source for
shipping details and lengths of voyages. Jack Greene, Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development
of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1988), pointed to Virginia and Maryland as more typical of the colonial
experience than the more generally studied New England. The research ahead here points out that
Virginia led the way for constitutional protection. Greene, The Quest for Power: The Lower Houses
of Assembly in the Southern Royal Colonies, 1689-1776 (Chapel Hill: Published for the Institute of
Early American History and Culture by the University of North Carolina Press, 1963), also is
useful to this study, as it describes the shift of power from governor to assembly in the Chesapeake
colonies, and it touches on how the printers fit into this power struggle.
16 Charles E. Clark, The Public Prints: The Newspaper in Anglo-American Culture, 1665-1740
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 3-6.
17 French historians, including Roger Chartier, are credited with beginning this field, histoire
du livre, which now has many followers in the United States, including Robert Darnton. Clark,
Public Prints, 5, and fn 7, 270.