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

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estimates that by this period, Virginia was heading toward universal literacy.
Literacy was permeating the middling sorts, and illiteracy was becoming a
characteristic exclusive of the lower classes. 55 Newspaper reading had become
widespread, and Schlesinger suggested these prints were an integral part of the
move toward independence: “This wider reach of the press greatly enhanced its
influence in the coming war of words with Britain.” 56
A second cultural shift was evident in the way that the colonists were
becoming more Virginians and Americans, less focused on England. This change
was reflected in the popular prints and was partly driven by the media. By 1765,
newspapers in the Chesapeake colonies had changed in several ways.
Improvements in the postal service, mentioned earlier, strengthened the
connections between the various British-American colonies. The importance of
these postal changes is impossible to overemphasize. As Brown noted, an
information revolution was happening at this time, and it was changing society.
Transportation changes and postal developments combined with increased
education and printing to drive what eventually led to a major shift of power. 57
The official post now had overland couriers from Philadelphia, through the
southern colonies to Charleston. By 1775, there was a weekly courier south from
Philadelphia through the Chesapeake region to South Carolina. 58 Private letters
and public news were traveling at much greater speeds than just a half-century
earlier. Newspapers were exchanged between colonies and printers for free and at
55 Rawson, “Virginia Print Culture,” 53.
56 Schlesinger, Prelude, 53-55. On circulation, see also Clark, 259.
57 Brown, Knowledge is Power, 3-5.
58 Journal kept by Hugh Finlay, Surveyor of the Post Roads on the Continent of North America,
1773-1774 (Brooklyn: Norton, 1867), quoted in William Smith, “The Colonial Post Office,” The
American Historical Review, 21 (Jan. 1916) 2:273.