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

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and the Native Americans, allowing for less dependence on British military might.
Americans were no longer simply struggling to survive as they had just a century
before. A newly active commercial marketplace linked diverse colonists together
and undermined the classical deference. Amid these many changes is another
important factor little-recognized by historians accustomed to looking for evidence
within documents. The very influence of the medium of the document itself is
difficult to perceive across the centuries. After 1730, print evolved from an object
of-and-for the elites to a more broadly-based cultural medium. Writing and
reading became more common far down the social scale. Newspapers were read
aloud in taverns and coffeehouses, spurring civic discourse. Men and even women
not of an elite status could read and contribute their thoughts on governmental
affairs to newspapers. Almanacs spread even to the small farmers, allowing reading
and even writing on the blank spaces to touch those far down the social scale. Such
reading and writing spurred independent thought and social heterodoxy, allowing
for the growth of new ideas of freedom of thought, speech, and press. The very
existence of print media was essential to the spread of such revolutionary thought.
The American Revolution would not have happened had it remained simply
the idea of a highly-educated elite. Common men and women joined in the life-
and-death struggle for liberty. The Revolution could not have happened if they
failed to understand the importance of the concepts for which they were fighting.
An expanded print culture that spread far and deep within the society enabled that
to happen. People chose to use a new technology, without necessarily realizing that
such use helped to change the way that they thought and interacted. Print did not
cause the Revolution, of course. It did, however, function as a crucial agent of
change, setting the stage for the possibility. Print became an important engine of a
new and broader public discourse, helping to tie diverse colonists and colonies
together in radical new ways of thinking. The colonists—through the changes
encouraged by a broadening print culture—could now imagine themselves as