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

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eventually gained in power, and later became key players in both informal national
politicization and formal political party organization. 58
No clear figures exist to determine just how many people the newspapers
reached or whether circulation increased. There is evidence that, by mid-century,
newspapers—and the civic discourse they spurred—were more pervasive.
Williamsburg printing-office account books, covering about four years in the 1750s
and 60s, unfortunately do not provide a complete picture. We do know the printers
had trouble collecting for newspapers delivered. One analysis of these financial
records assumed that subscriptions for the gazettes must have been kept in another
book, no longer extant, but assumes a wide circulation. 59 Other estimates range
from 800 to 2,300 issues with the possibility of as many as 4,000 copies printed
weekly. According to historian of printing Lawrence Wroth, one crew and one
press could print 2,400 sheets of paper in a long day. As each sheet would contain
two pages of the newspaper, this would mean half of the newspaper could be
printed each day. (Each newspaper was actually one piece of paper, printed on four
times, and folded.) This translates to just more than 2,000 copies of a four-page
newspaper printed on one press in two normal working days. Parks’ shop sold for
well more than the average two-press shop, so it probably had a minimum of two
presses, indicating production of four thousand or more might easily be possible. 60
58 Pasley, Tyranny of the Printers, 24-27. Wroth, Colonial Printer, 178, also notes that printers
held “a position of influence in the community.”
59 They were sold only by yearly subscription, 15 shillings, until 1766. Virginia Gazette
(Parks, 1737), price of “15 s. per Annum” listed on page 4. Hunter, Printing Office Journal, and
Royle, Printing Office Journal. Stiverson, “Colonial Retail Book Trade in Virginia,” 147. See
advertisement for debt collection, for example, Virginia Gazette (Royle, Feb. 12, 1762), 4.
60 Bridenbaugh, Myths and Realities, 42, estimated the circulation of (both) Virginia Gazettes
(there were two in Williamsburg from 1766 to 1775) at “probably” fewer than 1,500, but gives no
basis for this estimate, and does note they were read by and to thousands more. Weir, in “Role of
the Newspaper Press,” 112-113, suggests that figure is too high, and that there may have been
only 800 subscribers as late as 1765. That seems too conservative. Wroth, Colonial Printer, 66-69
and 80.