The New-England Courant (also spelled New England Courant), one of the first American newspapers, was founded in Boston in 1721, by James Franklin. It was a weekly newspaper and the third to appear in Boston. Unlike other newspapers, it offered a more critical account about the British colonial government and other royal figures of authority. The newspaper published critical commentary about smallpox inoculation which fueled the controversy during the smallpox epidemic in Boston. Ultimately it was suppressed in 1726 by British colonial authorities for printing what they considered seditious articles. Franklin took on his brother, Benjamin Franklin, as an apprentice and at one point was compelled to sign over publication of the Courant to him to avert further prosecution. Benjamin submitted anonymous editorials to the Courant, which resulted in James' imprisonment after he began publishing them. This sort of Governmental censorship of early colonial newspapers is what largely fostered the American ideal of Freedom of Speech in the press. The New England Courant is widely noted among historians as being the first newspaper to publish Benjamin's writings.
The Ramage printing press, made in London, used by James Franklin
The New-England Courant made its first appearance on Monday, August 7, 1721, printed and published by James Franklin and was the third newspaper established in Boston.[4][5][6] James was the elder brother of the renowned Benjamin Franklin, and began his printing career in Boston in March 1716 at the age of twenty-five. He owned his own printing press and type brought over from London where he had served as an apprentice. He printed pamphlets for various booksellers, and was the first printer for The Boston Gazette. When Samuel Kneeland and his partner took over publication of the Gazette James was replaced as its printer. Offended by the loss of that position, and encouraged by a number of respectable friends who wanted to see a newspaper that presented a more critical and candid view than other newspapers, he established and began to print The New-England Courant, and without official review and approval, at his own risk.[6][7]
Operating without a printing license from provincial government,[lower-alpha 1]The New-England Courant became the first truly independent American newspaper to use literary content, critical and often humorous essays.[9][lower-alpha 2] It debuted at a time when there was much political and social controversy over the cause of poverty in Boston, which was compounded by the smallpox epidemic, its controversy over the proposed inoculation, and the severe censorship on the part of the provincial government and clergy towards individual opinions and conduct.[7]
James announced the birth of the Courant with a scathing attack on Cotton Mather, a major supporter of inoculation,[11] and in its outspoken and candid capacity his newspaper gave the signal for rebellion against such established authority. Not satisfied with voicing simple protest, it assailed the most honored names and the most deeply cherished opinions without reservation.[12][13] In a public address James criticized The Boston News-Letter for being overly modest and compliant with governmental authority, referring to it as "a dull vehicle of intelligence".[14]
At 4 pence a copy, the New-England Courant was the most expensive newspaper of its time. It consisted of one single sheet printed on both sides, focusing mostly on shipping reports, snippets of information from neighboring towns, and letters from Europe. From the start, Franklin's New England Courant, was more enthusiastic and outspoken in its treatment of Boston's public affairs than the existing newspapers. Its real substance was in letters to the editor from Boston's intellectuals who were highly critical of the British government viz the Massachusetts province. As such it often found itself in the middle of political or social controversy. The New England Courant, however, proved a success, and rescued James's struggling printing business.[15][16]
Smallpox controversy
Reverend Cotton Mather supported the smallpox inoculation and was derided in the New-England Courant for doing so.
In 1721, just before The New-England Courant made its first appearance, HMS Seahorse arrived at Boston harbor from the West Indies carrying many passengers infected with smallpox. The highly contagious disease quickly spread and within months approximately nine hundred of Boston's ten thousand residents had died.[17][18] The smallpox epidemic naturally was a cause for great alarm, while the city's publishing and other intellectual pursuits had declined considerably. A highly questionable method of inoculation was being proposed, but the greater Boston populace feared that this would only serve to accelerate the spread of the disease.[19][20] Strong differences in opinion over the ethics of inoculation sparked a bitter newspaper and pamphlet war, of which the Courant was playing a major role, beginning with its first issue of August 7.[21]
Reverend Cotton Mather, a prominent and respected Puritan who trained as a physician before becoming a preacher, sent out letters to various doctors in Boston, urging their support for inoculation, but nearly all of them were highly skeptical of the practice.[17] Franklin was bitterly opposed to the prospect and through the New-England Courant he rushed into the fray on the anti-inoculation side. In the Courant he characterized Mather as the "arch-hypocrite of New-England" who had abandoned his religious principles by his support for the smallpox inoculation. At this time the editors of The Boston News-Letter and the Boston Gazette had refused to print any accounts opposing inoculation. Subsequently, one of the reasons Franklin started the Courant was to give Doctor William Douglass[lower-alpha 3] and others who opposed inoculation a voice to make their opposition public.[23] Although no actual names were used it was very apparent that the Courant was attacking the Reverend Mather by mocking and mimicking his sermons.[24]
On January 14 a committee of the House ordered James Franklin from further publication of the New-England Courant as they felt that it was being used to mock religion and held the holy scriptures in contempt, while the "faithful Ministers of the Gospel" were being routinely slandered.[25][26] In response to Franklin's derogatory statements Mather declared that The New-England Courant was "carried on by a Hell-Fire Club,[lower-alpha 4] with a Non-Juror at the head of them."[30] Mather openly condemned and denounced the "vile Courant", for "wicked Libel" and for "Wicked Comments" made against him in an address to the general public, which was published in the January 29, 1721 issue of The Boston Gazette. From that point on Franklin and his newspaper were incessantly challenged in this manner for their criticisms about inoculation and the clergy.[6][11][31]
Legal trouble
At various times during his six-year term as printer and publisher of the New-England Courant James Franklin found himself at odds and in the middle of controversy with the Massachusetts provincial government and the Clergy. On June 11, 1722, he printed what appeared to be an innocent enough account about the particular affairs of the Massachusetts government when he published that,
"We are advised from Boston that the government of Massachusetts are fitting out a ship [the Flying Horse], to go after the pirates, to be commanded by Captain Peter Papillon, and ’tis thought he will sail some time this month, wind and weather permitting.”
The magisterial Council for their own reasons took this to be an insult, and perhaps a breach of security, resulting in James' incarceration for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, Benjamin took over operations of the Courant. However, upon the publication January issue 1723, James got into serious trouble when he published an account, which Benjamin later referred to as an "Essay against Hypocrites”.[25] Against the advice of his father and various friends Franklin, regardless, published the paper's first issue.[5]
In 1718 Franklin's younger brother, Benjamin Franklin, was pressed into service as his apprentice at the age of twelve, while he was printer for The Boston Gazette - three years before he established the Courant. The apprenticeship included a variety of odd jobs, including typesetting issuing pamphlets, linens and silks. Beginning at age sixteen, Benjamin would later write some fifteen controversial editorials under the pen name of Silence Dogood, disguising his hand-writing, and submitted them to the Courant by slipping them under the door of the printing shop. His brother had no knowledge about who had actually written them. Impressed with the writing, James shared the Dogood letters with his newspaper colleagues who regarded them with equal approval.[32][3][lower-alpha 5] After his editorials began appearing in the Courant Benjamin was thrilled that his writing was being published for the public to read. When he finally informed his brother that he was the author James became angry.[3][13][34] One of the letters was about the virtues of freedom of speech, and contained the following passage: "WITHOUT Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the right of every man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or control the Right of another."[35] One such article led to James Franklin's imprisonment from June 12 until July 7, 1722, after he declined to reveal the identity of its author. Benjamin Franklin continued to publish the Courant while James was serving his term in prison.[36][37] Upon his release Franklin was ordered by the Massachusetts provincial government to cease publishing The New-England Courant, without first submitting its contents for review by the secretary of the Massachusetts province.[38][lower-alpha 6] However, Franklin, regardless, continued publishing the Courant, which went unpunished, and which marked the beginning of the end of restrictive censorship by the government.[40]
Aftermath
The New-England Courant
July 16–23, 1722, featuring Silence Dogood editorial #9
Deeply galled over the cause of his brother's imprisonment, Benjamin "unleashed a piercing attack" at colonial authorities after James' release from jail, through another Silence Dogood editorial (essay 9), which was carried by the July 16–23, 1722 issue of Courant, considered the "most biting of his entire career". In the opening passage of the editorial the question was put forward:[42]
"Whether a commonwealth suffers more by hypocritical pretenders to religion or by the openly profane. But some late thoughts of this nature have inclined me to think that the hypocrite is the most dangerous person of the two, especially if he sustains a post in the government."[42]
Not long after his release from prison, in January 1723, James subsequently held a secret meeting with his brother, now seventeen years old, in his shop. There they decided that the best way to get around the government's prohibitive order was to publish the Courant without James as the official publisher. Beginning on Monday, February 11, 1723, the inscription, "Printed and sold by Benjamin Franklin" appeared in the heading of the Courant. Benjamin conducted its publication more cautiously than did his brother. His first issue contained an editorial which denounced publishing anything " hateful" and "malicious". It declared that from now on the Courant would be "designed purely for the diversion and merriment of the reader" and also to "entertain the town with the most comical and diverting incidents of human life." The editorial also stated that the master of The New-England Courant would be the Roman god Janus, who could look in opposite directions at the same time.[43][44]
Subsequent issues, however, did not live up to declaration put forward in Benjamin's editorial. Most of the articles consisted of dated dispatches rehashing foreign news and old speeches. Only one of these essays was clearly written by Benjamin which were an essay about the folly of titles of nobility, which was consistent with his lifelong aversion to titles based on heredity and aristocracy. A few weeks passed and James, considered a man of jealous and tyrannical disposition, returned to the Courant and resumed treating Benjamin as an apprentice, and subjected his teenage brother to beatings, rather than as a fellow writer and brother. Eventually the relationship between James and Benjamin Franklin suffered as the New-England Courant reached the peak of its fame. Benjamin would later recall that this "demanded too much of me", and was now anxious to move out on his own and in 1723, he left for Philadelphia.[43][45] Benjamin assumed correctly that his brother would not seek legal recourse for breaking his apprenticeship with James,[lower-alpha 7] as it would reveal that James had signed over the New-England Courant in his name, undermining the arrangement James had with Benjamin.[lower-alpha 8]The New-England Courant continued to be published under Benjamin's name until the final release of its 255th issue, dated June 25, 1726. The Courant thereafter slowly failed in the face of the constant conflicts with Mathers and Puritanical Boston and wore James down, where he subsequently folded the paper and removed to Rhode Island where he eventually died in 1735.[3][48][49][50]
Legacy
Benjamin Franklin biographer, Walter Isaacson, maintains that the New-England Courant is remembered in history chiefly because it contained the first words of Benjamin to be published for the general public, which launched Benjamin's printing career.[51] James Franklin came to be known as the strict and jealous master which Benjamin described in his famous autobiography. Isaacson further states that The New-England Courant was America's first independent newspaper that proved to be a bold-anti-establishment journal, the "first open effort to defy the norm", and the first newspaper that promoted the ideal of Freedom of Speech.[51][52]
The only known remaining copies of The New-England Courant are housed in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. They are all bound together in one volume, and are far from being in perfect condition. The April 2, 1722 issue (pictured below) is the only surviving issue of The New-England Courant that published Benjamin Franklin's earliest known writing.[53]
Selected issues
Benjamin Franklin under the assumed name of Silence Dogood, essay about Freedom of Speech submitted to The New-England Courant; Excerpt from July 2–9, 1722 issue
:New England Courant, April 2, 1722
Silence Dogood Essay in New England Courant; Excerpt from April 16, 1722, issue
↑ Before the American Revolution printers and newspaper publishers were required to obtain an official license, with their publications subject to review and possible censorship.[8]
↑ B. Franklin recalls its literay style: "The earlier numbers of the New England Courant were principally filled with original articles, in the form of essays, letters, and short paragraphs, written with considerable ability and wit, and touching with great freedom the vices and follies of the time. The weapon of satire was used with an unsparing hand."[10]
↑ Douglas was the only physician in Boston who had an actual medical degree.[17] At first he opposed the inoculation of smallpox, but by 1730 he had changed his views and had become an advocate of the prospect, and eventually administered the inoculations himself, although he and Mather never reconciled their differences.[22]
↑ The Hell-Fire Club consisted of about forty people, including fifteen ladies of considerable respectability. They "blasphemously assumed to themselves" the tremendous names of God, saints and other biblical figures, and were known to ridicule religious doctrine.[27][28][29]
↑ In his Autobiography Franklin recalls this event in detail, as he was present when Franklin's colleagues shared their approbations over his writings.[33]
↑ The actual order read: "James Franklin should no longer print or publish the newspaper called The New England Courant, or any Pamphlet or paper of the like Nature, Except it be first Supervised, by the Secretary of this Province"[39][40][41]
↑ Apprentices were legally bound to serve out the full term of their apprenticeship:Benjamin's term was for nine years.[46]
↑ In order to prevent the court from acting against Ben as James's apprentice, James relinquished Benjamin's term of apprenticeship and signed the back of the original agreement which released his brother from all legal obligations.[47]
Blake, John B. (December 1952). "The Inoculation Controversy in Boston: 1721-1722". The New England Quarterly. 25 (4). The New England Quarterly, Inc.: 489–506. doi:10.2307/362582. JSTOR362582.
Fireoved, Joseph (Winter 1985). "Nathaniel Gardner and the "New-England Courant"". Early American Literature. 20 (3). University of North Carolina Press: 214–235. JSTOR25055558.
Benjamin Franklin was an American polymath: a leading writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher. Among the most influential intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States; a drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence; and the first postmaster general.
Cotton Mather was a Puritan clergyman and author in colonial New England, who wrote extensively on theological, historical, and scientific subjects. After being educated at Harvard College, he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting House in Boston, Massachusetts, where he preached for the rest of his life. He has been referred to as the "first American Evangelical".
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin appears to have called the work his Memoirs. Although it had a tortuous publication history after Franklin's death, this work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written.
Zabdiel Boylston, FRS was a physician in the Boston area. As the first medical school in North America was not founded until 1765, Boylston apprenticed with his father, an English-born surgeon named Thomas Boylston, and studied under the Boston physician Dr. Cutler. Boylston is known for holding several "firsts" for an American-born physician: he performed the first surgical operation by an American physician, the first removal of gall bladder stones in 1710, and the first removal of a breast tumor in 1718. He was also the first physician to perform smallpox inoculations in North America.
Silence Dogood was the pen name used by Benjamin Franklin to get his work published in the New-England Courant, a newspaper founded and published by his brother James Franklin. This was after Benjamin Franklin was denied several times when he tried to publish letters under his own name in the Courant. The 14 Mrs. Silence Dogood letters were first printed in 1722.
Bartholomew Green was a colonial printer at Boston and later the publisher of The Boston News-Letter.
James Franklin was an early American printer, publisher and author of newspapers and almanacs in the American colonies. Franklin published the New England Courant, one of the oldest and the first truly independent American newspapers, and the short lived Rhode Island Gazette.
TheNewport Mercury, was an early American colonial newspaper founded in 1758 by Ann Smith Franklin (1696–1763), and her son, James Franklin (1730–1762), the nephew of Benjamin Franklin. The newspaper was printed on a printing press imported by Franklin's father, James Franklin (1697–1735), in 1717 from London. The Mercury may be the first newspaper published by a woman in the colonial United States. The Mercury was the also first paper to publish poetry by an African American woman, Phillis Wheatley.
William Goddard was an early American patriot, publisher, printer and postal inspector. Born in New London, Connecticut, Goddard lived through the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War, during which he opposed British rule of the colonies through his actions and publications. He was a major figure in the development of the colonial postal system, which became the U.S. Post Office after the American Revolution.
The Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser was an American colonial newspaper founded in 1767 that was published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, prior to the American Revolution. It was founded by William Goddard and his silent business partners Joseph Galloway and Thomas Wharton. Benjamin Franklin, an associate of Galloway, was also a partner with the Chronicle.
Samuel Kneeland (c.1696–1769) was an American printer and publisher of The Boston Gazette and Weekly Journal. Kneeland obtained much of his work printing laws and other official documents for the Province of Massachusetts Bay colonial government for about two decades. He printed the first Bible in the English language ever produced in the American colonies, along with many other religious and spiritual works, including the Book of Psalms. He was also noted for introducing a number of innovations to newspaper printing and journalism. He was one of many colonial printers who were strongly opposed to and outspoken against the Stamp Act in 1765. Kneeland, primarily, along with his sons, were responsible for printing the greater majority of books, magazines and pamphlets published in Boston during his lifetime.
William Douglass was a physician in 18th-century Boston, Massachusetts, who wrote pamphlets on medicine, economics and politics that were often polemical. He was a central figure, along with Cotton Mather, during the controversy surrounding the 1721 smallpox epidemic in Boston.
John Foster was an early American engraver and printer who lived in Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when the colony was still in its infancy. He is credited with producing the first printed image in British colonial America, from a woodcut of the Puritan minister Richard Mather. He also printed the first map to appear in the colonies. Foster graduated from Harvard University, but was a self-taught pioneer in American printmaking in woodcut, and also learned the art of typography from the Boston printer Marmaduke Johnson. He subsequently printed many works by prominent religious figures of the day in Massachusetts, and for a few years printed and published an annual almanac. His woodcuts were also used for the printing of official seals of the Massachusetts Bay Colony used by the provincial government.
Francis Folger Franklin was the son of Founding Father of the United States Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read.
In 1721, Boston experienced its worst outbreak of smallpox. 5,759 people out of around 10,600 in Boston were infected and 844 were recorded to have died between April 1721 and February 1722. The outbreak motivated Puritan minister Cotton Mather and physician Zabdiel Boylston to variolate hundreds of Bostonians as part of the Thirteen Colonies' earliest experiment with public inoculation. Their efforts would inspire further research for immunizing people from smallpox, placing the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the epicenter of the Colonies' first inoculation debate and changing Western society's medical treatment of the disease. The outbreak also altered social and religious public discourse about disease, as Boston's newspapers published various pamphlets opposing and supporting the inoculation efforts.
Early American publishers and printers played a central role in the social, religious, political and commercial development of the Thirteen Colonies in British America prior to and during the American Revolution and the ensuing American Revolutionary War that established American independence.
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin is a collaborative effort by a team of scholars at Yale University, American Philosophical Society and others who have searched, collected, edited, and published the numerous letters from and to Benjamin Franklin, and other works, especially those involved with the American Revolutionary period and thereafter. The publication of Franklin's papers has been an ongoing production since its first issue in 1959, and is expected to reach nearly fifty volumes, with more than forty volumes completed as of 2022. The costly project was made possible from donations by the American Philosophical Association and Life magazine.
Samuel Hall (1740-1807), was an Early American publisher and printer, newspaper editor, and an ardent colonial American patriot from Bedford, Massachusetts who was active in this capacity before and during the American Revolution, often printing newspapers and pamphlets in support of American independence. Hall was the founder of The Essex Gazette, the first newspaper published in Salem, Massachusetts in 1768. He often employed his newspaper as a voice supporting colonial grievances over taxation and other actions by the British Parliament that were considered oppressive, and ultimately in support of American independence.
Marmaduke Johnson was a London printer who was commissioned and sailed from England to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1660 to assist Samuel Green in the printing of The Indian Bible, which had been laboriously translated by John Eliot into the Massachusett Indian language, which became the first Bible printed in America. Johnson is considered the first master printer to emerge in America. When he attempted to operate his own privately owned printing house in Boston, without an official license from the Crown, the Massachusetts General Court interceded and censured his operation, which in turn started one of the first 'Freedom of the Press' issues in colonial America. After several appeals the Court conceded, where Johnson moved to Boston, set up and outfitted his printing shop, and ultimately became the first printer in America allowed to operate his own private printing press. During his printing career, Johnson printed several works for Eliot containing religious material translated for the Indian nations of Massachusetts.
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