<I>The Herald of Glory and Adopted Citizen's Journal</I> of August 13, 1834: Early Advocacy for the Abolition of Slavery in an Urban Northeast Comic Newspaper

Abstract

lively and short-lived combatant in the anti-Jackson movement in Boston was the previously unknown comic paper Herald of Glory and Citizen's Journal. Its most interesting claim on our attention at present, however, is its antislavery position at time when William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) and other early abolitionists were just beginning to make headway in initiating the abolitionist movement, leading to highly charged and often politically violent atmosphere. The paper offers uproarious examples of the urban vulgar literary comedy that Joseph C. Neal (1807-47) in 1835 and 1836 would bring to national attention through his Charcoal Sketches, hard-cover collections of his newspaper sketches that in 1838 quickly went through eight editions or more.1 Police Court Report in Herald of Glory anticipates Neal in allowing vulgar litigants to speak in their own comic voices, thereby exposing their anti-Trades Union biases and low-class criminality. Offhand remarks lampoon the Irishtocracy- not surprising in where Nativist mob burned Catholic convent two days before the August 13, copy of Herald of Glory was printed. Vituperative in its anti-Jacksonian invective, the Herald of Glory featured number of mock-Jeremiads on political topics. The phrase Adopted might identify the special status of the unknown editor as nationalized American citizen of Irish descent, probably dating from before the immediate influx of impoverished Irish into Boston in the early 1830s. If so, however, the editor is highly critical of the prevailing Irish political culture developing in culture soon to be dominated by lower classes at war with Yankee nativists and entrepreneurs. The Citizen (Apr. 4, 1834), New York City daily, is listed as held by the New York Historical Society, but seems unrelated, otherwise, to The Herald; the phrase later appears in subtitle for another newspaper, The American Celt, published in Boston circa 1850-52 (Chronicling America). The reference defines naturalized citizen who has the right to vote but not to run for president due to the lack of American parents, carefully delineated status in the early Federal period.The second issue of Herald of Glory (Aug. 13, 1834) opens with long travesty-a sublime effusion of poetry on the spheres that supposedly cropped up unexpectedly in barbarous Whig journal, the Transcript. The occasion was an unusual aerial event, Charles F. Durant's (1805-73) recent successful balloon ascension from the Boston Commons in the presence of 30,000-40,000 people. The Herald of Glory's editor spends column and half of his three-column first page deconstructing the poem as Trades union bard's attack on Mr. Durant. The literary critique is followed by mock Jeremiad on the death of Barney O'Boozy, leaving thousands of tons of mud undug from Boston's back bay. The front page shows general distaste for Jacksonian radicalism and its local adherents, bolstered by burlesque self-promotion by Reass Offender, self-described as unique in being born a jackass with short ears. The overall composition includes various elements of the comic political landscape, as corrupt as it is, even at this early date.This issue of the paper is of most interest for its forthright statement on slavery and race-the other political elements, and even the strong tincture of anti-Irish Nativism, being more or less predictable. The Herald of Glory and Citizen's Journal (vol. 1, no. 2) is datelined Boston, Wednesday August 13, 1834, with its masthead motto reading I Take the Responsibility. The originator, in boldface type like the masthead title, is By Tar, Feathers & Co. Editors and Proprietors. With size of 8'' × 12 ½'' and four pages, the only advertising carried is classified burlesque, including an advertisement at the bottom of page 3 for A Lodging House where young ladies are permitted to sleep with old married men, placed by COCK-EYE BUNNITT. …