New Hampshire Editors Win the War: A Study in Revolutionary Press Propaganda

Abstract

DURING the last twenty years the peoples of the world have become increasingly propaganda-conscious. We in the United States are aware that advantage has been taken of new and improved methods of communication by certain countries of the world to spread nationalistic frenzy among their subjects or discontent among the subjects of other nations. We have become cognizant of the extent to which our own lives are influenced either by routine press releases from a government agency or through the medium of advertising from some producer. In our new-found awareness of the existence of this instrument of popular persuasion we are prone to think of it as a recent development, yet our Revolutionary forebears were fully aware of its potentialities and used it widely. James Truslow Adams has said, in connection with the Revolution, Propaganda was necessary from the beginning to stir the popular emotions, and in character that propaganda did not differ greatly from that employed in the great struggle of recent years. 2 As an instance, a study of the contents of newspapers published in New Hampshire between 1775 and 1784 reveals that the Whig leaders of that period were as appreciative of the importance of propaganda, and as