How Newspapers Impacted the American Revolution

Newspapers played a major role in the move toward revolution and the changing opinions of people as the American Patriots prepared for war.

Many Americans had no cause to be angry at the British Government five years before the war at the time of the Boston Massacre. John Adams, our second president and a major advocate for independence, defended the British soldiers who fired at the colonists on March fifth. And history dictates that the soldiers were provoked and they had no intention of killing colonists, it was just one hit to many. Yet we look back on the incident as a time of brutal killing in which the British soldiers are at fault because of one engraving that was widely published throughout the time. I post it here because it clearly displays how a single picture can spread and change opinions of an event with just a few distorted facts. By the way, this engraving was done by silversmith Paul Revere of Boston.

The engraving of the Boston Massacre was probably one of the first articles that inspired a nation to rebel. But pamphlets published also helped, including the famous and well-known Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Many newspapers also became strong supporters of the revolution and may likely have been run by well-known Patriots, including the Pennsylvania Gazette by Benjamin Franklin. Look at novels that focus on the American Revolution and you will notice that many of them are centered on a newspaper. One of the more famous ones is Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, which is read by schoolchildren across the country. The Boston Observer, the paper featured in that book, is the center of many of the early rebellions and the words gets out through their paper and codes that are inscribed within it.

Papers would change in late years but there is no way that you can deny that they had an immense effect on the American Revolution and what would happen to our young country in the years afterward.