Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/88



CHAPTER VI

COLONIAL PERIOD

17041765

THE colonial editor, to whom journalism was a trade rather than a profession, found many difficulties in publishing his paper. In the first place, it was hard for him to get stock, for most of the paper on which he printed the news was imported from Europe, or was secured with difficulty from the few paper- mills established in this country. The year 1690, which saw the appearance in Boston of Publick Occurrences, also saw the es- tablishment at Germantown, Pennsylvania, of the first paper- mill in the colonies. Other mills were erected so that the town became the early home of the paper industry in America. In one of them, William Bradford by 1697 had a fourth interest. When he came to New York and started his Gazette, he met the same difficulty in getting paper for his press that he had pre- viously experienced in Philadelphia, but found relief by start- ing in 1728 a paper-mill at " Elizabeth Town," New Jersey. In 1730 a paper-mill was erected at Milton, Massachusetts, and soon had a monopoly of the trade around Boston. Some- times the newspaper had to establish its own mill. Such was true of The Connecticut Courant, at Hartford. While this news- paper secured its own paper from Norwich, the droughts in summer or ice in the river in winter frequently curtailed the size of the sheet. Other newspapers, by inserting advertise- ments of "Rags Wanted," supplied the mills with material from which the paper was made.

TYPOGRAPHY OF PAPERS

The size of the newspaper has been so frequently given in con- nection with the mention of individual papers that little more needs to be said. From 1704 to 1765 newspapers were gener- ally printed on half-sheets. Shapes and sizes varie