Existing comment:
The Civil War and the Media:
The Civil War is considered to be one of the most well-reported conflicts in history. Due to the invention of the telegraph (1837) and the improvement of the mechanical printing press (1860s), the age of mass media was born. The rise of the middle class created an increasing number of readers and a growing demand for newspapers.
These developments led to a dramatic increase in the number of newspapers and their circulation. In 1860, there were between 2,500 and 3,000 publications in the United States. Harper's Weekly alone had as many as 200,000 subscribers. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, an English language newspaper with a widely distributed German edition (Frank Leslies Illustrirte Zeitung), had approximately 64,000 subscribers.
The Civil War also created a new role in reporting: the war correspondent. Dispatches could be sent directly from the field, providing readers with timely news from the battlefields. Illustrators sent their sketch drawings of battle scenes to the newspapers where they were turned into wood engravings and printed.
In addition, the development of photography contributed to the multifaceted documentation of the Civil War. The numerous pictures taken through the lens of Mathew Brady made him the most famous photographer of his time. Brady's work remains the most remarkable source of Civil War pictures.
Whereas the North enjoyed a wide circulation of newspapers and magazines, the South was short on printing supplies and artists. Southern magazines published roughly a few thousand copies per week, compared to the hundreds of thousands in the North.
The two most popular weekly newspapers in the North, Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and Harper's Weekly, featured illustrations and cartoons. Many of these had the war as their main topic to both meet the increasing demand of the public and to serve the cause of the Union. |