1st Edition

After the War The Press in a Changing America, 1865–1900

Edited By David B. Sachsman Copyright 2017
    418 Pages
    by Routledge

    418 Pages
    by Routledge

    After the War presents a panoramic view of social, political, and economic change in post-Civil War America by examining its journalism, from coverage of politics and Reconstruction to sensational reporting and images of the American people. The changes in America during this time were so dramatic that they transformed the social structure of the country and the nature of journalism. By the 1870s and 1880s, new kinds of daily newspapers had developed. New Journalism eventually gave rise to Yellow Journalism, resulting in big-city newspapers that were increasingly sensationalistic, entertaining, and designed to attract everyone. The images of the nation’s people as seen through journalistic eyes, from coverage of immigrants to stories about African American "Black fiends" and Native American "savages," tell a vibrant story that will engage scholars and students of history, journalism, and media studies. 

    List of Images, Illustrations, and Tables



    Preface - David B. Sachsman



    Introduction - David B. Sachsman





    Part I. Press, Politics, and Restoration





    1 Rebel Yells and Idle Vaporings: The Lost Cause Rises and Dissipates in the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Constitution, and the New York Times, 1860–1914



    Thomas C. Terry and Donald L. Shaw





    2 The New Departure: The Northern Democratic Press and Reconstruction, 1868–1876



    Erik B. Alexander





    3 The Forgotten Issue: The Little Bighorn and the Election of 1876



    James E. Mueller





    4 Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly, and the Election of 1876



    William E. Huntzicker





    5 The President’s Private Life: A New Explanation for "The Right to Privacy"



    Patricia Ferrier





    6 "Always to be the ‘Tocsin’": Josephus Daniels, the News & Observer, and the Rise of Jim Crow



    Thomas C. Terry and Donald L. Shaw



    Part II. Journalism in the Gilded Age: Entertaining the Masses, Serving the Public, and Raking the Muck





    7 Haunted Times? Ghosts in Crime Stories Printed by the New York Times, 1851–1901



    Paulette D. Kilmer





    8 The Rocky Mountains, Yosemite, and Other Natural Wonders: Western Landscape in Travel Correspondence of the Post–Civil War Press



    Katrina J. Quinn





    9 Consuelo, the Duke, and the Press: Celebrity and Sensationalism in the Gilded Age



    Wallace B. Eberhard





    10 Are You Going to the Hanging? Georgia Editors and the Movement to End Public Hangings



    Wallace B. Eberhard





    11 Abolishing Wage Slavery in the Gilded Age: John Swinton and the American Labor Movement’s



    Memory of the Civil War



    Maryan Soliman





    12 Babies as Breadwinners: Child Labor Prior to Federal Reform in the Industrial North and the



    Industrializing South, 1890–1899



    Amber Welch



    Part III. Images of Immigrants, Race, and Gender





    13 Sickness from Abroad: How Media Framing of New Immigrants and Disease Fueled the Immigration Debate, 1891–1893



    Harriet Moore





    14 Changes in the News: Characterizing Immigration, 1850–1890



    Timothy L. Moran





    15 Riot, Race, and Placing Blame: Press Coverage of the 1885 Rock Springs Chinese Massacre



    Rich Shumate



    16 "Black Fiends" and "Atrocious Murders": Redefining "Sensationalism" through Coverage of Interracial Crime in the Nineteenth-Century Press



    Lee Jolliffe





    17 Ida B. Wells and Coverage of Lynchings and Antilynching Efforts in Selected Mainstream



    Newspapers, 1892–1894



    Aleen J. Ratzlaff





    18 Custer and the "Savages": Newspaper Coverage of the Indian War, Summer 1876



    Thomas C. Terry and Donald L. Shaw





    19 A Moral Panic on the Plains? Press Culpability and the 1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee



    Brian Gabrial



    20 Why Women Dared to Make Journalism Their Calling



    Paulette D. Kilmer





    Biography



    David B. Sachsman holds the George R. West, Jr. Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he also serves as director of the annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression. He is the editor of A Press Divided: Newspaper Coverage of the Civil War (2014) and Sensationalism: Murder, Mayhem, Mudslinging, Scandals, and Disasters in 19th-Century Reporting (2013).