J. L. Bell author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War and Boston 1775
Tales from Boston’s Pre-Revolutionary Newspaper Wars
In the decade that led to the Revolutionary War, Boston’s newspapers were a major political battleground. The town’s journalism scene–the oldest and most active in colonial America–was roiled by new arrivals and old rivalries. Writers assailed each other in anonymous articles as nasty as any flame war. With the boundaries of a free press still under debate, printers were attacked on the streets and hauled into court. Hear the stories of that time, and consider what lessons they might hold for our public discourse and news media today.
Will Melton retired in 2015 after four decades in university and museum fundraising to devote time to gardening, his mandolin ensemble, and history studies and writing. Liberty’s War, An Engineer’s Memoir of the Merchant Marine 1942-45, which he published in 2017, is available from U.S. Naval Institute Press.