Online Exhibitions:

Black & White & Read All Over: In the News in Rensselaer County

...newspapers brought (Americans) together, and the newspaper is still necessary to keep them united.

- Alexis de Tocqueville

The events of the American Revolution, and the subsequent growth of democracy and economic development of the early 19th century, caused de Tocqueville to make his claim that newspapers were the driving force behind the American democratic ideal.

From the late 18th century to the present day, American newspapers have chronicled the country's great victories and defeats, as well as the comings and goings of everyday life in communities of every size and location.

In Rensselaer County alone, no fewer than 200 dailies, weeklies, and monthlies (and various permutations thereof) have been published since 1787, attesting to the entrepreneurial spirit of editors and publishers, and a readership hungry for information of its community and larger world.

While newspapers have traditionally been our window to our world, for the historian, they prove also to be the mirrors of our culture, reflecting our collective attitudes and prejudices, our expectations and disappointments, our celebrations and sad moments.

This exhibition attempts to document three centuries of development of our local press, the roles it has played in our county's history and the impact it has had on the lives of the the people who live and read here.

The Press Is The Cradle Of Science, The Nurse Of Genius, And The Shield Of Liberty

This motto from the Northern Centinel & Lansingborough Advertiser, Rensselaer County's first newspaper, indicates the high purpose and importance placed on newspaper publishing in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It also recognizes the role of early newspapers during the American Revolution when they played a critical part in transmitting information about the progress of the conflict with Great Britain and immediately afterward in developing a national identity. Most communities at this early period passed what we would recognize as local news around by word of mouth, so national and international news were what filled the newspapers of the day.

As the 19th century progressed, the demand for more timely information increased. Coupled with improvements in technology, this meant that the newspaper editor needed more news to print. It was in this period that a truly local focus developed with columns dedicated to bits of community news produced by reporters who covered the local beat. With the development of telegraphy in the mid 1840s, newsgathering became a whole new process. As the Civil War approached, newspapers were poised on the verge of a huge expansion, both in numbers and in the content they printed.

A Modern Newspaper Chronicles An Emerging Modern World

The period 1860-1915 was a time of tremendous world-wide upheaval as the weight of colonialism was challenged around the world and slavery was challenged at home. America began this era with a bloody civil war that killed more than 600,000 of its citizens, and it would approach 1915 with a great reluctance to enter the far-away conflict in Europe that would become World War I.

The United States would pass through a revolution that would affect every phase of the national scene, and a growing number of newspapers with professional staffs of editorial writers, reporters, heads of special departments and special correspondents were on hand to chronicle it in every detail.

By 1880, the Federal Census reported that "the aggregate circulation per issue, both for dailies and weeklies, if not for monthlies, is the largest attained in the world."

Over the course of the late-19th century a dizzying variety of daily, weekly and monthly publications was established in Troy, Lansingburgh, Nassau, Hoosick Falls, and Greenbush which brought news, politics, literary and religious offerings and labor news to the citizens of the county. Many were published for a year or less before going out of business or merging with another paper. French and German language papers were also published locally.

The Beginnings of the Modern Newspaper

The early-20th century newspaper looks more like today's paper than a paper with 19th century roots. Larger formats, the introduction of a new technology, photography, and the use of special supplements all began to be used locally by the turn of the century.

This modernization is readily apparent in the local press. The largest dailies, such as The Troy Daily Press, gradually relegated advertising from the front page to inside and back pages. Related articles began to be grouped together in more cohesive units, and "local" news from neighborhoods around Troy, the towns, and area communities such as Cohoes, Watervliet, Waterford and Albany were gathered under specific headings.

News Every Hour On The Hour And All Through The Hour

Today, we are besieged by the opportunities to partake of network news -- whether via "all news" radio, CNN's periodic newscasts, the local half hour program at 11:00 p.m. or the hour-long news magazines on PBS and the major TV networks. Along with talk shows, prime time "info-tainment" programs are also on the rise, and these blur the distinction between news and entertainment.

Despite all of this, broadcast news itself is not characterized as a direct competitor by those in the local newspaper business. As with the rise of radio in the 1930s, television was at first limited in its ability to report the news immediately. Both of these media often served to whet the public's appetite for the full story in the next day's paper. Even today, most newspapers have larger reporting staffs than television stations and can spend more time investigating a story.

The paper's advantage over other news sources is its capacity to report the news in depth and to offer an analysis of the news which 5- or 30-minute news formats do not do as well. While radio and television may lead off with the latest breaking news, newspapers are likely to follow up an article with additional interviews or more information over several subsequent days.

At the turn of the century, the newspaper offered the only daily view of the outside world. Now with other sources providing that information, newspapers are frequently turning inward to do what other sources cannot do -- cover the local news.

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