Written and Printed Words

Mass media in 1860 took the form of the printed page. A handpress of the sort Benjamin Franklin used during the eighteenth century, still in limited use in 1860, could turn out 50 copies an hour. Steam presses used in 1860 could turn out more than 20,000 newspapers an hour. The advances in printing technology, however, had not eliminated the tedious work required to prepare to print a page of text: each letter was an individual piece of metal type picked and positioned by a compositor’s hand.

The capacity to produce printed materials existed in all states in 1860, although the northern states had a proportionally larger portion of the printing industry. In 1860, printing required paper, and the papermaking industry was widespread although not so nearly ubiquitous as printing. Only 15 of 19 northern states and 8 of 15 southern states had firms that made paper. The industry produced paper worth $20.1 million, of which 91.3 percent was made in the northern states.

The volume of paper produced in the United States indicated the importance of print media in the government and society. In 1856 the United States had a population comparable to the populations of Britain and France but produced two to three times as much paper per capita as those countries – the United States produced 6.4 tons of paper per 10,000 people while Britain produced 2.4 tons and France produced 2.0 tons.