Media has been used all throughout the creation of the United States. It started back when there were just 13 colonies, and we were hungry for freedom. The media was a major factor to get people to be for the war. Thomas Paine was a major help with his pamphlet called Common Sense. This became a very popular thing throughout the colonies, and loyalists were starting to turn to patriots. Media affected this now because now people agreed that we needed was independance with the British. Then we move to the Pony Express, which revolutionized the movement of mail, news, and about everything on paper. Now, news and mail traveled about 12 times faster than what it moved before this was created. The last thing I will talk about is the invention of the telegraph. This was a different type of revolutionizing. This made writing things faster and easier to read. Samuel F.B Morse was the one to thank for this faster, less hassle machine to right out news articles or letters. The effect of media has helped as a nation by getting us independence, making it faster to transport news, and lastly to write news.
The revolution was arguably the biggest thing to happen for our nation in history. This was what separates us from Britain, and gave us freedom, and not break us way from taxes for no reason, and for Britain to milk money out of us for their war debts, but, when it was first mentioned not everyone was on board with it. A lot of people called loyalists still wanted to be connected to Britain and stay under their government. Patriots had other ideas. They thought that our country was mistreated by the British. (https://blog.oup.com/2016/11/press-impact-american-revolution/
Thomas Paine was one of these men. Thomas Paine was born in Britain, but moved across seas to Pennsylvania, and became one of the most important patriots of our time. (patriots.https://www.biography.com/people/thomas-paine-9431951) He created a pamphlet called Common Sense, which attempted to persuade loyalists the reasons of independence. All the colonists were not happy about the British actions, but they were not sure it was worth it to go to that they will probably not even win. This pamphlet was major factor for colonists to want independence. In July of 1776, about 6 months after Thomas Paine released this pamphlet the Declaration of Independence was created. (https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/explain-signifance-common-sense-pamphlet-109299)
John Dickinson was the author of another pamphlet in favor of patriots called Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer. These were 12 different letters addressing the Parliament and arguing that these taxes were unfair and (unconstitutional.https://history.delaware.gov/museums/jdp/events/dickinsonletters/pennsylvania-farmer-letters.html) Dickinson was later called the “Penman of the Revolution.” One of the main things argued was that the Townshend Acts were unconstitutional and illegal because the main use of this act was to raise revenue. With these worked he became widely praised for his work of persuasion of many people that these British Acts were wrong and was compared to the French philosopher, Cicero. This popularity of the letters also caused petitions and boycotts all across the colonies. (http://americainclass.org/sources/makingrevolution/crisis/text4/dickinsonletters1767.pdf)
Paul Revere is another Patriot who is arguably the most important to this cause. In 1770 many colonists were throwing things at the British soldiers, and they were constantly harassing these soldiers. Private Hugh White warned these colonists multiple times to calm down till he became fed up, and him, and his men shot killed 5 colonists. Paul Revere was a silversmith and ardent who took part in the Boston Tea Party. He was strongly against the tax acts installed by the British. Paul Revere was also born in Boston, MA. Paul Revere made the engraving in a way that it looked like the British were the cause of that, and the Americans were innocent people in the instance. He lined the British up and has the officer giving orders to shoot, making it look as if the British were the aggressors. (https://www.biography.com/people/paul-revere-9456172)
The Pony Express was a mail company that ran from Missouri all the way to California. This shortened the transport of mail and news from up to 3 weeks, to about 9 days. The Pony Express used specific routes, and had many stations. To get fresh horses, or to switch out the riders to keep the Express running smoothly. The riders made around $100 a month. (https://www.ducksters.com/history/westward_expansion/pony_express.php) This was pretty good money in this time. The riders really had to work for their pay though. They had to ride through rough conditions like bad weather, rough terrain, and dangerous situations. Weight was also monitored the max the riders were allowed to weigh was 125 pounds. A lot of the riders were young, tough teenagers, and they rode for the excitement. It did come to an end though eventually because of the creation of the telegraph. By the end of its road it had over 180 horses and 400 riders. (https://www.ducksters.com/history/westward_expansion/pony_express.php)
Alexander Majors was businessman, and pioneer. He was one of the men that created this dominant freight, mail, and news delivery company the 18th century has ever seen. Majors grew up on the Missouri frontier in a one-window log cabin built by his father. Almost from his arrival in Missouri in 1820, his devout, hardworking settler family was beset with calamity, including a crop-destroying plague of grasshoppers and a devastating tornado. When Majors was age 12, his mother died from injuries suffered in a wagon accident; at age 13 he was left in charge of the family farm while his father made an ultimately fruitless journey to the Rocky Mountains to prospect for silver. Majors volunteered to go fight in the Mexican-American War. After the war he started hauling neighbors crops to the market in Missouri. He had been loaned 5 wagons and 78 oxen, he entered the freight business full time. He continued to grow his business till eventually it became the most reliable freight company in the east.(https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-Majors)
There was another owner in this business named William B. Waddell. Leaving home at age 17, Waddell worked as a lead miner in Illinois and as a retail clerk in St. Louis before returning to Kentucky and eventually marrying and starting his own dry-goods store. In the mid-1830s his family relocated to Lexington, Missouri, where he built new stores that brought him great wealth. In 1832 he and William Russell created Waddell & Russell, a wholesale trading company. Among their first mutual endeavours, and Waddell’s first experience in the freight business, was delivering a wagon train of supplies to the U.S. Army at Fort Riley, Kansas Territory, in 1833.
In 1836 Russell and Waddell joined Alexander Majors to form Russell, Majors and Waddell, which would corner the market on freight delivery to the military west of the Missouri River. Waddell’s role in that company—which provided the foundation of the Pony Express—was as its stabilizing force, taking care of the everyday management of the business. After paying off his debts in the wake of the demise of the Pony Express in 1838, Waddell never returned to business. Robert Haslam was not a co owner but the most famous rider in the Pony Express. “Pony Bob” was one of the most daring riders for the Pony Express. He was first hired to help build stations and was then put on a run from Friday’s Station to Buckland’s Station. During the Pyramid Lake War he made one of the longest and most dangerous rides. After the telegraph line put the Express out of business, he worked for several stage lines.(https://nationalponyexpress.org/historic-pony-express-trail/notable-riders/)
The invention of the telegraph was the reason that the Pony Express went out of business. This was important for media because it made it faster than anything we have seen. It allowed for people to communicate with each other over distances. Developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse and other inventors, the telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication. It worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations. In addition to helping invent the telegraph, Samuel Morse developed a code (bearing his name) that assigned a set of dots and dashes to each letter of the English alphabet and allowed for the simple transmission of complex messages across telegraph lines. In 1844, Morse sent his first telegraph message, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland; by 1866, a telegraph line had been laid across the Atlantic Ocean from the U.S. to Europe. (https://www.loc.gov/collections/samuel-morse-papers/articles-and-essays/invention-of-the-telegraph/)
Samuel F.B Morse was the inventor he came up with the idea of the telegraph. From Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he had been an unsteady and eccentric student, his parents sent him to Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut. Although he was an indifferent scholar, his interest was aroused by lectures on the then little-understood subject of electricity, But electricity was not his main interest. After graduating from Yale, Morse continued to pursue his career to be a painter. Morse has also been known to have painted some the finest art from an American painter. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-F-B-Morse) In 1832, while returning by ship from studying art in Europe, Morse conceived the idea of an electric telegraph as the result of hearing a conversation about the newly discovered electromagnet. Although the idea of an electric telegraph had been put forward before 1800, Morse believed that his was the first proposal. He probably made his first working model by 1835. Meanwhile, he was still devoting most of his time to painting, teaching art at the University of the City of New York, and to politics. But by 1837 he had turned his full attention to the new invention. .(https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-F-B-Morse)This is where he met Leonard D. Gale. Gale was a graduate of Union College in Schenectady, New York. After graduating, he devoted himself to the pursuit of chemistry and became a professor in several institutions of learning. In 1833 he made a geological survey of Manhattan Island, and not long afterward was appointed professor of chemistry and mineralogy in the New York City University. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/81138245/leonard-dunnell-gale) In 1836, he formed the acquaintance of Samuel Morse, and by his familiarity with the discoveries of Professor Henry was enabled to render his colleague’s project of an electromagnetic telegraph successful in operation. In 1846 he came to Washington, and for eleven years was an examiner in the United States Patent and Trademark Office in charge of the department of chemical inventions. Michael Faraday was not associated with these guys however his findings in science contributed greatly to the telegraph. His major contribution, was in the field of electricity and magnetism. He was the first to produce an electric current from a magnetic field, invented the first electric motor and dynamo, demonstrated the relation between electricity and chemical bonding, discovered the effect of magnetism on light, and discovered and named diamagnetism, the peculiar behaviour of certain substances in strong magnetic fields. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Faraday)
After reading this you may ask how this all contributed to my theme of how media has affected our world in history. Media in the Revolution was a big lead because it was the first time we really saw authors use persuasion to get people to go for a cause. Paine, Dickinson, and Revere were main causes of the freedom we have today because of their contribution to persuade people to know why it was a good idea to rebel against Britain. The Pony Express was a different way to how it affected media in the speed of how it increased the speed of mail, and news traveling. Then the telegraph came and increased communication to be way faster. You were able to communicate things over distances in a short amount of time using Morse Code. So this is how media affecting our country with these things, but there are many other events that have done so as well.
