Debra Reddin van Tuyll

Journalism History without Borders: The Transnational Paradigm and the Case of John Mitchel

Yes, Marshall McLuhan was right. And he was also wrong. Yes, the “global village” is a reality. Humans across the globe are tied together through media and the “instantaneous” distribution of information. But, no, this is not a new phenomenon, nor is it one that began with the advent of electronic media.1 Even so, while most people today recognize that they are living in an era of globalization and that media (traditional and social) are foundational to that phenomenon, they are more likely to identify themselves as a citizen of a particular nation than of the world. The nation-state or “country” is a social construct that arose sometime between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, depending on which historian one consults.2 Nation-states have been convenient organizational units for historians, for they offer a relatively limited, relatively well-defined entity that has been closely intertwined with journalism at least since the seventeenth century. Theorists such as Benedict Anderson and Alexis de Tocqueville have postulated that the nation is not possible without journalism. The press, they argue, provides the forum where public life happens. They view journalism as the social glue that holds a republic and its people

Siege, Surrender and a New Age of Journalism in Occupied Vicksburg

The fall of Vicksburg produced one of the most famous newspapers of the Civil War and allowed a former Union soldier to use that press for his forceful and colorful writing. The newspaper became a staunch voice of the Union in the south, but it did not always agree with Abraham Lincoln.

“Sic Semper Tyrannis”: The Alexandria Gazette under Union Occupation

The Alexandria Gazette was one of the newspapers that refused to flee enemy occupation. Instead, it held its ground. The result was that the editors lost virtually everything they had before they war, suffered arson, arrest, and threats of exile. This chapter explains how newspapers tried to retain their Confederate sympathies while publishing under Union rule.

This Causeless War: The Transformation of New Orleans Newspapers during Union Occupation

New Orleans fell early in the war, just one year after Fort Sumter. Union General Benjamin “Beast” Butler silenced the Confederate voices for the most part, making way for new journalism from an affluent but disenfranchised community of Free People of Color. It was the beginning of the Black press of the south.

“Ruling the Roost”: The Occupied Press in Civil War Chattanooga

A conventional historiographical theme of Civil War journalism is the story of Confederate newspapermen on the run. Less well-known are the itinerant Union editors who moved about for much the same reason—because they were bribed, enticed, scared, or threatened into relocating. James R. Hood was one such journalist. Appointed postmaster by Governor Andrew Johnson once federal troops retook east Tennessee, he began publishing the Chattanooga Daily Gazette in 1864, and for the next two years waved the flag for Union and Lincoln. He advocated the immediate emancipation of slaves, too, although he didn’t immediately take up the cause until more influential politicians began urging it. Hood resisted encroachments on press freedom, on his own in particular, and protested mail inspections of citizens he thought sufficiently loyal. His position in a city occupied by federal troops turned out to be a quasi-military one, and he seemed to view it that way.