Everyman’s Hands.” Even at that discount, the book still cost a laborer’s
wage for several days’ work.
The first newspaper in the colonies—the Boston News-Letter,pub-
lished by the postmaster John Campbell—did not appear until 1704. New
York City got its first newspaper in 1725. Thereafter, newspapers multi-
plied, and broadsheets became common, giving a new impetus to reading,
particularly as the exciting events that led to the Revolution captured pub-
lic interest. Pamphlets and books published in London were circulated and
sometimes reprinted in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. The range
of quotations from European literature is striking in American political
writings.
Reading not only required intellectual skill but also posed a physical
challenge. With long working hours, the logical time to read was at night,
but lighting was provided only by tallow candles and the blaze of fireplace
logs. Since the frugal small rooms of even the more opulent houses could
accommodate only a few people, and poor people’s rooms were often
crowded with adults, children, and animals, taverns were oases of culture
and conviviality. Little wonder that men in search of communication often
escaped to them. As in contemporary London, taverns became academies
of politics.
Culture and conviviality were not widely shared. Dr. Alexander
Hamilton, one of the most-traveled Americans of the time, does speak of a
“marvelous mixture of Scots, English, Dutch, Germans, and Irish [com-
prising] Roman Catholicks, Churchmen, Presbyterians, Quakers, New-
lighters, Methodists, Seventh daymen, Moravians, Anabaptists, and one
Jew” in a meeting hall in Philadelphia in 1744; but he goes on to say that
they divided themselves “into committees in conversation.” People tended
to cluster in small groups with those they considered like-minded. Race,
religion, language, wealth, class, and geography were formidable barriers,
insisted upon by even the most “liberal.” Within any single group, those
who were more established and free tended to fear those who were recent,
and frequently indentured, arrivals. In 1751, noting a rise in violent crime,
theVirginia Gazetteattributed it (as did Benjamin Franklin) to England’s
practice of shipping felons to the colonies. About 30,000 criminals were
sent to America in the eighteenth century. “In what,” the Gazetteasked,
154 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA