In 1690, the first newspaper in America ceased after one edition. But was it a flop? What happened next? This course offers an overview of news and news gathering at key periods over two-plus centuries of American history. Find out why the 1690 paper closed; what came next; and why Virginia’s royal governor railed against free schools and printing presses. How did newspapers help colonists become Americans on the eve of the Revolution? We’ll look at how newspapers in the early republic enabled political parties and vice versa, and the Industrial Revolution's influence on journalism. A look at newspapers and the Civil War will sketch in the print culture of Raleigh and Chapel Hill from1861-1865. Along the way, we'll identify similarities and differences between America's earliest newspapers and those of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Registration deadline: Oct. 25