| Abstrakt: |
Whether they stayed home to keep the newspaper presses running or tramped off to the front lines, southern printers provided essential labor for the Confederate cause during the Civil War. Around three-quarters of the South's printers served in the Confederate army, leaving only a handful of men at home to produce newspapers, which was the only medium where citizens could learn about the progress of the war. Most printers of the Civil War period, though, due to the un-public nature of their jobs, have remained largely invisible to history. This article presents a demographic analysis of a handful of Confederate printers and examines the nature of their work, both at home and in the military. The window into the backshop that this provides will give readers a better understanding of the role, the function, and the experiences of southern newspapers during the Civil War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
