Seventy-Six years before America became an independent country, a Scottish immigrant by the name of John Campbell arrived in the new world. He was appointed postmaster of the New England colonies and bore the job of writing news letters to governors about the colonists needs. In 1704, Campbell decided to make these letters public and issued The Boston News-Letter, America’s first newspaper, on April, 24th. The birth of this first paper began a long history of American journalism, which continues to build on the lessons from the first ever paper that they were able to control.
Campbell, the family of booksellers, became a bookseller himself when he arrived in the American colonies around 1700. Soon after, he was appointed Post Master and began a job of correspondence to the governors. For the first four years of this newsletter, Campbell was handwriting everything, but as demand grew, he asked his brother, Duncan to help.
The Handwritten Newspapers Project reports, “There was such a demand for his news letter that Campbell began to look around for some way of relieving the pressure upon his time and energy. He got his brother, Duncan, to help, but even together they could not supply the demand for news. The just couldn’t write longhand fast enough.”
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