Title: "The Desperate and Discontented": Propaganda of Marginalized Peoples in the Revolutionary Era, 1763-1776
Department: History
Description: This project focuses on the key role of historically marginalized groups, especially enslaved people and the working poor, in print culture and propaganda in Revolutionary America. Many historians argue that the role of argument and persuasion in print culture shaped revolutionary ideas and was essential to the outbreak of the American Revolution. In the early revolutionary period (1763 to 1776), patriot propaganda illustrated the crowds in New York and Boston that expressed discontent and protested increased British control. Diverse groups of people participated in these mobs, including laborers, apprentices, and free and enslaved African-descended people. In their coverage of revolutionary mobs, patriot propagandists formulated contradictory characterizations of these mob participants. This project will explore how patriot leadership utilized print culture to delineate who was part of the revolutionary movement and who was excluded. With increasing contemporary concerns of "fake news," this project will trace the history of politically influenced reporting and how these skewed information sources were essential to the separation of the thirteen colonies from the British Empire.
Hometown: Sterling, Virginia
Advisor: Nicole Dressler
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