Colonial Broadsides and the American Revolution
IntroductionGutenberg printed his first in 1454. They are still
printed today. They are broadsides: notices written on disposable, single sheets
of paper printed on one side only, intended to have an immediate impact on readers.
Broadsides did have an impact in colonial America. They delivered the latest
news and much more: government proclamations, public service announcements, opinion
papers, advertisements, and entertainment updates. Broadsides address virtually
every aspect of the American Revolution, providing a wide range of suitable classroom
topics. In this lesson, students will use the resources of the Library of Congress's
Printed Ephemera Collection to experience the news as the colonists heard it.
Note: Culminate your study of events leading to the American Revolution
in the complementary EDSITEment lesson, Colonial Broadsides: A Student-Created Play. Guiding Question:In
what ways can you connect broadsides to events leading to the American Revolution?
What various attitudes and political positions are revealed in the broadsides?
Learning Objectives After completing
the lessons in this unit, students will be able to: -
List important events leading to the American Revolution in chronological order
- Discuss
the connections between broadsides and the American Revolution.
Preparing
to Teach this Lesson- Review the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested
materials and other useful websites. Download and print out selected documents
and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
- Either this lesson or Colonial Broadsides: A Student-Created Play would work well as a culminating activity for a class studying
the causes of the American Revolution.
- An American Time Capsule: Three
Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera, available on the EDSITEment-reviewed
website American Memory, offers an Introduction to An
American Time Capsule, featuring excellent background information on broadsides
and other printed ephemera.
- Concerning the broadside No
Stamped Paper to be had, available on American
Memory, the Introduction to An
American Time Capsule states: "Revolutionary leaders used widely circulated
newspaper extras to publicize colonial solidarity and encourage future concerted
efforts against British measures. 'No Stamped Paper to be had' reports a variety
of colonial efforts intended to force the repeal of the hated Stamp Act of 1765,
including Boston printers vowing to continue printing papers without stamps, New
York and Philadelphia merchants resolving not to import British goods, New Jersey
freemen declaring that they would ignore the act and all who support it, and public
hangings of the effigy of the stampman in Halifax and the effigy of the Lt. Governor
in New York."
- Review the interactive timeline The
Coming of Independence: Key Events from the EDSITEment resource Learner.org. Notice that this timeline offers much more than a list of events; you can
access useful introductory secondary texts for virtually every event on the timeline
with a single click on the T symbol in the right-hand column. Select the events
you want to emphasize with your class.
- If desired, set up a large-scale
timeline in the classroom on which students can post broadsides.
- Additional
reading on this subject can be found at American Memory's Read
More About It.
Suggested Activities
Colonial Broadsides and the American Revolution 1
If desired, begin with a review of important
events prior to the American Revolution. Share the timeline The
Coming of Independence: Key Events from the EDSITEment resource Learner.org. Students can explore the links to additional information and documents. 2
Share with the class the broadside No
Stamped Paper to be had from the EDSITEment-reviewed website American
Memory. (NOTE: Click the thumbnail for access to the full text as well
as higher quality images.) Discuss what can
be learned from this broadside about the Stamp Act and the colonists' reaction
to the Stamp Act: - Why does the broadside begin with the story
of the hanging in effigy of a stampman?
- What different locations are mentioned
in the broadside? Why?
- What sorts of actions does the broadside report?
Why?
- Why does the section from New York on November 4th bother to mention
that the crowd stopped at the coffee house?
- What attitudes about the king
are expressed? What do they reveal about the state of the rebellion?
- What
attitudes about bureaucrats are expressed? What do they reveal about the state
of the rebellion?
- What sorts of people are described as taking action
against the Stamp Act? Why did they take action? Why are they mentioned?
3
With this background, your students are ready
to go on an online scavenger hunt, searching in small groups for broadsides that
relate to events on the timeline at The
Coming of Independence: Key Events, from the EDSITEment resource Learner.org. How your students search will depend on
your goals. For a chronological approach, search by date-"1774," for instance,
returns 50 possible broadsides. Remind students that, because of technological
limits on communication and transportation, events on a particular date may not
be reacted to until quite a bit later—even the next year. Searching by location
("Boston") or keyword may also be especially useful. A search for "tea," for example,
uncovers 32 broadsides. Your curricular goals should guide decisions about whether
a broadside is relevant; in any case, students should always be required to prepare
evidence showing how any particular document connects to an event. If
your students have adequate access to computers, you might assign each small group
of students one or more historical event on the timeline for which to find a relevant
broadside. They can print out a copy, present it to the class, and affix it to
a large timeline for display. In classes without access to computers, the teacher
can print out full text (modern typeset) and colonial versions of the broadsides
and after student groups pick at random, they can analyze one or more broadsides,
present to the class, and then place the colonial version on the timeline. Tips - Selecting
a broadside when browsing or searching leads you to a bibliography page. Clicking
on the thumbnail on the bibliography page leads to the image page. The image page
offers one-click access to higher quality digitized copies of the original (.jpg
and TIFF files), bibliographic information, and a full text version of the broadside.
Access to the full text (modern typeset) version is found in the heading. URLs
provided in this lesson lead to the image page.
- Decide ahead of time if
students should download and/or print a copy of the broadsides or simply compile
a list of URLs for documents noted by students as connected to important events.
If you will be posting the documents, you will need at least one hard copy of
each.
- Have each group locate An American Time Capsule: Three
Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera on the EDSITEment resource
American Memory. Familiarize
students with the functions—"Search" by keywords, or "Browse" by Author, Title,
Genre, or Geographic Location of Printing.
- Allow an equal amount of time
for each group to work.
- If it is impractical for your students to search
online, a selected, briefly annotated list of broadsides with connections to the
American Revolution is available as a downloadable PDF file.
4
Once each group has connected an event and a
broadside, its members should carefully record the name of the document and the
URL of its higher quality image. If students have access to a word-processing
program (such as MS Word), they can cut and paste titles and URLs to create a
document. If desired, a Broadside Analysis
Worksheet is available to help students examine a particular broadside.
This worksheet is based on the Written
Document Analysis Worksheet from the EDSITEment resource Digital
Classroom. Make sure students understand that they will not necessarily
be able to fill in every item for every broadside. For example, some broadsides
do not reveal the author. As a class, proceed
from event to event on the timeline. For each event, give groups a chance to suggest
related broadsides; a spokesperson should explain the connection. If practical,
post the broadside. Brief, pertinent portions of the broadside could be read aloud,
but not the entire document. A sample of selected broadsides placed along a timeline
is available as a downloadable PDF file. 5
Finally, as a class, consider the broadsides
once more from a different perspective-unconnected from specific events. Ask students
to identify broadsides on the timeline that - Demonstrate how
information was circulated among the colonies
- Show actions colonists took
to protest British policies
- Demonstrate actions authorities took against
protesting colonists
- Provide evidence of the attitudes of those supporting
the Crown and those protesting
- Indicate how long protesting colonists
remained loyal to King George III.
Extending
the LessonSelected EDSITEment Websites
Standards Alignment
View your state’s standards
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