I became interested in Meyer and other York County printers because several also printed Taufscheine, the birth and baptismal certificates that I have been researching for years. Most of them were also very interesting individuals, especially as they used their newspapers as a political platform. One good example is Solomon
We hear the word “impeachment” bandied about; do we really know what the word means and how the process works? I am no expert by far, but I did learn a lot while researching my recent York Sunday News column. The column came about when I recalled that the
Politics could be rough in the past, but the Hanover Democrats were pretty civil in celebrating the party’s win in the November 1882 Pennsylvania election for Governor. Here is the story from the November 28, 1882 York Dispatch, picked up from the Hanover Citizen:
Newspapers of the past were strongly partisan. Henry F. Thomas, Editor and Proprietor of York’s People’s Advocate plainly showed his Whig colors. He published very few favorable things to say about the Democrats, referring to them as Locofocos, a rather derogatory term. No matter how acerbic his comments about others,
If you think news coverage is slanted and Democrats and Republicans are at odds today, you should have been around during the Civil War. My recent York Sunday News column below compares the coverage given the speakers at the November 1863 Gettysburg National Cemetery dedication. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Not Acclaimed
Passions were running high that spring and summer of 1863. The York Gazette was strongly Democratic in politics, very anti-abolitionist and anti-Lincoln. The destruction by a mob of another Democratic paper in Pennsylvania, the Huntingdon Monitor, didn’t intimidate the Gazette and other Democratic papers into toning down their rhetoric. Instead,
What else was going on in York County in June 1863? Animosity was not limited to the battlefield. Here is another item from the June 2 Democratic paper, the York Gazette: Illegal Arrests in York County S. G. Hildenbrand, a son of Capt. J. N. Hildenbrand, and a resident of
In one month we will be observing the 150th anniversary of some of York County’s darkest days, the occupation of our area by Confederate troops. It was bad enough, with the loss of the bridge across the Susquehanna at Wrightsville; goods, food and livestock taken across the county and combat
Newspapers were the only media outlet in the 19th century and politics often had the most extensive coverage. Even though some papers in the 19th century claimed to be unbiased in theie coverage, most were not. They were emphatic in their political views, attacking candidates and office holders of opposing
Democratic Press Logo The York Democratic Press of 1841 was very Democratic, in the political sense of the word. The newspaper was extremely true to the Democratic Party, as you can tell by the way it listed candidates for the upcoming election for governor of Pennsylvania. Under an image of