Print and Manuscript Culture

The essence of this article is print and manuscript culture in the Americas and their influence on American literature. A furor was created over the publication of James Franklin's newspaper, the New-England Courant. A group of staunch religious believers averred that the tendency of this paper was to mock religion, and bring it into contempt. They wanted to not only silence James Franklin and his press but take away his livelihood, which was the goal of the committee, the Massachusetts Council. The history of scribal and printed publication in colonial America reveals the contest of voices and the varying versions of "truth" that resulted from a collision of competing interests. This article further explains the ideas of script, print, and the performance of culture. An analysis of scribal publication winds up the article.