The Revolutionary Legacy of the Free Press

Explore how freedom of the press began as a concept and how it continues to take shape today with historian Joseph M Adelman.

Since the ratification of the First Amendment in 1791, the Constitution has promised to safeguard the freedom of the press. To the founding generation, that meant two things. In the colonial era, publishers developed a doctrine for their newspapers to be free and open: free from government interference, and open to anyone wanting to offer an opinion. During the Revolution, they made the newspaper into a "bulwark of liberty," protecting the people from potential tyranny and corruption in the far-off government.

Discover how these concepts evolved and what they mean in today's world.

About the Presenter

Joseph M. Adelman is a historian of media, communication, and politics in the Atlantic world. He is a professor in the history department at Framingham State University in Framingham, Massachusetts, and the Program Coordinator for the Arts & Ideas Series on campus. In 2019 he published his first book, entitled Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789 with Johns Hopkins University Press. The book was awarded an Honorable Mention for the 2019 St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize from the Bibliographical Society of America. He is now at work on a history of the Post Office in America and a study of the origins of the free press.