To introduce you to mr. Andrew outten. The historical programs manager for the American Revolution institute, the society of the cincinnati who. Will introduce our speaker this evening. Marks a lot taller than i am here. Thank you, mark. And good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us both here in person and virtually from afar. Tonights authors talk program that is made possible in part by a generous gift from the masses. Massachusetts society of the cincinnati features dr. Jordan taylor discussing his new book, misinformation and nation for news and the politics of truth in revolutionary america, published last month by Johns HopkinsUniversity Press fake news is nothing new, just like millions of americans today, the revolutionaries of the 18th century worried that they were entering a posttruth era. Their fears, however, were not fixated on social media or clickbait, but rather on peoples increasing reliance on reading news gathered from foreign newspapers. News was the lifeblood of early american politics, but newspaper printers had few reliable sources to on events from abroad, accounts of battles and beheadings, as well as declarations and constant motions often arrived alongside contradictory intelligence, though frequently false the information that americans encountered in newspapers, letters and conversations, oceans framed their sense of reality, leading them to respond with protest boycotts and violence. Tonight, dr. Taylor will reveal how foreign news defined the boundaries of american politic and how the American Revolution was plagued by misperceptions misunderstandings and uninformed overreactions. Jordan taylor is a historian of media and the American Revolution. He has taught at indiana university, bloomington, indiana university, southeast and indiana state university, alongside smith college. Dr. Taylor scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in publications such as the journal of the early american early republic excuse me, early american studies book history, the new england quarterly studies and book culture, and the pennsylvania magazine of history and biography. His public writing has also appeared in the washington post, time, the daily beast and the journal of the American Revolution. So with all of that, without further delay, please join me in welcoming to anderson house. Dr. Jordan taylor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. To the American Revolution institute and society of the cincinnati for bringing me here and to all of you for coming tonight. Im excited to share a bit about the history of news and politics and revolutions in america. And im looking forward to your questions when im finished. So my new book, misinformation nation, is a study of how people in revolutionary gathered and interpreted news about the world and how that affected the arab politics. And i suppose the first point that i need to make by way of providing some background context is that people in early america were obsessed with foreign news. They cared deeply about what was happening abroad. They understood that at that time, they inhabited what most people in the world would have considered to be sort of a dull backwater. They believed that the great events of the day would take place elsewhere. A particularly in europe and unlike today, when sometimes difficult to get americans to care about the world outside of the United States. If anything, in the 18th century, the events that americans were more invested in were those that took place abroad rather than in their own neighborhoods. In fact, if you look at the newspapers from the 18th century, the priority of foreign news is very clear. Depending on the issue, youd often see two thirds or three quarters of the news content of any given issue devoted to foreign news, often extracted from london papers and i know this is actually very frustrating to some historians who who want to read these newspapers to learn about whats happening in in the United States or to find things like political essays, which are very exciting to some people. But unfortunately for them, fortunately for me, these papers are often little more than a digest of news that was being printed in europe, in london, in the 1739 excuse me poem in his pennsylvania gazette. Benjamin franklin explained to readers that he was not particularly interested in sharing news about. He wroteome occurrences that are well known in which concern but few are left alone. Printer sserves no blame for this. While in foreign news, hes not remiss and whatever importa ever happens here, he carefully collects and renders clear. In other words, franklin is aware that his readers care primarily, at least about foreign news. Unlike today, these newspapers were generally not sharing information from, you know, sort of a london correspondent, certainly not a london bureau. Instead, newspaper printers were gathering information, usually one of two ways. First, by extracting paragraphs from whatever letters they happened to come in contact. Since the since the last time they published an issue. And second but most importantly by reprinting materials from london newspapers. American printers were able to reprint news from the london press without attribution, without compensation and without remorse. Because at the time there were no International Copyright laws that would sort of restrict the flow of this news. So it was it was kind of a bit of a free for all as the london press expanded at a prodigious rate in the 18th century. American printers couldnt really keep up with the speed of news arriving while americans in the 17th century often sort of complained that they were bored out of their minds, waiting for news to arrive from europe by the late 18th century. Americans faced, if anything, an excess of news that forced newspaper printers to choose between many possible sources and when is an excess of information. As there was in the late 18th century, decisions about what information to share and whats to ignore inevitably became political. What news is significant . What news is most likely to be true . People could not agree on this. And so these decisions, you know, what was accepted, what was sort of tossed aside, those are in some ways the decisions i want to talk to you about tonight. And while my book actually stretches from the early 18th century into the early 19th century, i want to focus tonight on the 1760s. In the 1770s, the era when american colonists first started to question their long standing imperial attachments and began to cook up what would become the American Revolution. Thinking about the political origins of the American Revolution is, i think, something that should be of interest not only to people like me who were very committed to the study of early america, but really it should be of interest, i think, to every american unless understand why the American Revolution came about. We really cant understand the nation that it birthed, the narratives we tell ourselves about the coming of the American Revolution are deeply connected to what it means to be an american. And for that reason, you know, weve been arguing about this question of motives about what caused the revolution, really, since the beginning, since the revolution itself. And i could spend all night, im sure, going through all of the different ways that people have argued about this. But as just sort of a quick two sentence summary, there are kind of two explanations that have predominated for the last century or so among historian. First, that economic interests propelled the colonists into revolution. And second, that the revolution was brought on by colonists commitment to deeply held ideologies. And so thats sort of what historians argue in popular memory. Its often a little bit less complicated. You know, if you pick up a Popular History of the American Revolution or watch a film about the American Revolution, youre likely to encounter a narrative that presents the heroic revolutionaries rising against the oppressions of the villainous british right. And tonight, i want to offer a different way of thinking about the coming of the American Revolution, one that focuses on how information mobilizes the Political Behavior of ordinary. And a lot of the argument about what brought about the American Revolution comes down, really, i think, to what you what you think about a much broader question, which is why do people engage in politics in the first place . I think its a good question. Politics, after all, is is very inconvenient. I have a three month old at home. And i can tell you just getting out the door to vote on tuesday was was quite a challenge. Weve all got busy lives. Its not you know, its very pleasant. Its annoying even to set aside whatever youre doing and, you know, go to vote or sign a petition or even change your consumption habits. And in response to a boycott. Politics can also be really unpleasant as im sure we have all experienced in the last few years. It can alienate you from from friends, from family members, from neighbors. So why dont people just sort of move on . Why dont people just accept things as they are . And so, of course, there are many possible reasons. But the point i want to make is that nobody joins the political fray without developing two important perceptions. First, they need to believe that something is deeply wrong with the world. And second, they need to believe that by taking action, they can help to solve that problem. So the question that ive become interested in is how did the revolutionary generation develop these two perceptions or, as ill suggest tonight, these two misperceptions, perhaps . Because when you look at the premises that guided the American Revolutionaries to action, theyre conjoined beliefs that something was deeply wrong with the world, that they inhabited and that their actions could help to set it right. They were often quite wrong. Their beliefs about the British Government and about their place within it were often founded on misinformation or, you know what we would today often call fake news, as weve seen in recent years, fake news can affect elections. It can guide legislators. It can even lead to violence. This was no less true in the 18th century. Back then, it could even cause a revolution. So story starts in a way, with the beginning of english colonization in north america. And thats because colonization created a problem for the British Empire. Unlike, you know, spain or portugal or france, britain government was supposed to contain some popular republican elements. Decisions were supposed to be made through a process of deliberation rather than through arbitrary rule. That was what the colonies expected. That was what they considered to be one of their rights as englishmen. But the issue was that political deliberation only really works if political leaders are making decisions based on go information. And british leaders generally didnt knowhamuch about the colonies after a few generations of migration, r at matter, most americans didnt really know that much about britain either. So the colonies could only participate in the British Government by sending and receiving information through letters, through printed materials and through speech, through rumors they could make themselves known to the empires decision only really through these media. But of course, you know, these forms of communications were often unreliable on both ends, right . Rumors or rumors . Newspapers in a lot of cases were barely worth the that they were printed on. This was before anyone use the term journalism to describe newspapers and letters were really only as trustworthy as the people who were writing them. So the British Government learned to rely primarily on private letters written by officials in the colonies, especially the governors, for news. The colonies, in fact, the various leaders in britain, keeping the various leaders in britain excuse me. Apprized events in the colonies was one of the most important jobs that a colonial governor had. Simultaneously, colonial deliberative body. So legislative bodies in particular learned to rely on their own agents in london for information about events, their colonial agents who were usually merchants or or just a wellconnected individual who would lobby on behalf of colonial interests. And they would transmit accounts of britain back to the colonies. And so, in effect, governors were londons representatives in the colonies, just as agents were, the colonies representatives in london. Ideally, governors and agents helped to bring the british world together by providing a reliable stream of information that would make one side of the atlantic intelligence more to those on the other side. And know the system sort of worked, at least for a while. Colonial colonial governors. Shared news about the colonies because it would take, you know, often four months or more for them to getting responses to their accounts. The london leadership also them room to sort of improvise in response to changing conditions. Ultimately though this empire was tied together by Communications Networks that were much too fragile to survive for very long. And when the seven years war caused the British National debts to balloon, which led the governments to seek revenue in the colonies, the began to point out this flaw in the imperial arrangement, the stamp act of 1765 marked the beginning of this critique. And you know, if youve studied the American Revolution in any depth, youre probably bored to death with the stamp act. I know that my students have been when ive when ive talked taught about the imperial crisis. But theres reason we talk so much about, the stamp act. Its important because it was one of those points when the colonies first began to articulate their critique of taxation representation. And it was also the beginning of their fears about misrepresenting nation during the deba t stamp act in parament, members debated how britain could make laws for theshen most them didnt know much about that part of the world. With an almost total unacquainted with the colonies. As one member of parliament put it, how could they be said to represent them . According an account transmitted back to the colonies, a connecticut agents gerard ingersoll, who witnessed debates. A Member Parliament named colonel isaac baret, who was pictured there, explained that it was preposterous for parliament to tax the colonies when they were acting or, quote, acting very much in the dark and knew so little about the colonies. An occasional letter from a governor was not enough to allow them to rule effectively. Governors, other officers in the colonies, according to borrow, did little more than to, quote, spy out their liberty to misrepresent their actions and prey upon them. Baret was one of the few members of parliament who had spent a substantial amount of time in the colonies, having served as an officer there during the seven years war. And boris became a bit of a sensation in the colonies where it was widely printed and read. If its remembered at all today, its usually because baret, the term sons of liberty to describe the colonists, which was obviously adopted by the radical group that was agitating for colonial rights. But the heart of the speech really was its concern that simply didnt have enough information to govern the colonies effectively. Spurred in part by boris speech. This was a charge, this charge about misrepresentation was one the patriot colonies were to again and again in the late 1760s and early 1770s. They believed that british administrators in the colonies were sharing harmful and false accounts of them with london policymakers, which was causing the empire to make bad decisions based on bad information. From this perspective, the imperial crisis was not just a constitutional, it was also a crisis. Communication. The stamp act caused cascade of protests and disobedience toward british authorities, not least of these protesters. By the way, newspaper printers whose business was threatened by the stamp act. The stamp act, which raised the price of pamphlets of newspapers and of all kinds of paperwork. If theres a good chance it could have run many printers out of business, in fact. And so printers helped to create an alternative channel of communications, which often defied the rules of colonial governors. Newspapers helped to incite ongoing protests, particularly in boston, where mob violence became a source of annoyance to british administrators. Bostonians regularly intimidated and threatened the customs sent there to collect taxes. In the summer of 1768, for example, a huge mob of bostonians attacked british officials who tried to collect tariff duties on wine. That had been smuggled aboard the ship liberty was owned by john hancock. And so reports of this and many other sort of similar incidents led london officials to that. The city had become dangerously on stable. And that the government there was unable to enforce the laws and speaking these reports were mostly correct. The extent of mob violence is, something that historians still like to argue about. But no one seriously argues today that boston was a quiet and law abiding place in the late 1760s. No one argues that today in 1760s, bostonians did that, though they had a very different story to tell. According to them, accounts of mob violence were wildly exaggerated and the people were just peacefully, if insistently, pushing for the government to recognize their rights. And so when the British Government sent two regiments to boston to restore control of the city many colonists, were flabbergasted. You can see that attitude in this. This engraving by paul revere, which, by the way, is on the ver my book. Its a veefulended representation of the landing of british in boston fo revere and other patriots. Restore order to a rowdy,ing to disordered town. Rather, thismageepicts depicts a fairly peaceful looking city right dominated by urch seples in the