Green-Mountain Freeman (Montpelier, Vt.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,796 issues from 1844 to 1884, published in Montpelier, Vermont, digitised for Chronicling America.
Newspapers played an important role in the effort to promote the political objectives of the antislavery Liberty Party in Vermont. In 1842, 1200 copies of the People’s Advocate, a Concord, New Hampshire paper, were printed in Montpelier, Vermont, to promote Liberty Party candidates. From November 1842 to 1843, the Vermont Freeman, published first by antislavery agent and lecturer Alanson St. Clair and then by Joseph E. Hood, with editorial assistance from Chester C. Briggs, was issued from Montpelier and Norwich. The two extant issues include mostly articles from other antislavery papers, with very little content specific to Vermont.
In October 1843, a Liberty Party convention voted to establish the Green Mountain Freeman as the official party organ, with Joseph Poland as publisher and Joseph C. Aspenwall as editor. The first issue appeared in January 1844. Poland believed that “the omnipotent influence of decided, energetic, and uncompromising antislavery papers” would rally more supporters than occasional lectures and sermons. To get the paper into as many hands as possible, Poland advertised special bulk rates for individual issues, and offered to take maple sugar, any kind of produce, or cloth in payment for subscriptions. Under his direction, the Freeman helped the Liberty Party establish a strong presence in Vermont. The Freeman had achieved the largest circulation of any newspaper in Vermont by1847. Poland issued the Freeman as both a party and a family paper.…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Montpelier, Vermont, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress