Virginia Argus (Richmond, Va.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,344 issues from 1797 to 1816, published in Richmond, Virginia, digitised for Chronicling America.
Richmond journeyman printer Samuel Pleasants, Jr., established the Virginia Argus with his mentor and sponsor Augustine Davis on April 15, 1793. The paper’s original title was the Virginia Gazette, and Richmond and Manchester Advertiser. But Pleasants’ and Davis’s partnership was short lived, with the two men on opposing sides of the widening partisan division between Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans and Alexander Hamilton’s Federalists. Pleasants became the sole publisher on October 16, 1794, when Davis departed to print a more conservative paper in support of Jefferson. With the issue of March 2, 1795, Pleasants began publishing the Gazette under the name “Samuel Pleasants, Junior,” to differentiate himself from a like-named Richmond merchant. Pleasants changed the title on April 30, 1795, without change of volume numbering, to The Richmond and Manchester Advertiser, with the “Argus” symbol appearing in the masthead. The intriguing symbol—an abstract face covered in eyes—was inspired by the myth of the Argus Panoptes, a many-eyed giant and guardian figure in ancient Greek mythology.
In 1795, Pleasants married Deborah W. Lownes, the daughter of prominent Richmond planter James Lownes, with whom Pleasants had seven children between 1796 and 1806. Pleasants changed the newspaper title again on November 22, 1796, without change of volume numbering, to Virginia Argus. Over the ensuing two decades, Pleasants expanded the Argus’s audience and grew his business, earning…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Richmond, Virginia, 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