A Perspective on the Larger World: Newspaper Coverage of National and International Events in Three Small US Cities, 1870–1920

This article explores one of the principal channels through which residents of a small US city became knowledgeable about the world beyond their community—the newspaper. This exploratory study examines and compares newspaper coverage in three small cities in the United States—one from the South (Galveston, Texas), one from the Western Expansion (Boise, Idaho), and one from the more established East Coast (Fitchburg, Massachusetts). This study examines news events from 1870 (the post–Civil War Reconstruction era) to 1920 (just after the First World War and prior to the economic boom that followed the war, often known as the Roaring Twenties).