The Great Fear: Rumor and Print Culture on the Early Western Frontier,

1812-1860Anne Hyde, Colorado College

• THREE Places:– ca. 1812 in St. Louis– Early 1840s in Illinois– Denver in 1858-1860

• THREE Issues:–How rumors spread– Role of newspapers in western

communities– Challenges of using small newspapers

Currier and Ives, Arguing the Point, 1855

Louisiana Territory, 1804

1804 Atlas of North America

Indian Land Cessions, 1795-1812

Tecumseh, 1809, Niles Register

1810 Cartoon

Fort Michilimackinac Falls: 1812

1814 “Upper Territories of the United States

Walls of Words: Reading a 19th Century Newspaper

Warsaw, Illinois, 1842

Joseph Smith and the Nauvoo Legion, National Intelligencer, 1843

Mormon Temple, Nauvoo IL 1845

Joseph Smith’s Murder, Carthage, IL 1844

Mormon Route, 1847 (Nauvoo and West)

1858 Poster Advertising Guidebooks to The Goldfields

1858 Map to Pikes Peak Gold Regions

58’ers, Harper’s Weekly

William and Elizabeth Byers

Early 19th century Printing Press

Byers’ Rocky Mountain News

Denver, 1859 Harper’s Weekly

“Rumors” May 1859

Leslie’s Illustrated, Denver 1860

Denver, “Jefferson Territory” 1859