Alex Wright's 'Empire of Ink' Chronicles the Rogues Who Invented the American Newspaper

Author Alex Wright has published 'Empire of Ink: The Printers, Rogues and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper' (Hachette Book Group), a social history of early American newspapers. The book took 15 years to research, drawing primarily from digitized papers at the Library of Congress' Chronicling America project and archives at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA, the Mark Twain Project at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, and the Twain House in Hartford. Wright explores the printer's devil metaphor, the contested limits of press freedom, and the role of advertising. He highlights 19th-century newspaper culture including the Great Moon Hoax of 1835 by the New York Sun, Mark Twain's 'The Petrified Man', and Dan DeQuille's 'The Traveling Stones of Pahranagat County'. The book covers technological shifts from wooden to iron presses, steam power, wood pulp paper, automated typesetting, and the telegraph. Wright discusses the rise of Gilded Age media empires and the professionalization of journalism. He has started a Substack newsletter to share additional material.