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The Paper for the People. Mirror and Farmer for 1868…
Manchester, New Hampshire, 1867. Illustrated broadside, 35.5” x 22” plus margins, printed in red, green, and black in a variety of fonts. CONDITION: Very good, minor wear, reinforced on verso with Japanese tissue. A large, attractive, and unrecorded broadside advertising a rural newspaper published in New Hampshire, its perimeter illustrated with wood engravings of subjects suggestive of the paper’s themes. This broadside announces that the Mirror and Farmer—which ran from 1865 to 1918—will be enlarged with the first number of 1868 to a quarto size of forty-eight columns, making it “the largest and the cheapest family and farming paper in New England,” with more reading matter of family and farming interest than other, more expensive papers. The large and rapidly increasing circulation of this weekly paper, and the consequent demand upon its columns by advertisers, enabled the proprietor and editor John B. Clarke to increase the paper’s size, furnishing 2,496 columns of reading a year for the price of $1.50 for a single copy. For individuals in the largest subscriber clubs, the price of the paper was as low as 90 cents, while soldiers “who served for a longer or shorter time to aid in putting down the Rebellion” paid $1. The paper emphasized progress, its readers described here as wishing to know of “all improvements connected with the farm and farm buildings, garden, kitchen, school-room, loom, anvil, work-shop, mill, and the mechanic and scientific arts, breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, and poultry.” It is further noted that the paper’s readers also sought the news of the day, of their own state, New England, the U.S., and the world, as well as sports, hunting, and fishing; the cattle markets, stock markets, and current prices of everything; the latest fashions, new domestic receipts, and so forth. While politics was not the paper’s leading focus, editor Clarke nevertheless takes this opportunity to spell out the political principles espoused by the paper, including that loyal, honest men should rule the nation, and not those who aided and abetted the Rebellion; that Government Bonds should be converted into those that can be taxed; that every dollar of national indebtedness should be paid just as agreed; that taxes should be assessed chiefly on property and not on enterprise and labor; and so forth. The terms of subscription note $265 in prizes available to clubs and $100 to be awarded to the largest club. Specimen copies were available for free. A note addressed to canvassers identifies Milford, Fisherville and Weare as the New Hampshire towns in which Mirror and Farmer had the largest circulation. No copies recorded in OCLC.
Item #7929
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