In fact, the most divided period in the history of U.S. democracy - the mid-1800s - coincided with a sudden boom in new communications technologies, confrontational political influencers, widespread disinformation, and nasty fights over free speech.
The point is not that 21st century media is like the 19th century's, but that the past was hardly full of the upstanding, rational, nonpartisan journalists many like to believe it was.
The Wide Awakes - born from this media landscape - fought out in the newspapers, polling places, and, ultimately, battlefields of the nation.
As American rates of literacy rose, millions of ordinary citizens became daily news junkies... from wealthy elites to schoolgirls to enslaved people technically banned from reading.
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