Newspapers flourished, dramatically, in early nineteenth-century America. By the 1830s the United States had some 900 newspapers, about twice as many as Great Britain—and had more newspaper readers, too. The 1840 U.S. census counted 1,631 newspapers; by 1850 the number was 2,526, with a total annual circulation of half a billion copies for a population of a little under 23.2 million people. Most of those newspapers were weeklies, but the growth in daily newspapers was even more striking. From just 24 in 1820, the number of daily newspapers grew to 138 in 1840 and to 254 in 1850. By mid-century the American newspaper industry was amazingly diverse in size and scope. Big city dailies had become major manufacturing enterprises, with highly capitalized printing plants, scores of employees, and circulations in the tens of thousands. Meanwhile, small town weeklies, with hand-operated presses, two or three employees, and circulations in the hundreds were thriving as well.
The causes of this boom in American newspapers were varied and independent in origin, but they were mutually reinforcing. The U.S. population was growing and spreading out to new regions distant from the old seaboard settlements. As new towns formed, new institutions—including newspapers—blossomed. Indiana, for example, had only one newspaper in 1810 but seventy-three by 1840. Politically, America was highly decentralized, with government business conducted at the national, state, county, and town levels. Each of these levels of government needed newspapers, and the new American system of political parties also supported newspapers. Commercially, as new businesses flourished, so did the advertising function of the newspaper press. Rapidly urbanizing cities could even support multiple daily newspapers. The early nineteenth century was also a boom time for religious and reform organization, and each voluntary association needed its newspaper.
The Ku Klux Klan began in 1866 in Tennessee as an organization of Confederate veterans of the Civil War. They derived the name "Ku Klux" from the Greek word κύκλος (<em>kuklos) ,</em> which means circle. The group became a resistance movement against radical Reconstruction in the South, seeking to intimidate blacks and restore white supremacy. The group carried out many acts of extreme violence, and acts in Congress and a decision by the Supreme Court <em>(United States v. Harris, </em>1882) went against the Klan. By that time, though, the Klan had mostly stopped operating because it had pretty much achieved its goal: white dominance in the South.
A revived version of the Klan appeared again beginning in 1915, expanding its target beyond blacks to Jews and others. At its height in the 1920s, this revived version of the Ku Klux Klan had more than 4 million members. Today it is a fringe group in the US, with only a few thousand members.
At Valley Forge, there were shortages of everything from food to clothing to medicine. Washington's men were sick from disease, hunger, and exposure. The Continental Army camped in crude log cabins and endured cold conditions while the Redcoats warmed themselves in colonial homes.
