An Embattled Terrain: Women, African-Americans, Native Americans, and Immigrants at the Margins in U.S. Newspaper Stories, 1820–1860

ABSTRACT This article examines the presence of women, African Americans, immigrants, and Native Americans in a content analysis of newspapers for the 1820–1860 years from the Southern, Northern, Middle, and Western states, divided regionally and along the political and regional fault lines of the impending Civil War. There were 3,275 newspaper stories sampled and of those, 571 mentioned women, African Americans, Native Americans, or immigrants, accounting for 17% of all stories. This article concludes that far from being invisible or peripheral to events, ordinary Americans as newspaper readers were clearly aware of the activities and increasing importance of the groups studied.