SOURCE: List, Karen. “Two Party Papers' Political Coverage of Women in the New Republic.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 2, no. 2 (June 1985):152-65.

In the following essay, List discusses how Bache and rival newspaperman from Philadelphia William Cobbett treated the topics of women and politics in their publications.

The decade of the 1790s was a time of transition for men and women in the new American republic. As newly formed parties brought politics to a fever pitch and dramatically shaped the future of American government, changes also were stirring in the nature of society itself and in the perception of women's roles. While the political changes seemed bold and precise, alterations in thought about women were, by contrast, subtle, sometimes almost imperceptible.

Politically, Americans in the 1790s were polarized in their attitudes toward the warring nations of Britain and France and toward the two early parties that adhered to...