In this Mill Talk at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation, Alex Wright, author of "Empire of Ink: The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper," tells the story of how an unruly young democracy found its voice, shaped by the interplay of new technologies, bold public policies, and a distinctly American zeal for free expression. No society had ever generated so much ink and paper in so little time. Between the Revolutionary War and the dawn of the twentieth century, the number of American newspapers increased five hundredfold.

It was a wild, boisterous time, populated by gunslinging editors, tramp printers, zealous reformers, brilliant inventors, and literal snake-oil salesmen. Together, they transformed journalism, built a new industry, and helped forge the nation’s character. By century's end, this freewheeling press had begun to give way to news syndicates, wire services, and corporate interests. Wealthy media barons seized on new technologies and economies of scale to consolidate power—spawning the mass media that would come to define the twentieth century.