Wendy Katz

This study argues that the politics of the antebellum press affected the meaning of American art in ways that have gone unrecognized. The inexpensive “penny” papers that appeared in the 1830s, unlike older, larger “sixpenny” dailies with subscription lists, relied on advertising and so on sensational stories and breaking news that would sell papers on the streets. They thus innovated new kinds of coverage of local politicians, markets, crime, and personalities, including artists and art exhibitions. These papers also were explicitly or implicitly motivated by local political conflicts and conviction. Yet scholars who cite newspaper accounts of artists and art exhibitions often leave the ideologies behind these papers’ critical stances unexplored. My research for this book project accordingly systematically analyzes art commentary in New York newspapers before the Civil War, to identify moments of heightened conflict. Individual chapters chronologically address different art world exposés—undiscovered genius, influence of auctions, collusion, cliques, and other humbugs—manufactured and manipulated by the press. I argue that by locating antebellum art and artists within the competing political aims and agendas of the press, particularly the penny press’s drive to undermine cultural authority, the social and economic values that shaped art, its practice, its consumption, and the independence of the critic himself will be brought into closer view.