NEWS JUNKIES

DURING THE CIVIL WAR, innovations already under way in technology, business organization, professional practice, government relations, and even reader interest led to great advances in American journalism. The legacy of the Civil War includes the modern mass-circulation daily newspaper, the national illustrated weekly newspaper, and the obsession of readers for both. The war also reinforced the vast disparity of access to media between the North and South.

The telegraph and the railroad, which had been developing rapidly since the 1840s, blossomed during the war. They dramatically transformed how armies conducted warfare and how newspapers and magazines