During the Civil War, something as insignificant as an envelope with a picture on it could sway people for or against the Union or Confederacy. Songs could bolster a soldier’s sense of purpose, and a book about the weather could villainize half of the nation. Propaganda is, by definition, biased or misleading information used to promote and make public a specific political standpoint. During the Civil War, propaganda was an effective war tactic, as it brought the beliefs of each side to the public’s eye. By examining the purpose, content, and public response of the propaganda, it’s clear that it was a keystone in the war.
In the years of the Civil War, envelopes were primary propaganda dispensers. They were easy to produce, and they had a large impact. One of their main
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Another print form of propaganda in the 1800s was newspapers. “Newspapers were responsible for editorializing the war. They were the propaganda machines of the day” (“Printed Media”). Newspapers were a means of information about what was going on in the Civil War. Not everyone could hear about news by word of mouth, so having a print source that they could inexpensively purchase was helpful. They would rely on the information in newspapers to be factual, so they didn’t know if it wasn’t. This made it so that newspapers could get away with publishing the wrong version of history, which is known as propaganda. As one of few means of acquiring information, newspapers had a large business. Because of the rise in business, newspapers competed with each other for customers. "The growth in the industry profit margin also led to a growth in competition. Editors began searching for new ways to attract readers. The first changes to be made were purely aesthetic” (“The Newspaper Empire”). Publishers initially thought that to get customers, they needed to make their newspapers pleasing to the eye. They started by just enlarging fonts, using bold colors, and including interesting pictures