Richard A. Schwarzlose's long-awaited two-volume "The Nation's Newsbrokers" makes a major contribution to the history of journalism in the United States. Schwarzlose traces the development of the Associated Press and the predecessors of United Press International from scattered beginnings in the 1840s to their emergence as a mature national institution in the World War I era.
In Volume 1, Schwarzlose analyzes the problems of communication and transportation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and examines the news media before and during the Civil War.