Examples of Printed Materials from The North Star

The layout of The North Star stayed the same over the course of its publication. The first page of The North Star focused on current abolition events, while pages two and three consisted of editorials, letters from readers, poetry, articles, and book reviews. The fourth and final page was left for advertisements (Britannica).

I think it is extremely interesting to observe the difference between this set newspaper articles which were published in a time period ranging from 1848 to 1854. The first newspaper in this collection (Figure 1) was originally published on June 12, 1848. The second (Figure 2) was published on February 22, 1850. An obvious difference can be seen in the composition of the title of this newspaper. The copy from 1848 states the title simply in capital letters at the top of the page. Meanwhile, the copy from 1850 includes a more illustrative and interesting title design. The words “North” and “Star” can be seen inside banners of sorts, and are centering a black and white image of a group of people between them. This change in illustrative design shows the advancement of printing over time. Furthermore, it exemplifies the monetary success The North Star faced after receiving more stable funding, which allowed for more advanced printing processes.

The final copy of the paper (Figure 3) included in this example set was published on February 17, 1854. In 1851, The North Star merged with The Liberty Paper Party because of financial difficulties. The Liberty Paper Party newspaper was founded by the Liberty Party, a group who was committed to confronting slavery more directly than the Whig and Democratic groups at the time (Liberty Party). This new combined newspaper was renamed to be Frederick Douglass’ Paper (Bentley Newspaper). This paper ran through 1860 and, by 1855, had 3,000 subscriptions.