Historians have identified three forces governing the implementation and understanding of eighteenth-century press freedom and practices: printers' desires to remain impartial and the concomitant hesitation to offend readers, the reliance on subsidy in the form of printing contracts, and the public desire for an activist press which represented the populace in the political process. But while many scholars have considered the legal limitations and political ramifications of an increasingly aggressive press, relatively few have considered labor economics and relations, the judicious management of affairs, and the financial realities of setting up and maintaining a printing shop in early America.
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