The Maine Press Association Takes a Stand: Promoting Professional Identity in the Nineteenth Century
Publication Date
10-1-2020
Document Type
Article
First Page
83
Last Page
98
Abstract
This research sought to examine the Maine Press Association in relation to its motivations, particularly in reference to whether the association members saw themselves as professionals. The only other nineteenth century press association which has been examined for evidence of professional aspirations is the Missouri Press Association, in which it has been found that members were actively seeking to professionalize, modeling themselves after the traditional professions of doctors, lawyers and the clergy. References to journalists as professionals are present at an early point in the Maine Press Association’s history, and the number of references increase within a few years after its inception. This research reveals that Maine Press Association members self-identified themselves as belonging to a profession eighty-four times in the first thirty years of their existence, from 1864 to 1893. The finding that the Maine Press Association members called themselves professionals is important information in that it adds to what little we know about journalist professionalization interests in the nineteenth century. This supplies us with the knowledge that professional aspirations were not isolated to Missouri editors. While the finding that the Missouri Press Association had professional aspirations showed that professional aspirations existed among journalists in the mid-nineteenth century, the finding the Maine Press Association also had professional aspirations, even earlier than the Missouri Press Association, pushes the envelope in regard to understanding journalists’ nineteenth century professional aspirations. From this research we now know the geographical spread of the professional aspirations stretched from Missouri to the Eastern Seaboard.
Stephen Banning has authored over thirty scholarly journals and is currently an associate professor at Bradley University where he specializes in researching journalistic professionalization.
Recommended Citation
Banning, Stephen. "The Maine Press Association Takes a Stand: Promoting Professional Identity in the Nineteenth Century." Maine History 53, 2 (2020): 83-98. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistoryjournal/vol53/iss2/9