Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0004-4751-2510
Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis (Undergraduate)
Department
History
First Advisor
Darrin McMahon
Abstract
In 1790, as France neared a year of revolution, a former book dealer named Joseph Duplain announced plans for a new venture: a newspaper called the Courrier extraordinaire that would get the news from Paris to major provincial cities hours or even days earlier than other newspapers by using its own express information network. This thesis argues that the Courrier extraordinaire provides a new view of how information moved during the French Revolution. Not only has the specific story of the Courrier extraordinaire never been told at length before, but the intense rivalry among newspaper publishers to physically get the news delivered fastest during the Revolution has been relatively overlooked in studies of the press in the French Revolution. This was an age before telegraphs, when the printed word still circulated entirely physically, and in which the winners of the information race got to have their telling of events be the first thing people read, or heard, with vast political and economic consequences. Duplain’s newspaper was successful and innovative, yet it has remained forgotten by scholars. This thesis attempts to resurrect its story, which fits into a long history of trying to achieve communication over long distance.
Recommended Citation
Friel, Kent, "Censorship, Information Networks, and the Courrier extraordinaire during the French Revolution" (2026). History Undergraduate Senior Theses. 4.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/history_senior_theses/4
