The Loyal Publication Society was founded in 1863, during a time when the Union Army

Union Army

The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...

 had suffered many reverses in the Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. The purpose of the society was to bolster public support for the Union effort, by disseminating pro-Union news articles and editorials to newspapers around the country.

There were two such societies: the Loyal Publication Society of New York and the Boston-based New England Loyal Publication Society, both founded in early 1863. These two organizations were similar to the Union League

Union League

A Union League is one of a number of organizations established starting in 1862, during the American Civil War to promote loyalty to the Union and the policies of Abraham Lincoln. They were also known as Loyal Leagues. They comprised upper middle class men who supported efforts such as the United...

s that cropped up throughout the North, in that they provided civilians an opportunity to support the war effort. The Union League of Philadelphia was also involved in the development of pro-Union publications.

The founders and members represented the literary and financial elite of Boston and New York. In New York, they included such luminaries as Charles King

Charles King (academic)

Charles King was an American academic, politician and newspaper editor. He succeeded Nathaniel Fish Moore to become the ninth president of Columbia College , holding the role from 7 November 1849 to 1864...

, president of Columbia University, Sinclair Tousey, president of the American News Company, the publisher George Palmer Putnam

George Palmer Putnam

George Palmer Putnam was an important American book publisher.-Biography:Putnam was born in Brunswick, Maine. On moving to New York City, Putnam was given his first job by Jonathan Leavitt, who subsequently published Putnam's first book...

, the German-born academic Francis Lieber

Francis Lieber

Francis Lieber , known as Franz Lieber in Germany, was a German-American jurist, gymnast and political philosopher. He edited an Encyclopaedia Americana...

, and the future vice-president of the United States Levi P. Morton

Levi P. Morton

Levi Parsons Morton was a Representative from New York and the 22nd Vice President of the United States . He also later served as the 31st Governor of New York.-Biography:...

. In Boston, the members included Charles Eliot Norton

Charles Eliot Norton

Charles Eliot Norton, was a leading American author, social critic, and professor of art. He was a militant idealist, a progressive social reformer, and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States.-Biography:Norton was born at...

, the Harvard Professor and prominent cultural critic, John Murray Forbes

John Murray Forbes

John Murray Forbes was an American railroad magnate, merchant, philanthropist and abolitionist. He was president of both the Michigan Central railroad and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in the 1850s....

, a railroad magnate, and James Bradley Thayer

James Bradley Thayer

James Bradley Thayer American legal writer and educationist.Born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, he graduated at Harvard College in 1852, and at the Harvard Law School in 1856, in which year he was admitted to the bar of Suffolk County and began to practice in Boston...

, who was to become one of the country's foremost legal scholars.

In their first months, these groups would share the responsibility of reading newspapers to identify particularly useful articles and editorials. They would then contact the editors—before the type had been broken up—and request that additional copies of that particular item be printed. These items would then be distributed to Union soldiers or to newspapers. As the war progressed, the societies began to write and publish their own broadsides, which included contributions from well-known persons such as Robert Dale Owen

Robert Dale Owen

Robert Dale Owen was a longtime exponent in his adopted United States of the socialist doctrines of his father, Robert Owen, as well as a politician in the Democratic Party.-Biography:...

.