Frankfurt Newspapers 18th century?

Question

Can anyone say whether there were newspapers in Frankfurt, Germany around the year 1785 ? The British library has a huge newspaper collection but its earliest Frankfurt paper is 1799. If yes, what were their names and can you suggest where they can be seen ?

Answer 1

The spread of newspapers was directly linked to literacy levels.  It wasn't until quite late in Queen Victoria's reign (about 1870ish) that literacy levels improved enough among the lower classes for newspapers to be a viable method of communication and this is when most started up.  Before that date there wasn't much at all in the way of printed press.  The only early national UK newspaper as such was "The Times" which began printing in 1785.  If you've already found a Frankfurt newspaper from 1799, that is probably realistically about as early a paper as you can expect to find.

If your German is up to speed then I guess you'd have to try googling "Frankfurt Bibliotek" or something (not sure what the German word for "library" is, its been a long time since I did GCSE German) and see if you can find an answer there.  My own gut feeling is that 1799 will be as early as it gets.

Answer 2

There were, see link below (in german) :

http://www.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/wertvoll/...