Publication History:
Place of Publication: Washington, Iowa; Sigourney, Iowa (1844)
Frequency: Quarterly?
Volume and Issue Data: Vol. 1, No. 1, April 1, 1844; at least three issues
Size and Format: Four pages, 13″x21″; three columns per page
Editor/Publisher: S.A. James
Title Changes and Continuation: None
General Description and Notes:
According to Littler, the first issue of the Domestic Quarterly Review was “without doubt the first document published in the county that at all approximated in dignity of appearance, manner and matter of regular newspaper issue.” Littler says the Review was a “12 column sheet, 3 wide columns to the page, and the pages were in size 13 by 21 inches” and “contained “probably as much matter in it as are found in regularly printed newspaper sheets of the same size.”
James described the Review as “a complete family, Young Lady or Gentleman’s newspaper” devoted “to Literature, Amusement and Particular Intelligence.” The Review was “written and published at the low price of $1.00 a year, invariably in advance, and will be mailed to subscribers so as to reach them on the first day of each quarter in any part of the United States.” James included a request that “Editors will confer a favor by giving the above notice (with this notice) an insertion.”
The editor of another local handwritten paper, the Quarterly Visitor, notes in that publication’s summer 1844 issue that “the printing office, publishing the ‘Quarterly Review,’ has removed to Sigourney in Keokuk Co.” The Keokuk County History of 1880, which made liberal use of interviews with James, says that he issued three numbers of his handwritten newspaper. The county history also notes that James lived in a small log cabin with his family for sometime after his move, so it seems doubtful that the “printing office” involved much more than the writing skills of James and perhaps his wife, Sarah.
Information Sources:
Bibliography: Nathan Littler, History of Washington County, (Iowa), 1835-1875, ed. by Edna Jones (Washington, Iowa: Jonathan Clark, 1977), 221-222; The History of Keokuk County, Iowa (Des Moines: Union Historical Company, 1880), 459-460; Roy Alden Atwood, “Handwritten Newspapers on the Iowa Frontier, 1844-1854,” Journalism History, 7:2 (Summer 1980), 56-59, 66-67.
Locations: No extant issues located, but quoted in Littler (1977).
The Handwritten Newspapers Project 
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