The origins of local news in the United States country press between the 1840s and 1870s are discussed and traced in this monograph. Specifically, it deals with why local news reporting in standardized form began when it did, who provided the news, and what the news items revealed about the patterns of life in rural areas and towns in the United States. It notes that although local news columns were a regular feature of the eighteenth century English provincial press, they became a standard part of American newspapers later and only gradually over a long period of time, appearing occasionally in the 1840s, especially in the cities; somewhat more regularly in tbe 1850s; and typically by the 1860s and 1870s. An analysis is provided of the writing of two volunteer reporters who wrote under the pseudonyms of "Shears" in the 1840s and "Pocumtuck," following the Civil War, about local occurrences in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. The monograph notes that volunteer local reporters tended to write descriptive reports with little analysis of the events. (MKM)