How did my research help me come to my final question?

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When I started researching more about the Fourierest publications, I decided to settle on a specific one. Although they had a few circulating at the time, The Harbinger was a newspaper specific to Brook Farm. Starting the newspaper was an idea initially sparked Horace Greely, an extremely prominent journalist at the time, who granted the movement a column on the first page of the New York Tribune. After reading more about the paper, I found that not only did it reach out to those within the community, but it extended to the outside as well. The paper resembled a very open minded publication, and it covered topics relevant to all aspects of society such as science, fine arts, and political issues.

The primary source that I used in the workshop gave me a whole new insight to the paper because it outlined the whole mission and all of its intentions in one introductory note. I did not realize that The Harbinger went beyond its notion as a propagandist paper, but the journalists reported on current topics using their Associaitionist ideas in the interpretations of their critiques. This certainly had to have an impact on both outside and inside the community, because the newspaper clearly stated that they will always speak their minds on all of the topics, an idea that was not always favored in that time period. It was certainly a newspaper that spoke its mind making a biased news source, but they identified it from the start as it was their mission to share their beliefs with society. It seems as if the paper used their critiques on social life, politics, literature, music, and more to introduce their ideas.

Research Question: What role did theThe Harbinger play in spreading the beliefs of the Associationist movement on Brook Farm and outside of the community?