“Cherokee Phoenix: Advent of a Newspaper” Brainpower & Brownbags lecture series

Brannon's 2005 book, "Cherokee Phoenix: Advent ofa Newspaper" is the first history of the Cherokee Phoenix, the newspaper of the Cherokee Nation, printed from 1828 to 1834 in New Echota, Georgia, the last capital of the Cherokee. It pays special attention to the type, printing press, and the paper used during the life of the Phoenix. The first issue was published February 21, 1828, using the 85-character Cherokee syllabary completed by Sequoyah just seven years earlier.

The book is letterpress-printed on handmade cotton paper using 11-point Garamond types. The book is handbound, modeled after the binding style of three circa 1830 quarter-cloth books published in Kentucky and Ohio. It includes full size reproductions of the hand impressions of excavated New Echota type. (Six copies of the edition, specially bound in red quarter-leather, contained hand impressions of type found at New Echota. These special copies sold out immediately.) 

Brannon earned an MFA in the Book Arts Program, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; an ABD in Atmospheric Sciences, State University of New York at Stony Brook; and both a BS and an MS in Physics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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