The press of the early part of the nineteenth century grew rapidly in number, circulation, and influence. While it was largely partisan, the field of discussion gradually broadened, and the news departments became more vivacious and comprehensive. Many of the newspapers founded during the first decades of the century exist at its close, having enjoyed their long careers of influence with honor, and become properties of incalculable value. During this period the transition from the weekly to the daily newspaper gradually went on in the large cities. The first American daily paper, “The American Daily Advertiser,” was published at Philadelphia in 1784. With it came the first use of reporters, or regularly employed news-gatherers, an innovation as important to the public as the advent of the daily itself. Special, or class, newspapers also began to get a firm foothold during this period. “The Niles’s Weekly Register” appeared in Baltimore in 1811. The first religious newspaper attempted in the United States appeared at Chillicothe, O., 1814. The first of the agricultural press was “The American Farmer,” which appeared at Baltimore, April 2, 1818, to be followed by “The Ploughman,” at Albany, N. Y., in 1821, and by “The New England Farmer,” in 1822. Several strictly commercial and financial papers found an origin in this period, the most successful of which was “The New Orleans Prices Current,” established in 1822.
During this period the newspaper, whether daily or weekly, was distributed only to the regular subscriber,—the price of a single copy on the street being prohibitory. The slow-going mail facilities of the time prevented the large circulations that are credited to modern journalism. Prior to 1833 no leading newspaper could throw sufficient enterprise into its business to raise its circulation above 5000 copies. This kept the price of advertising low, and consequently limited a source of profit which has since grown to enormous proportions.
The period ended with the advent of the penny press, in New York, in 1833. The initial experiment in this line was made by H. D. Shepard with his “Morning Post,” and it proved a failure in the short period of three weeks. The next was “The Daily Sun,” September 23, 1833, claiming to be “written, edited, set up, and worked off” by Benjamin Franklin Day. It remained a penny paper for a long time and attained a large circulation. It was reorganized in 1867, when Charles A. Dana became its editor. Though the price was put up to two cents, it became under his control one of the most potential news and political factors of the century, and attained a circulation of over 100,000 copies daily. In May, 1835, James Gordon Bennett followed in the tracks of Day with “The New York Herald.” Its sprightly news columns and fantastic advertisements commended it to popular favor, and proved a source of great profit. It has since greatly varied its prices; but by dint of stupendous, if peculiar, enterprise, it has grown into enormous circulation, and become a property worth millions. In 1841, Horace Greeley started “The New York Tribune,” at first as a penny paper, though on an elevated plane. It soon grew into popular favor, and with its weekly and semi-weekly editions for country circulation became one of the most widely circulated and influential journals in the country. “The New York Times” also began as a penny paper in 1851, under the control of Henry J. Raymond.
JOSEPH MEDILL.
“Chicago Tribune.”
While the era of a distinctive and popular penny press was short-lived, it witnessed one of the most notable advances of the century in journalism. It stimulated newspaper enterprise throughout the entire country, and journals multiplied enormously. The era practically ended with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, which event caused a rise in the price of paper, a demand for expensive correspondence, telegraph news and battle scenes, and a consequent necessity for enlarged and quadrupled sheets. Many of the penny papers went up to a five-cent price under the stimulus of war excitement, the improved system of collecting news, and the added expense of publication. This era of phenomenal newspaper expansion extended even to the end of the century. It has witnessed the wonderful evolution of the newspaper in all its modern phases,—the advent of the Sunday newspaper; the growth of the daily sheet to mammoth proportions; the incorporation of the Associated Press, with its thousands of agents in every part of the country gathering and sending the minutest events of the day; correspondence from every quarter of the globe, and covering every field of activity; a highly improved and more independent editorship; a greatly enlarged, more active, and more conscientious reportorial staff; the coming of the interviewer, at first an impertinent pest, but now recognized as a valuable journalistic adjunct in reflecting opinions and sentiments not otherwise obtainable; the employment of the thousand and one new appliances for printing, such as stereotyping, electrotyping, improved types, typesetting machines, rapid presses, folding machines, etc.
By 1883 a reaction came on in the prices of leading journals, and they were forced to reduce them by reason of the strong competition offered by the numerous and powerful two-cent journals which had come into being and had proven to be valuable properties. Indeed, this reaction did not leave the two-cent journals untouched, for it brought many of that class to a one-cent basis, with the claim that a consequently increased circulation would enhance the profits from advertising. This claim is a debatable one, and it may be safely said that most of the newspapers established near the end of the century have adopted a two-cent basis as a golden mean between the one-cent and three-cent journals.
RECORD BUILDING, PHILADELPHIA.