Proportionally speaking, the growth of the press in the United States has been as even as it has been rapid. No leading city is without press establishments and prominent journals, some of them conducted on the largest scales of expenditure,—the West vying with the East, and the South with the North, in liberality and enterprise. The newspaper office of the early part of the century was generally dingy and cramped. The abode of many, especially in the larger cities, has become a handsome pile, conspicuous in architectural effects, capacious and cleanly,—fitting hive for the myriad of workers that toil at midday and midnight in pursuit of the “art preservative.” The annual expenditure of a single newspaper operated on a large scale has been thus computed: Editorial and literary matter, $220,000; local news, $290,000; illustrations, $180,000; correspondence, $125,000; telegraph, $65,000; cable, $27,000; mechanical, $410,500; paper, $617,000; business office, $219,000; a total of $2,153,500.
Nearly every town in the United States of 15,000 population has come by the end of the century to have its daily newspaper, and few of even 1000 population, especially if a county-seat, are without their weekly newspapers. It has become possible to conduct a rural weekly of fair proportions and with quite readable matter upon a very economic basis, by means of a central office in some large city. This office prints and supplies to the rural offices, of which it may have hundreds on its list, the two outside pages of a weekly, leaving to the local office only the duty of supplying and printing on the inside pages its domestic news.
In the number of its newspapers and periodicals the United States easily leads the world. Only approximate figures for the close of the century are at hand; but these, for the United States, gravitate around a total of 20,000 newspapers and periodicals, while those for other countries which report are as follows: Great Britain, 4229; France, 4100; Germany, 5500; Austria-Hungary, 3500; Italy, 1400; Spain, 1200; Russia, 800; Switzerland, 450; Belgium, 300; Holland, 300; Canada, 862. In the report of 1894 for United States newspapers and periodicals, the following subdivision appears: Dailies, 1853; tri-weeklies, 29; semi-weeklies, 223; weeklies, 14,077; bi-weeklies, 62; semi-monthlies, 290; monthlies, 2501; bi-monthlies, 70; quarterlies, 197. The States in which over one thousand newspapers and periodicals are printed are, New York, with 2001; Illinois, with 1520; Pennsylvania, with 1408; Ohio, with 1108. The States next in order, and with a number of newspapers and periodicals between 500 and 1000, are, Iowa, with 978; Missouri, with 907; Indiana, with 753; Kansas, with 732; Michigan, with 727; Massachusetts, with 664; Texas, with 656; Nebraska, with 639; California, with 637; Wisconsin, with 551; Minnesota, with 549.
The century’s newspaper literature in the United States has been further characterized by the introduction of the comic feature. The comic newspaper came into being about the middle of the century, but did not strike a practical minded people with favor. It was not until the century was well rounded out that the cartoonist’s and joker’s art came into sufficient demand to make a comic newspaper a commercial success. Even now their number is limited to a very few that can boast of permanent success.
The daily newspapers of the latter part of the century have not been dissuaded by earlier attempts to make illustrations a conspicuous feature. On the contrary, newspaper illustration has grown to the proportions of a special art, and all of the larger and better equipped dailies have organized departments into which are gathered photographs and engravings ready for reproduction as events demand. So the correspondent and reporter have added to knighthood of the pen that of the camera, and the scenic view has become an essential part of serious correspondence and sprightly reporting.
An immense, imposing, and highly useful current of literature flows through the magazines, which have, by their number, beauty, and adaptation, come to be a distinguishing feature of the nineteenth century. This class of literature is usually called “Periodical,” and it embraces the magazines and reviews devoted to general literature and science, the class magazines devoted to particular branches of science, art, or industry, and the publications of schools and societies. Most periodicals published in the English language are monthlies. The same is true of those published on the continent of Europe, save that there the old-fashioned quarterly style is still much affected.
Periodical literature found a beginning in France as early as 1665, in what is still the organ of the French Academy. The first English periodical was published in 1680, and was hardly more than a catalogue of books. The growth of the periodical or magazine proved to be very slow. Up to 1800, not more than eighty had found mentionable existence as scientific and technical periodicals, and only three as strictly literary periodicals. The advent of “The Edinburgh Review,” in 1802, gave great impetus to periodical literature in Great Britain, and the period from 1840 to 1850 was one of special development, but to be surpassed by that of 1860 to 1870, when the shilling magazine came into vogue. This class of literature also developed very rapidly in France during the century, Paris having 1381 periodicals of all kinds by 1890. There was an equally rapid development in Germany, Austria, and throughout the continent.
The English magazine found several imitators in the United States during the latter part of the eighteenth century, most of which had brief existences. Such was the fatality overhanging this class of enterprise, that until 1810 but twenty-seven periodicals could be counted in the United States. While the next forty years were marked by several magazine successes, such as the “Knickerbocker,” “Graham’s Magazine,” and “Putnam’s Monthly,” they were, nevertheless, strewn with long lines of melancholy wreckage. Indeed, it was not until the middle of the century that the demand for magazine literature became sufficiently intense to make investment in it profitable and permanent. Since then the development has been almost phenomenal, keeping even pace with that of the newspaper. At the end of the century the number of monthlies published in the United States approximates 2800; and there are over 300 fortnightlies, 56 bi-monthlies, and 192 quarterlies. These cover the vast domains of general literature, religion, science, art, and industry, and in many respects vie with the newspaper in popularity and influence. Many of them have developed into magnificent properties, whose value would appear incomprehensible to our grandfathers. They employ excellent talent when special topics are treated, and rise to occasions of war or other excitement through graphically written and highly illustrated articles. Indeed, one of their most impressive features is the high degree to which they have carried the art of illustration. Toward the close of the century, periodical literature has been greatly expanded and popularized by the introduction of the cheap magazine. The older and more dignified periodicals had not thought of permanent and profitable existence at a price less than twenty-five to fifty cents a copy; but those of the younger and ten-cent class, by dint of what seems to be a newly discovered enterprise, have found cheapness no barrier to commercial success. Within a decade they have duplicated patrons of magazine literature by the million, and proven quite as clearly as the newspapers have done that we are a nation of readers.