one appeared under the name of “The Daily Courant.” The advent of this
enterprise gave further impetus to newspaper publication. The English
press of the eighteenth century rose into great popular favor. It was
able, and quite too independent for royalty and royal courtier. For
corrupt and ambitious government it often became a whip of scorpions,
and in revenge was both severely taxed and invidiously censored. But
it seemed to prosper amid opposition and persecution, and by 1776
fifty-three newspapers were published in London alone. During the
reign of George III. (1760–1820) the history of the English newspaper
is one of criminal persecutions, amid which editors and contributors
were repeatedly defeated, and sometimes severely punished; yet it
is doubtful if at any period the press gained greater strength from
protracted conflict, or turned ignominious penalties into more signal
triumphs. It is significant that out of this dark, tumultuous, and
forbidding era sprang many of the newspapers whose influence is most
potential to-day in English affairs of state and in the literature
of journalism. The era marks the turn in newspaper values. The
establishment became a concrete thing, a lively property, an energy
composed of practical business minds, surrounded and supported by the
best procurable literary talent, adapted for treating diversified
topics. Thus “The London Morning Chronicle,” founded in 1789, rose
to be a property in 1823 which sold for $210,000; while “The Morning
Post” not only gave to Coleridge his fame as one of the greatest of
publicists, but enlisted the brilliant attainments of Mackintosh,
Southey, Young, and Moore. The sturdy “London Times,” which dates
from 1785, and for years encountered malignant royal hostility,
proved itself strong enough to brave the government and at the same
time sufficiently enterprising to introduce steam printing and every
mechanism calculated to give it precedence as a metropolitan journal.
As a property, it is to-day worth a figure incredible at the beginning
of the century, and so powerful was its hold on popular favor for the
first half of the century that no other daily could compete with it.
Indeed, it may be said to have had a lone field up to the establishment
of “The Daily News,” in 1846, “The Daily Telegraph,” in 1855, and “The
Standard,” in 1857.
The nineteenth century journalism of Great Britain is characterized
by its great plenitude. Morning and evening papers abound in all the
centres. The weekly paper is still an important literary and news
factor. Class papers are numerous and excellent in their way. Again,
the century’s journalism is characterized by its property value.
Many of the leading English journals have become immense properties
worth millions of dollars each, and requiring the ablest management
to improve and perpetuate them. Further, the English press is
characterized by able and conservative, if prosaic, editorial methods.
Its correspondence is cautious, and covers every important field. Its
news columns, so far as they depend on the telegraph and telephone, are
sprightly and well filled, but limited and dull when the local reporter
is the source of supply.
As already stated, the annals of French journalism began with the
founding of the “Gazette de France” in 1631. The evolution of the
French newspaper was not rapid till the eighteenth century was well
along, when the era of the first revolution called for a news and
literature peculiar to bloody and exciting times. Myriads of newspapers
sprang into existence, all but two of which found their graves with
the passing of the emergency which called them into being. Early in
the nineteenth century (1836) the introduction of cheap journalism
gave great impetus to enterprise, and by the middle of the century the
number and circulation of French newspapers had more than trebled.
This rate has been, in great part, sustained throughout the latter
half of the century, and the French people are to-day abundantly
supplied with a newspaper literature which for vivacity and amplitude
is unexcelled. It may not have the solid and lasting influence of the
soberer outcrop of other nations, but it is singularly adapted to a
sprightly and mercurial people, and is well sustentative of the great
political transition of the people and empire since the beginning of
the nineteenth century.
The evolution of the newspaper in Germany was slow. Between 1615, the
date of the founding of the “Frankfurter Journal,” and 1798, when the
“Allgemeine Zeitung” (General News) was founded by the bookseller
Cotta, at Leipsic, no journals of a high order made their appearance,
and it needed the inspiration of the French Revolution to beget in the
German mind a desire for a livelier newspaper literature than had
preëxisted. Thus, the “Zeitung” soon sprang into great popularity as
a purveyor of news and as a medium of discussion, and has ever since
maintained a leading place in the German political press. It not only
set the style of the press at the turn of the century, but proved to
be a pioneer in that wonderful journalistic march which spread over
all German-speaking countries during the nineteenth century, giving
to them media of news and discussion as able and influential as exist
in any land. By 1870 there existed in Germany proper 3780 newspapers
and periodicals; in Austria-Hungary, 700; in Switzerland, 300; not
to mention the many hundreds printed in German in other countries,
especially in the United States. A proportionate increase would greatly
augment the above figures by the end of the century. The rise of German
socialism proved to be a prolific source of journalism. The socialist
seems to be a born editor and literary combatant. He is also a great
reader and bold and independent thinker. Under the socialistic demand
for a literature peculiar to itself, there has arisen a score of German
printing-offices and perhaps fifty political journals, a third of which
are dailies.
In the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Italy,
Spain, Portugal, and other European countries, the press of the
nineteenth century has kept pace with the mental needs and spirit of
enterprise of the respective peoples. Indeed, there is no such an
accurate criterion of the general make-up of a people, of their place
in the lines of progress, of their influence upon civilization, as
that afforded by their press. The Belgian press is nimbly commercial,
that of the Netherlands prosy and substantial, while that of the
Scandinavian countries is rugged, accurate, and solemnly influential.
The Russian press, where free, is despotic and unprogressive. But it is
so frequently under censorship that it can hardly be said to reflect
with any degree of certainty the popular spirit of the empire. The
Italian press is indolent and easy-going, inaccurate, spicy by spasms,
of little relative influence, except as it has been improved since the
unification of the Italian States. Spain is a country of 18,000,000
people, but has fewer newspapers and periodicals than the single State
of New York. Of Spain’s 1200 papers, only 500 are newspapers. Of the
rest, 300 are scientific journals, mostly monthly, 100 are devoted to
religion, and 30 to satire, music, poetry, art, etc. Barcelona and
Madrid are the great centres of journalistic literature. The political
papers are the most powerful. The reading public of Spain is limited,
and the average circulation of a Spanish newspaper is only about 1200
copies.
In the New World the demand for newspaper literature during the
nineteenth century has proven quite as strong as in the Old World,
and, in certain localities, even stronger. Even among the youthful and
tumultuous republics of South America, with their large percentages
of lower classes and illiterates, there are few centres of importance
that do not support respectable and fairly influential journals. The
news-gathering and news-consuming spirit may not be so active as
elsewhere, nor the commercial sense so acute, yet the century has laid
the groundwork of journalistic enterprise so firmly that future years
can afford to build upon it with certainty. The same may be said of
journalism in Mexico and the other Latin republics of North America.
[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.]
In Canada, the century shows a highly complimentary growth in newspaper
literature and influence. Great pride is taken in accurate and able
editorship, and in that kind of management which is best calculated
to convert investment into permanent and profitable property. What
they lack on the reportorial, or strictly newsy, side, they make up
in free, clean, and independent discussion. The people are readers
and, therefore, generous supporters of the enterprises designed to
supply them with their periodical literature. During the century
the newspapers and periodicals of Canada increased in number from
a very few to 862, as reported in 1894. Of these, 87 are dailies,
583 weeklies, 138 monthlies, 3 tri-weeklies, 22 semi-weeklies, 6
bi-weeklies, 21 semi-monthlies, 2 quarterlies. The largest centres
of circulation are the province of Ontario with 507 newspapers and
periodicals, and Quebec with 132.
The century’s grandest field for journalistic opportunity has been
the United States. Here journalism has developed with the greatest
rapidity, exemplified its manifold features to the fullest extent,
most successfully proved its influence as an educative and civilizing
agency. Starting with the great and essential encouragement of freedom,
it has found unremitting and energetic propulsion in the unprecedented
growth of population, in the marvelous activities requiring
intercommunication of thought, in an intelligence which constantly
recruited armies of omnivorous readers, and in facilities for the
preparation and dissemination of the literature at command.
The beginning of newspaper enterprise in the United States was in
Boston, in 1690, when the “Publick Occurrences” appeared under the
auspices of Benjamin Harris. It was designed to be a monthly, and was
printed on three sides of a folded sheet, each side being only eleven
inches long by seven wide. It was suppressed after its first issue by
the colonial government of Massachusetts, thus restricting the avenues
of news to the foreign journals or local coffee-houses. But the demand
for home news was not thus to be crushed. There sprang up a medium of
communication by news-letters, such as then existed in England; and in
1704 the postmaster of Boston undertook to keep certain functionaries
informed of the course of events by a periodical news-letter in printed
form. This he called “The News-Letter,” a title which, with some, is
treated as that of a newspaper. It was to appear weekly, and would be
sent to subscribers for such reasonable sum as might be agreed upon.
After a lapse of fifteen years, without competition, it had attained a
subscription list of only three hundred copies. A subsequent postmaster
started an opposition sheet in 1719, called “The Boston Gazette.”
Its appearance caused him to lose his office, but the rival papers
continued to exist, “The News-Letter” up to the evacuation of Boston by
the British troops in 1776, and the “Gazette” up to 1754.
“The Boston Gazette” appeared on December 21, 1719. One day after,
December 22, 1719, Andrew Bradford started “The American Weekly
Mercury” at Philadelphia. On August 17, 1721, James Franklin started
“The New England Courant,” on which Benjamin Franklin learned the trade
of printer. After an existence of seven years its publication ceased.
On October 23, 1725, William Bradford started “The New York Gazette.”
“The New England Weekly Journal” succeeded “The Boston Gazette” and
“Courant” in 1727. “The Maryland Gazette,” the first paper published
in that colony, appeared in 1727. In 1728 Samuel Keimer started “The
Universal Instructor in all the Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania
Gazette,” at Philadelphia. The following year Benjamin Franklin bought
Keimer’s plant, and shortened the name to “The Pennsylvania Gazette.”
The first paper in the colony of South Carolina, called “The South
Carolina Gazette,” was published on January 8, 1731. On November
5, 1733, “The New York Weekly Journal” appeared as a rival to the
“Gazette.” In 1736 the first newspaper appeared in Virginia. It was
published at Williamsburg, and was called “The Virginia Gazette.” In
1739 a German newspaper appeared at Germantown, Pa., and another, in
1743, at Philadelphia. All these pioneer papers, with the exception of
a few, notably “The Pennsylvania Gazette” under Franklin, and “The New
York Weekly Journal” under Zenger, were merely news purveyors, or, if
any opinions were expressed, they were in accord with the authorities
of the day.
After 1745 the press of the colonies became more independent and
progressive, in obedience to a demand for literature bearing upon the
questions relating to the coming revolution. New journals of the weekly
class sprang up with considerable rapidity and, for the most part, in
opposition to England’s methods of colonial government. Among these
were “The Boston Independent Advocate,” started under the auspices
of Samuel Adams, in 1748; “The New Hampshire Gazette,” in 1756; “The
Boston Gazette and Country Gentleman,” in 1755; the “Newport (R. I.)
Mercury,” in 1758; “The Connecticut Courant,” in 1764.
[Illustration: HORACE GREELEY.
Founder of “New York Tribune.”]
By 1775, the commencement of the struggle for independence, the
colonial press numbered thirty publications, all weekly. Of these,
seven were published in Massachusetts, one in New Hampshire, two in
Rhode Island, three in Connecticut, eight in Pennsylvania, and three in
New York. In the first year of the war eight new weeklies were added
to the list, four of them being in Philadelphia. On December 3, 1777,
the first newspaper, “The Gazette,” appeared in New Jersey, and in
1781, the first in Vermont, “The Gazette or Green Mountain Post Boy.”
Such was the fatality overhanging the colonial press that, of the
sixty-three newspapers which had come into existence prior to 1783,
only forty-three survived at that date.
From 1789, the date on which the Constitution went into operation,
till the close of the eighteenth century and early beginning of the
nineteenth, several newspapers were founded, most of which were
ardently political, and, though employing writers of ability, were
bitterly vituperative. The most powerful of this class were “The
Aurora” of Philadelphia, Jefferson’s leading organ; “The Evening Post”
of New York, the organ of the Federalists; and “The American Citizen”
of New York, an organ of the Clintonian democracy. The close of the
eighteenth century witnessed also the advent of the press in the
Mississippi Valley. “The Centinel of the Northwestern Territory” was
started at Cincinnati, November 9, 1793; and “The Scioto Gazette,” at
Chillicothe, in 1796.
[Illustration: JOHN W. FORNEY.
Founder of “Philadelphia Press.”]
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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: RECORD BUILDING, PHILADELPHIA.]
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.