USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume II > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
On New Year's Day, 1798, Caleb P. Wayne sent forth the first num- ber of the "Federal Gazette and Daily Advertiser." It persisted as a daily only until March 8, when, with a modified title, it became a semi- weekly, only to be discontinued altogether on March 26. Very likely the owner did not temper his industry with judgment. In the first issue the editor said: "No private scandal or defamation will ever find a place in his paper; but public men and public measures, he conceives, are fair subjects of public animadversion." Nevertheless, we soon find him furiously attacking Bache of the Philadelphia "Aurora" as "the greatest fool and most stubborn Sans Culotte in the United States." In his short term of publication he took occasion also to attack editors in New Lon- don, Portsmouth, and elsewhere, and in the same scolding style. Wayne is understood to have come to Boston from Philadelphia, and to have returned there after the failure of his New England experiment.
The abused word "unique" may rightly be applied to a small quarto, announced as a daily, containing only advertisements, and circulated free of charge. This was the "Auction Advertiser," published by Ezra B. Tileston and James Parmenter. The Boston Public Library has the only copy known, which is Vol. I, No. 2, with the date October 11, 1816.
503
THE PRESS
Assumption of Modern Characteristics-We now approach the time when the newspaper began to take on its modern characteristics. There were no real newspapers in the United States until "Ben" Day founded the "Sun" in New York in 1833 and Gordon Bennett the "Herald" in 1835. Between 1820 and 1860 occurred a great social upheaval and an industrial revolution which were reflected in the newspapers as in every other field of American life. The papers had catered to the few; now they began to appeal to the many. They had allowed their readers to subscribe by the year while consenting to the sale of single copies at a high price to applicants who called at the publishing offices; they now began to seek for customers in the streets. They had written chiefly for the intellectual elite ; they now began to ply the populace with news and the people began to manifest an appetite for news. By a gradual process of evolution the provincial papers of the early Republic were transformed into the comprehensive and enterprising papers of the mid-century ; after 1880 the change was more rapid owing to the lessening of the selling price and the inventions which supplied the marvelous facilities of today.
The newsboy made his appearance in Boston about 1844. A popular ditty of that year indicates that the "pennies," as the cheap dailies were called, first employed these lively lads to hawk their wares about the streets. The six stanzas sung by "Mr. Chapman with great applause" at the National Theatre contain the names of several of the papers of that day. The quality of the poetry may be judged from the first stanza :
I feel but awkward here somehow Makin' my introduct'ry bow. All bashfulness then to destroy, I'm Bobby Bawl, newspaper boy. In my callin' I've made some noise,
For all say I've got a fine voice. As singing is now all the rage I'm come to show off on the stage, For though I doesn't court the "Nine" I'm in the literary line, A chap of note I rather guess. A gemman c'nected with the press.
The Revolution handicapped our printers by cutting off their supplies of presses and type. Franklin and Rivington had to go to England to obtain the materials for their craft. The wooden presses made in the Colonies were not satisfactory. The flat platen worked by hand with a screw yielded about fifty impressions an hour. The substitution of the lever for the screw multiplied this output five-fold. "The Times" of London, in 1814, described its new and wonderful revolving cylinder press, which could run off 1,000 sheets an hour. In 1827 that celebrated newspaper acquired a two-cylinder press, which doubled its former capacity. But the papers in the United States all depended on the hand
504
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
press until about 1830. By that time there was general demand for a press that would print with great rapidity on both sides of the paper at once and to which the sheets would be fed by machinery and not by hand. By the use of steam the Treadwell press, invented by Daniel Treadwell, of Ipswich and Boston, would produce 600 impressions an hour. The "Advertiser's" claim to have been the first newspaper in Boston to use the steam press is probably founded on its priority in the use of the Treadwell invention. Late in 1830 the "Evening Gazette" brought the Napier Imperial press to Boston, manufactured by Hoe & Company, already well established in the business always associated with their name. The "Gazette" told how one man started the motion of its new press, how the self-inking rollers operated, and how "we can work off without great exertion about 1,200 sheets printed on one side in an hour." In 1836 the "Daily Times" brought the first double-cylinder Napier to the city. Year by year thereafter the dailies announced the acquisition of presses of this type, from the "Daily Mail," in 1841, to the "Transcript" at the beginning of 1851. The "Times" again led the way in 1848 by introducing the Hoe revolving machine, claiming that the cost was the stupendous sum of $14,000 and the capacity the prodigious total of 12,000 an hour. Through the 40's the "Journal," "Traveller," and "Transcript" used a press invented by Isaac Adams and perfected by his brother, Seth, which was manufactured after 1836 in South Boston. It had a maximum speed of 1,000 sheets an hour. The stereotyping process came into use in the United States just when the opening of the Civil War enormously increased the demand for news. The substitution of cast plates for the old curved type forms saved wear on the type and by the casting of duplicates enabled simultaneous printing on several presses. Named the Walter press for the owner of the "Times," the first successful web per- fecting press was installed in Printing House Square in 1868. It embod- ied all the principles of the press of today except the folder. In good time Tucker and Campbell made good this deficiency. Finally Hoe pro- duced that marvel of mechanism which brings together several streams of paper and unites them in the many-paged newspapers of every day use at the present time.
Other complementary inventions contributed to bring about the miracle of speed which all metroplitan papers display today. Ottmar Mergenthaler, about 1885, perfected the linotype, and the long-persisting method of hand composition speedily became almost obsolete. For paper the Colonies depended on importation in the main until after the Revolu- tion. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century the chief paper-making material was rags. Only the development of woodpulp paper-making keeps the supply of news print abreast the present demand of the presses. The story of printing inks is similar. At first dependent on overseas
505
THE PRESS
supplies, the American publishers in time created a demand which Ameri- can manufacturers progressively provided for.
And how did the Boston papers of a century ago obtain their news? The old State House for many years was undoubtedly the chief source of mercantile and foreign news. It housed the Merchants' Exchange, the post office, the city hall, and the news room of Samuel Topliffe. It was a great downtown centre for gossip and every business man made it a point to see every other business man every day "on Change." Samuel Gilbert met incoming ships down the harbor with his news boat and dis- played the results of his venture on the first bulletin board set up in Boston. In 1814 he sold his business to his clerk, Samuel Topliffe, who conducted it for thirty years, first in the Exchange Coffee House, then in the Merchants' Hall Building, finally in the old State House. Topliffe, were he alive today, might easily become a news magnate. He employed correspondents at Vineyard Haven and Rio de Janeiro, in Maine and in Smyrna, in New York and in France. He established the famous system of flag signals between Telegraph Hill at Hull and the city itself by which he obtained the first information of the arrival of far-voyaging vessels. Boston faced the sea in those days and for no advices were the people more eager than for maritime news. In his news room Topliffe made it a point to have on file many important foreign papers. In a word, he did what is done now by every genuine newspaper ; he got the news and all the papers of the day depended on him and acknowledged their indebtedness to him. Whenever a newspaper obtained important shipping news in advance of "Topliffe's" that paper always boasted of the fact.
In December, 1842, Topliffe sold out to Harnden & Company, found- ers of the express business and owners of the Exchange Reading Room, lately established as a rival concern. When William F. Harnden began, in 1839, to transport parcels and perform business commissions for his customers in Boston and New York, he found a single valise fully ade- quate for all demands for several months, and he himself served as the company's sole messenger. How that business expanded and how com- peting companies multiplied, how the express business grew to its present dimensions, is in itself a fascinating tale. Harnden from the first served the newspapers by carrying exchanges reciprocally between the cities of their publication. He rendered better service than the mails. Never had the Boston papers obtained their exchanges so promptly and so regu- larly. Other express companies adopted the same practice. Thus a valuable news source was developed. Let it be noted that Nathan Hale was one of Harnden's backers, and that Nathaniel Greene, brother of the editor of the "Morning Post," was for a time one of his partners.
506
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
Carrier Pigeons-During the middle years of the century the carrier pigeon was relied upon all along the Atlantic coast for the expeditious forwarding of important news summaries. D. H. Craig promoted the pigeon express for Boston. Having domesticated his birds in Roxbury, he would proceed to Halifax to meet the mail steamer, aboard which he would take passage back. Once in possession of the latest English publi- cations he would write his condensed despatches on thin paper and send the birds ahead over the final fifty miles or so of the voyage. The plan worked well for some time. Interest in foreign news was especially keen during the revolutionary period in Europe bounded by the years 1846 and 1850. Editions containing the pigeon despatches sometimes were set up in Boston with the heading "New York Herald Extra," and then hurried to New York by the Sound steamer and put on the street at once by Bennett. The "Sun" thereupon put type and printers aboard the steamboats themselves. Henry J. Raymond in that way furnished the "Tribune" with the earliest report of a speech delivered in Boston by Daniel Webster. The reporter handed his copy sheet by sheet to the printers as written on board. Bennett once offered Craig $500 an hour for every hour he could supply news to the "Herald" in advance of its New York rivals. In 1851 Craig became the general manager of the lately organized New York Associated Press, one of the precursors of the present organization, and after some years of good service he trans- ferred his energies to the development of Little's automatic telegraph.
Throughout the 50's, however, the bulk of the news traveled by rail. The pony express and the carrier pigeon, the flags and the semaphores, supplemented but did not supersede that slow but sure method of trans- mission which had been in use for centuries. But with the advent of the 60's the mail had to give way to the telegraph, just as sails had given way to steam and the stage coach to the railway. The Morse wire between Washington and Baltimore was strung in 1844. A line was run from New York to Boston in 1846. By 1850 Boston had two competing lines to Washington and three to New York. The service was costly. The "Atlas" considered an expenditure of $600 for wire service in 1846 a large outlay. In 1850 the "Times" proudly announced its tolls to be from $200 to $500 a week. But these despatches were bulletins; the long articles came by mail, express, or messenger. In 1847 an attempt to wire the President's message from the capital to New York failed, but the "Times" and the "Bee" exulted in the success of their messenger service to Boston. The "Atlas" and the "Traveller" took only brief reports by telegraph of Webster's seventh of March speech. But in good time the telegraph took possession of the newspaper world, verifying the tradi- tional prediction of Horace Greeley when Morse gave him a private demonstration of his invention. Greeley said: "You are going to turn
507
THE PRESS
the newspaper offices upside down." After the telegraph came the cable and the telephone and now the radio. The world is fast becoming a whispering gallery. More and more the emphasis is on speed. Moreover, if the wire and the wireless have accelerated enormously the speed of news publication they also have made news an extremely perishable commodity.
Year by year the papers enlarged their scope. In 1845 William Lloyd Garrison welcomed to the office of the "Liberator" "the art of phono- graphy" with "Andrews and Boyle for its apostles." Shorthand multi- plied the demands for news. Both Garrison and Wendell Phillips saw instantly that with a few stenographers before them they could enlarge their audiences indefinitely. By 1830 the editorial had become an estab- lished feature in the papers of Boston. The use of illustrations, thereto- fore seen only in advertising cuts, followed in a few years in papers of such huge page spread as the "Notion," but the first periodical to use pictures as a chief feature was "Ballou's Pictorial" in the 50's.
Advertising-Few persons would suspect that more than a century ago the sale of space for advertising was more important as a source of newspaper revenue than the sale of the papers themselves. There is little doubt that such is the fact. We derive the inference from an edi- torial item in the "Evening Post" of New York for December 1, 1803. Commenting on a proposal that the papers of the city raise their sub- scription rate from $8 to $12 a year, the "Post" said :
Subscribers alone, allowing them to be quadruple to what was ever known in this city would not support a Newspaper establishment; and, in fact, it is the advertiser who provides the paper for the subscriber. It is not to be disputed, that the publisher of a Newspaper in this country, without a very extensive advertising support, receives a less reward for his labor than the humblest mechanic.
The development of newspaper advertising had become rapid and extensive by 1830. The Boston papers gave three-fourths of their space to advertising. Towards the end of that decade news began to displace advertising on the first page. By 1840 the classification of advertise- ments began. For more than fifty years after the Revolution advertising pictures consisted of little cuts of ships and houses, horses and coaches, runaway slaves and railway trains. For more years than one likes to count medical advertising was a mainstay of the press. Nauseating ! Almost unbelievable the extent of the trumpeting of fake nostrums. These wares were flaunted before newspaper buyers like circus posters. Charles Dudley Warner, in 1881, told how the newspapers "outshine the shelves of the druggist in the display of proprietary medicines." There was an epidemic twenty years long of such advertising in the papers of Boston,
508
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
between the years 1830 and 1850. The Boston "Daily Times" defended such publication on October 11, 1837, thus :
Some of our readers complain of the great number of patent medicines advertised in this paper. To this complaint we can only reply that it is for our interest to insert such advertisements as are not indecent or improper in their language, without any in- quiry whether the articles advertised are what they purport to be. That is an inquiry for the reader who feels interested in the matter, and not for us, to make. It is suffi- cient for our purpose that the advertisements are paid for, and that, while we reserve the right of excluding such as are improper to be read, to the advertising public we are impartial, and show, no respect to persons, or to the various kinds of business that fill up this little world of ours. One man has as good a right as another to have his wares, his goods, his panaceas, his profession, published to the world in a newspaper, provided he pays for it.
Conceive the publication of that statement in a leading newspaper today and then consider the question whether there has been any marked progress in the ethics of the press in the last hundred years.
Some papers were more squeamish about the lottery and the theatre. The "Palladium" came out against such advertisements in 1829. The "Journal" refused all theatre patronage in 1834.
The public doubtless well remembers how the charge was bandied about in the World War years that many American papers favorable to the Allies had been "bought with British gold." There was nothing new about that charge. The same thing had been said more than a century before. William Duane of the "Aurora" wrote to Jefferson in 1809 about the "secret supplies" of British gold enjoyed by the Federalist press. He said :
It cannot be supposed that six newspapers in this city [Philadelphia], four in New York, three in Baltimore, two in Norfolk, and two in Charleston could be supported as efficiently as they are without secret supplies. I find it impossible to get out of debt with the paper of greatest circulation in the country; and my personal expenses besides clothing and food would be discharged with fifty dollars a year.
The great boom in newspaper advertising came after the Civil War. In that era, the department stores began the development which has culminated in the mammoth establishments of today. Railroads and public utilities began to buy large quantities of newspaper space. Gradu- ally every salable or exploitable thing found a place in the pages of the great dailies. The newspapers for many years now have been the prin- cipal marketing agency of the Nation.
Boston, in 1829, had thirty-four papers, of which six were dailies, and sixteen were published once, eight twice, and four thrice a week. In 1850 there were twelve dailies, fifty-eight weeklies and seven semi- weeklies, in all seventy-seven. Meantime the population had somewhat more than doubled. In 1865 there were eight dailies, forty-nine weeklies,
509
THE PRESS
and five papers published twice a week, a token of a tendency so marked today to reduce rather than increase the number of newspapers in spite of the growth of population. In 1875 there still were eight dailies, but only four semi-weeklies, while the number of weeklies had mounted to sixty-seven. Then for many years the number of dailies was seven, eight, or nine, not counting such special journals as the "Law Reporter" and the "Hotel News." In 1889 there were ten, in 1891 one more, twelve in 1901. Today there are nine, four morning and five evening, not count- ing such specialty publications as the "Boston News Bureau."
As to circulations, here are the figures, alleged to have been "cor- rected," in a report of a century ago, the exact date being April 15, 1826:
"Independent Chronicle and Boston Patriot" 2640
"Daily Patriot and Mercantile Advertiser" 650
"Columbian Centinel" 2650
"New England Palladium" 2500
"Boston Commercial Gazette"
1584
"The Repertory"
432
"The Daily Advertiser"
960
"Boston Recorder and Telegraph"
5000
"New England Galaxy"
2440
"Boston Courier"
820
"Evening Gazette"
I290
Most of these figures are approximations doubtless; they may be inflated, they may be what today would be known as "the press run." Accurate reports cannot be had for those early years, nor until relatively recent times. An owner in 1846 put the circulation of the "Atlas" at 2,200. In 1836 the "Times" was claiming 12,000, and 20,000 in 1840. The "Herald" in a filed affidavit stated its circulation in 1849 to be 11,253, assigned to the "Times" 7,794, to the "Bee" 5,628, and to the "Mail" 3,500. There is no guarantee of the accuracy of any figures except its own. When S. N. D. North made his study of the American newspaper for the Census Bureau he gave an aggregate "circulation per issue" to the six morning and five evening dailies published in Boston of 221,315.
Not in any modern sense could the "Advertiser" be considered a great daily newspaper. It was the first daily that managed to endure in Bos- ton, it filled for many years a large place in the life of the city, and it acquired a lasting fame. It was known as "the daily." There could be no other. It was a mark of respectability to have the paper on the door- step in the morning. The paper obtained the distinction, alluded to in those days as a rule with a quizzical smile, of being called "the respect- able daily." Through a long period it was written for and sold to the educated and fastidious classes. One knew every day just what to expect from it. The makeup rarely changed. The Washington special would have the post of honor on the first page. The other departments all would be found in their traditional situations on its ample pages. E. P. Mitchell,
510
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
for many years identified with the New York "Sun," served his appren- ticeship on the "Advertiser." He found it "crammed with good writing in every department." The reporters "used to believe that the regulations governing its use of English had been drawn up originally by the faculty of Harvard University in solemn conclave and that the professors met from time to time to investigate the fidelity of our observance of their rules." The "Advertiser" was the exponent of the old-time conservatism and social propriety of the city. In later years it fell behind in the scramble for popular favor. In a changing world it made few changes. Gradually it lost what had seemed an unbreakable hold on the affections of its constituency. They had tolerated the big clumsy blanket sheet with its interminable columns. They had smiled over the punning conun- drum, "Why is the 'Advertiser' like a porous plaster?" "Because it is good for a week back." But they were loyal to it just the same. Its news might be a little late, but it was trustworthy. It was never in its palmiest days a powerful organ of opinion. It was "safe," eminently "sound"; it was "the respectable daily."
We have stated that the "Advertiser" was founded in 1813 and acquired by Nathan Hale in 1814. Mr. Hale, a nephew of the Revolution- ary hero, conducted the paper, first as editor and then as editor and pub- lisher, for two-score years. What Edward Everett Hale described as "a very slight stroke of paralysis" befel his father in the summer of 1854 and led to a rearrangement of the affairs of the paper, although until his death the father aided his sons-Charles, Edward Everett, and Nathan, Jr.,-in an advisory way.
On the father's death in 1863, the succession fell to the eldest son, but in 1864 President Lincoln appointed Charles Hale Consul-General to Egypt, and he disposed of the "Advertiser" property to Dunbar, Waters & Company, a concern organized to make the purchase. Edward Everett Hale wrote his brother on May 9, 1865: "Now the thing is over I am free to say I am glad we are out of journalism." Charles Dunbar for some years had been an assistant editor. On his appointment in 1869 to a professorship at Harvard, he sold his interest to a new corporation, and Delano A. Goddard, who had been connected with the Worcester "Spy," followed him as editor.
In January, 1882, when Goddard died, Edward Stanwood, for some years a member of the staff, succeeded to the editorial office. During these changes of editorial responsibility the publisher had been Edwin F. Waters, one of the original buyers from Charles Hale. He relin- quished control in November, 1882, and Edward P. Call, who had been with the "Herald," became the publisher. The Boston Daily Advertiser Corporation was then formed, made up of old owners in part and partly
5II
THE PRESS
of new investors. Mr. Call retired in November, 1883. His successor, George H. Ellis, continued until January, 1886, when he was followed by E. B. Hayes. In 1887 William E. Barrett formed a company for the purchase of the "Advertiser"; with him were associated Samuel McCall, later distinguished as a Congressman; Henry Parkman, James W. Dun- phy, Charles H. Adams, and Herbert S. Underwood. Mr. Dunphy became publisher and Mr. Adams business manager. Except for the retirement of Mr. McCall there were no changes for a long period. The Barrett estate continued in control of the paper until December, 1914. Mr. Underwood crossed Newspaper Row in November, 1911, to become man- aging editor of the "Journal."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.