USA > New Jersey > Hudson County > Jersey City > History of Jersey City, N.J. : a record of its early settlement and corporate progress, sketches of the towns and cities that were absorbed in the growth of the present municipality, its business, finance, manufactures and form of government, with some notice of the men who built the city > Part 47
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Steady adherence to its original policy main- tained and extended the success first achieved. Circulation increased, business grew, and a small, but thriving job printing business was established. The Journal was an assured success. One of its rivals ceased publication as an evening daily in 1873, while the other was offered for sale for a long The Evening Journal Building in 1871. time in vain. In 1872 it was determined that The Evening Journal should have a building of its own, and the lot No. 37 Montgomery Street was purchased for $17,000. In 1873 plans were per- fected, and in May, 1874, the creation of the present structure, known as The Evening Journal building, was begun. In 1875 the Journal moved into its new home, which had cost over $50,000, and had heen specially planned for the convenient transaction of its business and as an office building.
The size of its pages had been twice enlarged ; business had increased, both in circulation and advertising, and justified its proprietors in contracting for the first newspaper perfecting press constructed in this country, in which the operations of printing both sides, cutting off, folding and delivering the printed sheet were combined. This press, which was for its time
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HISTORY OF JERSEY CITY.
a mechanical marvel, and described in all the mechanical cyclopædias of the day, was the in- vention of Mr. Andrew Campbell, of Williamsburg. For over thirteen years it printed every edition of The Evening Journal at the speed of 10,000 per hour, when, having been superseded by a more improved model of a press by R. Hoe & Co., capable of printing 24,000 copies of the Journal per hour, it was ignominiously broken up for old metal.
The Evening Journal is now an eight-column paper of either six or eight pages, with a most complete mechanical equipment. It has a duplicate power plant consisting of two boilers, two steam engines, thus ensuring against stoppage from a break- down of either. It has two of R. Hoe & Company's most modern presses, one capable of printing four, six, eight or twelve- page papers, while the other can produce papers of four, six, eight, twelve or sixteen pages, at speeds varying from 48,000 to 12,000 copies per hour. It has a complete stereotyping plant ; a new equipment of Mergenthaler Linotype setting and casting machines ; its own telegraph wire direct into its editorial room : pneumatic tubes for the transmission of letters and manu- scripts between all departments of its business; an art or engrav- ing department, and every modern convenience of a first-class The New Building as it Appeared in 1875. paper. Its type-setting is done chiefly by the agency of Mer- genthaler Linotype machines for all plain matter, while a large force is required to get up by hand the advertisements that crowd its pages. It may be noted here, that in 1880 the tenants who occupied the two middle floors of the Journal building were all turned ont, and the space occupied by its ever-extending business. In 1884 The Evening Journal Association sold out its job printing business, which had assumed large proportions. to The Jersey City Printing Company, which occupied a large part of The Evening Journal building till 1892, when it, also, was obliged to give up the larger part of the space it occupied, and erect a building of its own. Even this did not satisfy the demand, and another story had to be added to the Journal building. What further additions will be needed to give the requisite accommodations to its numerous departments, the future alone will show.
Conspicuously a local paper, the Journal is taken and read in nearly all the respectable families of Jersey City and the county of Hudson. The course it has always pursned of giving the city and county news accurately and with completeness has, doubtless, secured for The Evening Journal much of its great popularity and wide circulation. It is relied upon by the general public as the medium for disseminating all news of special local interest.
At the time of its establishment the Journal had as competitors with itself for the patron- age of the public of Jersey City two old established papers; yet, in less than a year front the
date of its first issue it had secured a regular daily circulation greater than that of both its rivals combined, and its growth has since then been so steady and assured that it has been, and still is, practically without any competitor in journalism in Hudson County.
It is almost needless to say that such a phenomenal success could only have been achieved by the most harmonious and energetic co-operation of its pro- prietors, who have, each in their own sphere, had sole control, consulting, of course, when important questions made such a course desirable. The managgre- ment of the business and mechanical The Journal's First Perfecting Press, departments of the paper has been in the hands of Mr. Joseph A. Dear, while the editorial control of the paper has been exercised by Maj. Pangborn, who has always taken especial care
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1224 1
ADVERTISING MEDIST
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THE EVENING JOURNAL BUILDING AS ENLARGED IN 1801.
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HISTORY OF JERSEY CITY.
to secure the aid of a full, competent and well-paid corps of assistant editors and reporters. The proprietors of the Journal have never limited the expenditure of either money or labor in their efforts to make it a first-class and deservedly popular daily newspaper and a valuable medium for advertising: the result is an ample and gratifying vin- dication of the energy and liberality of their conduct of the enterprise.
PUBLICATION OFFICE, 37 MONTGOMERY STREET.
Politically, The Evening Journal is, and ever has been, the prononneed and vigorous advocate of re- publican principles and the general policy of the re- publican party. It has sup- ported and advocated the election of the national and state candidates of that party ; but it has always been noted for its inde- pendence of party dictation and its free and fearless criticisms of what it deemed to be errors and mistakes of its own party organization or its leaders. It has always been distinguished for its advocacy of progressive action within its own party, and foremost and uncompromising in urging whatever its editor deemed to be in the line vi a truly consistent and progressive republican action. It was the pioneer in New Jersey of the movement for conferring upon the colored citizens of the State the right of suffrage. The first number of the paper issued, May 2, 186 ;. contained the call written by the editor for the first State convention held for the purpose of demanding equal civil and political rights for the colored citizens of the State. In matters of city politics and local elections The Even- ing Journal has frequent- ly waived considerations of national and State poli- tics, and aided in the elec- tion of municipal officers without regard to their political affiliations. Iz has always given its mos: energetic support to all efforts to reform the ad- ministration of the city government of Jersey City. It has been the ad- vocate, and frequently the pioneer. in more- ments the purpose of which was to secure needed public improve- ments in the city and county. The Evening
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REPORTER> KINIM.
Journal is never neutral
or without opinions on any subject of public importance of interest, and its editorial utterances are always of an explicit and positive character. I: never caters for popular favor by finder-
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HISTORY OF JERSEY CITY.
ing to the wishes or schemes of the baser elements of the community. It is known and
MAJ. Z. K. PANGBORN.
recognized as the uncompromising foe of whatever it deems to be a sham or unjust, fraudulent or immoral, and as the earnest advocate of whatever it believes will bene- fit the community in which it is published.
In pursuance of the original plan of its founder, and of his associates in its pub- lication, to make The Evening Journal a newspaper of special interest and valne as a disseminator of news of a local character, the reportorial corps of the paper has al- ways been ample, and it is the aim of the editors and reporters to make the Journal a complete and accurate chronicle, each day, of all current local events.
The Journal is supplied with its daily telegraphic news and reports by the United Press Association by an independent wire of its own, operated in the editorial dc- partment. The number of persons em- ployed in the preparation and publication of The Evening Journal is at present over eighty.
THE MEN WHO MAKE "THE JOURNAL."* The public is always more or less inter-
ested in the personnel of the corps of men who have achieved a successful experi- ment like that of starting, establishing and maintaining an institution like The Evening Journal. The following brief sketches are therefore appended, and while the portraits of the founders and managers of The Even- ing Journal are given in order that the roll may be complete, they are happy to be able to add those of their co-laborers in the various departments, that they may, partly as a matter of justice to gentlemen whose faithful and intelligent service de- mands recognition, and partly as a matter of pride, be able to show what a handsome and intelligent looking corps they have had the happiness to be associated with.
Z. K. Pangborn was born at Peacham, Caledonia County, Vermont, July 31, 1829 His parents were of the descendants of the early settlers of Vermont and of the old Revolutionary stock. His father was a physician and surgeon. Mr. Pangborn received his early education in the schools of Vermont and Northern New York, and entered the University of Vermont in 1846; JOSEPH A. DEAR. graduated 1850. Was principal of the acad- emies at Johnson, Lamoille County, and St. Albans, Franklin County, Vermont, until 1854.
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* Prepared by Joseph A. Dear.
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16
THE CITY STAFF OF THE EVENING JOURNAL.
I. C. H. Benson.
6. Louis H. Vultce.
7. Fred. Hoar.
8. Geo. M. McCarthy.
". Chas. M Gillicuddy.
IS. Hugh H. Mara.
. Julius S. Grunuw.
TO. W'm. M Wilshere.
TI. G. Fred. Ege.
12. John P. McCormick
. Alex. McLean.
3- Eva Williams
M+h Joseph A. Dear. Jr.
13. Joho Dingwall.
14 Geo. D. Bushfield.
16. Joseph C. Young.
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HISTORY OF JERSEY CITY.
He edited and published the first educational magazine ever issued in Vermont, called The Teacher's Voice, and was also editor of the Vermont weekly Tribune at St. Albans. He removed to Massachusetts, and was editor of The Worcester Daily Transcript, and subsequently of the Boston Daily Atlas business for himself. Later he turned his attention to news- paper work, of which he had a short ex- perience on the Hud- dersfield Examiner. and Bee, until 1861. Entered the volun- teer service in April of that year, with the rank of major, with the duties of pay- master, and served Always identified with the anti-slavery sentiment, and ar- dently sympathizing . until 1865. He as- suined the editorship of the Jersey City Times, and in 1867 established The Even- ing Journal, of which he has been the editor up to the present time.
Mr. Joseph A. Dear, the business manager of The Evening Jour- nal, was born May 11, 1840, in the village of Easton Magna, Lei- cestershire, England. He served some years at the dry goods business, when, health failing, he started in
FREDERIC W. PANGBORN.
with the cause of the Union and freedom, he came to this coun- try in March, 1864. After a short stay in Boston he came to New York about the end of April, where he shortly afterwards connected himself with the New York Tribune as shorthand writer and reporter. In December he left the Tribune and took a position as short- hand writer at Nor-
Cr
SAMUEL HAGUE, SR.
WALTER DEAR.
folk, in the Army of the James, which position he held until July, 1866, when the necessity for work of that nature no longer existed. Going West he accepted a position on the editorial staff of the Chicago Republican, which he left in the spring of 1867, coming to Jersey City at
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HISTORY OF JERSEY CITY.
the invitation of Mr. I. W. England, for many years the city editor of the Tribune, then editor of the Jersey City Times. Three months later Mr. Dear succeeded Mr. England as editor
Composing Room. Type Set by Hand before Introduction of Type-setting Machines.
of the Jersey City Times, which position he occupied until September, 1868, and soon after joined The Evening Journal, with which he has been con- nected ever since.
Since 1882 Mr. Frederic WV. Pangborn has been the first assistant, or managing editor ; Mr. C. H. Benson. city editor. Mr. Alexander McLean is the associate editor, and has been for many years the Journal's " special man " and legis- lative correspondent at Trenton.
The present corps con- sists of Joseph A. Dear, Jr., assistant city editor ; Miss Eva H. Williams, fashion
and society's column editress. Reporters-Julius S. Grunow, Louis H. Vultee, Frederick A. Hoar, John Dingwall,* Joseph Young, Geo. W. McCarthy, Geo. D. Bushfield, Wm.
S. Wilshire, Frederick Ege, Hugh Mara, John P. McCormack, Charles McGillicuddy, George A. Shaw and Harry L. Pangborn.
The two gentlemen whose portraits are annexed, though they can hardly be said to have a hand in making the Journal, are yet so well known to all its patrons who have any transactions with the business office that we herewith present their like- nesses.
Mr. Samuel Hague, Sr., has been con- nected with the Journal ever since 1870, and is now the trusted cashier and book- keeper of The Evening Journal Associa- tion and The Jersey City Printing Com- pany.
Mr. Walter Dear joined the Journal in 1869, and as advertising solicitor of the paper has, perhaps, a larger acquaintance with the business men of Jersey City than any other person in the city.
MECHANICAL DEPARTMENTS OF THE "JOURNAL." "And the carth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the waters." The record of creation thus de- Linotype Department of The Evening Journal Composing Room clares the mutual dependence of mind and matter. Without the directing, vivifying and informing mind, the matter is without form, void, and in the darkness of chaos. Without matter, the mind has no medium for expression.
* Died February 17th, 1895.
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HISTORY OF JERSEY CITY.
Hence, the exalted beings who live and move amid the calm and serene air of editorial rooms (generally in the garret) are helpless in this wicked world without the aid of the less preten- tious handicraftsmen who, working amid smoke, dirt and noise, present to the waiting world their soar- ing conceptions, caught and imprisoned in ehar- acters of darkest hue on the fair pages of the daily paper. Taking this view of things, the type-setter, stereotyper, the printer, and even the ragged news- boy, are evidently as im- portant, because absolute- 3 ly necessary factors in the production of the daily newspaper, as the edi- torial writers who, very properly, claim prece- dence of them all.
When the startling news Advertising and Making-up Department of The Evening Journal Composing Room. item, or the fervid edi- torial leaves the "sanctum" in which it has been elaborated, and even possibly cut to pieces in the process of revision, it first comes in contact with the dull mechanical world of everyday work in the composing room. Cut into convenient takes, it is handed out by the assistant foreman to the compositors, whose duty it is to set it in cold type. In some offices this is done exclusively by hand, but in that of The Evening Journal the type-setting of what is known as "plain matter" has for some time been performed only on the wonderful Mergenthaler Linotype Setting and Casting Machines, of which the Journal has a full supply. The general appearance of this department of its composing room is finely shown in the engraving.
The type is set on the linotype machine, at which the compositor, by means of a key-board similar to that of a type-writer, as- sembles a number of mat- rices which are duly ar- ranged in lines, and by a beautiful contrivanee auto- matically spaced, and are then presented to the mouth of a mould through which a body of hot type metal is forced. This forms the slug or line of type- which is then ejected. Im- mediately after the mat- rices are lifted away from the mould, caught by a kind of hooked rack at the Stereotyping Room of The Evening Journal. end of a lever, lifted to the top of the machine, and thence moved along between three screws, each at the proper instant dropping into its own particular magazine, from which it had originally emerged at the touch of the compositor on
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HISTORY OF JERSEY CITY.
the key-board. All these operations are automatically performed, and, though so apparently complex, are done at a great speed, which enables one man with a machine to do the work of five hand compositors.
The slugs or lines of type are arranged in galleys and taken to the make-up depart- ment, where the foreman places them in their appropriate positions in the "forms " which correspond to the different pages of the paper. Here also come the advertisements, which have still to be set by hand. The force em- ployed in this department and the proof- reading department is shown in the accom- panying illustration, of which the veteran foreman, Philip Lynch, is the central Sgure.
The 3-page wide Web Press; or.mrs , and >-page papers. 24.000 "per boer. 3 and ni-page papers. man per Doer.
The forms, when locked up. go to the stereotyping department, where they are arst placed upon the long table seen about the middle of the room delineated by the sketch. There the
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Double Rotary Pratica Press of The Event; en = 100000
stereotyping matrix is placed on the face of the type. These matrices con- sist of a special kind of paper pasted together, the face covered with three or four sheets of finest tissue paper pasted together. which is placed with the tissue downward on the face of the type. The form. with the matrix and a heavy soft blanket on the top of it, is then run under a cylinder, and passed backward and forward under the cylinder, which subjects them to a very heavy pressure. The faces of the type are thus im- pressed on the matrix, and then the matrix and form
are rapidly pushed to the other end of the table and put under a screw-press, steam heat being applied through the hollow table on which they res :. The matrix is thus dried on the form, the
time occupied being about five minutes, when it is removed. and shows a flexible, stiff piece of cardboard, in which every letter in the form of type reap- pears. This matrix is then placed in a curved box into which a convex cover fts che sely. but leaving space between itand the matrix for the hot metal, .1 large ladieful of which is poured into the space thus left, and thus is cast the stereotype plate. By the use of special machines, this plate is cut to size, planed our inside so as to leave it of the exact and even thickness required. then placed on a revolving cylinder, where any high space of pieces of the type which are likely
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HISTORY OF JERSEY CITY.
to show in the printing are carefully chipped ont. Two plates of each page are required, which are completed in about eleven minutes from the time the form first appears in this department.
The plates are then put on the elevator and conveyed to the pressroom in the base- ment. Arrived at the bottom, they find the pressman, Mr. Jas. White, and his associates waiting for them; they are then rapidly transferred to and locked up on the presses, which are then set in motion, and the Journal turned out at the rate of 24,000 . copies per hour. Of these wonder- ful machines The Evening Journal possesses two, side views of which are given.
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By the time the cylinders of the presses have begun to whir, a crowd of newsboys has assembled in the front basement, of whom we give The Newspaper Delivery Room ; Newsboys Receiving their " Journals." a photograph as satisfactory as unfavorable conditions of light and position make possible. The well-known cry of "Ere's the Jyurnel" needs no description.
THE JERSEY CITY PRINTING COMPANY .*
The printer of to-day is the product of a process of evolution that, creeping for centuries since the days of Guttenberg with slow and precarious steps, has in these later days of steam and electricity developed with lightning speed. No longer besmeared with ink in a dingy gar- ret or filthy cellar does he with huge pain and trouble print, perhaps, one or two hundred pages daily; he is a manufacturer and capitalist, and turns them out by the hundred thousand in pala- tial structures built for the purpose, with a huge plant requiring the investment of a fortune. Suppose you wanted to issue a pamphlet. and your order was a large one, running up into the hundred thousands or millions, you would first inquire about places that had facilities to do your work quickly. cheaply and well. You would go to the office of the printer. It would not be a dingy basement, but a large, well-lighted. well-furnished business place, without a sign of printing ink or dirt. There, having discussed the size, weight and quality of the paper and the style of cover and bind- ing, the manuscript would be examined. the kind of type selected, an estimate of the cost made, and the time and manner of delivery agreed upon. Of course this RELICS OF EARLY STRUGGLES could all be arranged withont a personal The Gordon job press and type cabinet from which has developed the visit to the printer, and in many cases it is mammoth printing plant of The Jersey City Printing Co.
arranged by correspondence, a plan which has advantages in saving time and having all agreements in writing. After the printer accepts the job the manuscript gets a number, and through all subsequent stages its identity is merged
* Prepared by Joseph A. Dear.
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HISTORY OF JERSEY CITY.
in that number. It is sent to the foreman of the composing room and prepared for "copy." It is cut in slips, rearranged and pasted into "takes," covered with hieroglyphics and given out to the compositors who are to set it. The " takes " posed" in a are such quantities as form pages or convenient masses of type for handling. Each page is set and placed in a peculiar tray known to printers as a galley. From this form of 8, 16 or 32 pages, and a proof taken of the whole. This a proof is printed to facilitate the correction of possible errors. After the corrections are made the pages are locked in iron frames, called "chases," each containing is carefully ex- amined by the foreman of the composing room and if there are no errors in the colloca- tion of the pages or the text of the read- ing matter, the type is dis- tributed and the "form" or ' forms " sent to the foreman of the press rooms. He assigns them to a press and sees that they are properly adjusted, and that the ink and paper is according to order. The next process is the "make ready," which consists in properly adjusting the impression to be given to the "form " to be printed, and level- ling up the latter to the impression. On the
two or three pages. These forms are sent to the foundry de- partment, and there electrotype plates are made from them. These plates, when mounted on The Book Composition Room of The Jersey City Printing Co. blocks, are "im- skill with which this is done depends entirely the appearance of the printed work, and it requires from two to twelve hours for each form, according to the quality of work required. When all is ready, the belt is thrown on, the sheets piled on the feed-board of the press are "fed," that is, brought down to the guides by the feeder, are there seized by the grippers of the revolving cylinder, carried by its revolution between the surface of the cylinder and the "form " on the bed beneath, and heavily impressed on the latter, which has already received a coat of ink from the form inking rollers under which it has been reciprocated backward and forward. The bed and cylinder move in exact syn- chronism, and the grippers of the latter, still retaining their hold on the edge of the sheet, pull it off the " form," to which the ink would tend to make it stick, and keep their grip until the proper moment, when they release their hold. The sheet is taken from the A Corner in the Job Composition Room of The Jersey City Printing C'o. cylinder by strippers and is run onto a wooden delivery frame, known as a" fly." and automatically deposited by it in piles at the back of the press. The printed pages on the sheet resemble a loud plaid, the pages being dark squares surrounded by broad white lines. Large piles soon form in front of the press, and after being left a sufficient time for the ink to thoroughly dry, these printed sheets are taken to the bindery.
THE JERSEY CITY PRINTING COMPANY
THE JERSEY CITY PRINTING COMPANY'S BUILDING, 68 and 70 YORK STREET
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HISTORY OF JERSEY CITY.
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One Side of Press Room No. 3 ot The Jersey City Printing Co.
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