USA > New York > New York City > History of New York City : embracing an outline sketch of events from 1609 to 1830, and a full account of its development from 1830 to 1884, Volume I > Part 30
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marvellous increase of labor and expenditure in the field of journalism in New York City, and proportionably of its products, since that time -the lapse of less than fifty years-is conspicuously illustrated by the following statement, made by the able editor and successful publisher of the New York Sun newspaper, Charles A. Dana. The Sun, be it remembered, is the pioneer of the cheap press, and at the time the Herald was started had a daily circulation of 6000 copies. This state- ment was made in April, 1853, in response to the inquiry, " What does it cost to run a first-class New York newspaper ?"
" A first-rate newspaper in New York will require about ten edi- torial writers, whose daily duty it is to furnish leading articles and editorial paragraphs. Many of these writers have their special duties, but there must always be five or six men who are able to turn their hands to subjects of any description as they happen to come up. A competent writer of leaders will be paid from 8100 to $150 per week, and no man fit to supervise them and perform the functions of editor- in-chief can be had for less than from $150 to $200 per week. The reporters are of two classes-first, those of the regular staff, who are paid by the week at rates varying from 820 to $60. These perform not only the routine duties of reporting, but are always prepared to be sent off upon special service, in which case their railroad fares, carriage hire, hotel bills, and other expenses are paid by the office.
" Then there are a number of reporters attached to each paper who are paid according to the work they perform, without having any pre- scribed functions, and who must hold themselves in readiness to do whatever may be necessary. Some of these gentlemen are men of talent and learning, and in time will make their way into the front rank as writers and editors. I know men who, without having regular salaries, average from 850 to 875 a week. Of these two classes of reporters, taken together, a first-rate paper must employ about fifty. Next there are the correspondents, both at home and abroad, and these are likewise divided into two classes, those who are employed on regular salaries and those who are paid as their contributions are printed. In Washington, for instance, each newspaper has need both of regular correspondents or reporters and of occasional contributors, and the different papers differ as to the respective numbers of these two classes. In' Albany each New York paper must have its regular staff devoted to its service, while in the other capitals of such States as New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Ohio, and Massachusetts, the papers are served by occa- sional correspondents, since the news of these more distant places is, for the most part, not important enough in New York to be constantly
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reported there. In Europe also, every leading paper has its regular list of correspondents in the chief cities. There must especially be a corre- spondent in London and one in Paris who report constantly either by post or by cable.
" In the Sunday edition of most of the prominent papers of New York City there is always a cable despatch summing up the news of the week and reporting interesting political, social, artistic, or literary events on which the reporters of the Associated Press, whose telegrams are forwarded every day, do not ordinarily dwell. Thus the expenses of the sort of papers we are considering vary for the most part mainly according as they print large or small editions, their chief difference being in their consumption of white paper. Of this the Herald uses more than any other journal. On Sunday especially its advertising sheets are many, and on that day it will sometimes print 130 columns of advertisements alone, so that the amount of white paper it uses is enormous.
"But apart from this item, the expenses of one of these papers for the editorial department, including writers, reporters, and correspond- ents, will be from $4000 to $5000 per week, and its ordinary telegraph bills, including the cost of special cables from Europe, will average perhaps from 8700 to $1000 a week ; its composition bills will vary from $1000 to $2000 ; its publication department will cost from $1000 to $2000 ; its stereotyping will be perhaps $500, and its miscellaneous expenses from $1000 to $2000, making a total of from 89000 to $12,000 a week. Of course these figures will be a little less in dull times, when there is little telegraphing and no occasion for special expenditures, than when there is a great public excitement, such as a presidential canvass or a great public catastrophe, when it is necessary to send many men out and spend a great deal of money in obtaining news ; but the gen- eral average will be about what I have stated."
Of the fifteen daily newspapers printed in New York on the first of May, 1835, or less than fifty years ago, one only (the Sun) had a daily circulation of 6000. All the others were far below 5000, and one was not more than 500. " It was estimated," says Hudson, "that the average daily circulation of the 'sixpenny sheets' was 1700 only." * New York at that time contained a population of 270,000.
The New York Weekly Mirror was the only true representative of the literature and art of the city of New York at the beginning of this decade. It was founded in 1822 by Samuel Woodworth, a printer and
" Journalism in the United States from 1690 to 1872," by Frederic Hudson, p. 431.
*
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poet, and George P. Morris, a young poet twenty-two years of age. It very soon took a high position as a generous patron of literature and art, and attracted to its columns the choicest contributions from authors, artists, and musicians, as has been observed in a former chap- ter. It held this lofty position for twenty years. It was a literary institution of the country. In 1842 it was suspended, but was revived the next year. At an early period in its history Woodworth with- drew, and N. P. Willis took his place.
The Family Magazine was begun in the city of . New York in 1834. and flourished for eight years. It was always a paying enterprise, but not largely so. It was the first illustrated magazine published in this country. Its engravings were all done on wood, and it was an imitator of the London Penny Magazine.
This periodical was established by the Rev. Origen Bacheler, who was better known as a book canvasser than as a preacher. Ho edited and published the work, canvassing for subscribers to it, and receiving one dollar and fifty cents for one year, payable in advance, for each subscriber. It being a novelty, he soon obtained a respectable list of subscribers.
Finally, its circulation did not increase, and having no capital, Bacheler turned the publication over to Justus S. Redfield, the stereo- typer of the work, who was his principal creditor. Mr. Redfield assumed its publication and Bacheler edited it until his death, which occurred soon after this change.
Dr. A. S. Doane succeeded Bachelor as editor, and conducted the magazine for several years, until appointed health officer at Quarantine, when he was succeeded, temporarily, by Thomas Allen, afterward the editor of the Madisonian at Washington, and who more recently ranked among the railway magnates of the country. In 1840 Ben- son J. Lossing became the editor of the magazine, and executed the engravings for it. It was discontinued at the close of the eighth volume.
It was early in this decade that the two most extensive publishing houses in the city of New York in 1883 began to take an important position in the realm of literature. These are the houses of Harper & Brothers and Daniel Appleton & Company. The former takes prec- edence in point of time, that of Harper & Brothers beginning business in the city of New York in 1817, and Daniel Appleton & Company in 1825. The former was established by James and John Harper, sons of a Long Island farmer. Both had been apprentices to different persons in New York to learn the art of printing.
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Henry Bergh
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When the brothers had reached manhood they joined interests and began business for themselves by setting up a small, book and job print- ing office in Dover Street, in New York, not far from the great estab- lishment of Harper & Brothers at the present time. It was an auspi- vious time for them, as with the return of prosperity after the war of 1812-15 there was a great demand for books. Evart A. Duyckinek was then a prosperous bookseller in New York, and he employed " J. & J. Harper" to print the first book that was issued from their press. In August, 1817, they delivered to him two thousand copies of a translation of Seneca's " Morals," which they had " composed " and printed with their own hands. In the winter of 181S they resolved to print a book on their own account. They first ascertained from lead- ing booksellers how many copies each one would purchase from them in sheets. In April they issued five hundred copies of a reprint of Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding," with the imprint of J. & J. Harper.
Joseph Wesley and Fletcher, two younger brothers, who had learned the printer's trade with James and John, became partners with the elder ones, the former in 1823 and the latter in 1826. Then was organized the firm of " Harper & Brothers," which continued forty- three years without interruption, when the senior partner of the house was suddenly separated from it by death. The brothers had estab- lished themselves in Cliff Street, and when the youngest entered the firm. they were employing fifty persons and ten hand-presses. This was then the largest printing establishment in New York.
At the end of nine years after J. & J. Harper began business they purchased the building on Cliff Street in which they were established. They began to stereotype their works in 1530, and led the way to the production of cheap books and the creation of a new army of readers. They continually enlarged their business, purchasing building after building on Cliff Street, and had erected a fine structure on Franklin Square, connecting with those on Cliff Street (altogether nine in num- ber), when, at midday on December 9, 1853, the whole establishment was laid in ashes, the fire occurring from an unfortunate mistake of a plumber at work in the building. Their total loss was very heavy, but very soon the present magnificent structures arose out of the ruins. These consist of an immense building of iron on Franklin Square, five stories in height, with cellar and subcellar, and another on Cliff Street. in. the rear of the Franklin Square edifice, built of brick and six stories in height, with a basement used for press-work. These buildings are connected by iron bridges at each story, which terminate at an iron
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spiral staircase in a round tower in the centre of the court between the two main structures.
Harper & Brothers' establishment is thoroughly equipped with im- proved machinery and materials of every kind for carrying on the pub- lishing business, from setting up the type from manuscript copy and stereotyping to the finishing of the complete book for the reader. About one thousand persons-men and women, girls and boys-are employed in the establishment. Besides their immense issue of bound books and large pamphlets, under the title of the " Franklin Square Library," they publish four illustrated periodicals. In 1550 they began the publication of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, which has ever since held the position of a leader among the periodical literature of the day. It has now attained a circulation in this country and in England of nearly 200,000 copies a month. Harper's Weekly, an illus- trated paper, was begun in January, 1857 ; Harper's Bazar, a beauti- fully illustrated repository of knowledge, of current fashions, and gen- eral literature, was begun late in 1867, and Harper's Young People, an illustrated weekly paper of smaller dimensions for the class men- tioned in its title, was begun in November, 1880.
To supply these periodicals with illustrations they have an art depart- ment, composed of draughtsmen and many engravers, and much art work is done outside.
The four brothers-James, John, Joseph Wesley, and Fletcher- have passed from among the living, and the great establishment, con- stantly increasing in the bulk and prosperity of business, is conducted by five sons and one grandson of the founders of the house, with great ability and success. To give an idea of the magnitude of the business of the great publishing house it may be stated that the white paper used in their business costs over 82000 a day for every working day in the year. The four brothers were born at Newtown, L. I. James was born on the 13th of April, 1795, and died on the 27th of March, 1869. He was at one time mayor of the city of New York. John was born on the 22d of January, 1797, and died on the 22d of April, 1875. Joseph Wesley was born on the 25th of December, 1801. and died February 14, 1870. Fletcher was born on the 31st of January. 1806, and died on the 29th of May, 1877.
The publishing house of Daniel Appleton & Company was founded in 1825. The founder, Daniel Appleton, whose name is still retained in the firm, was a native of Haverhill. Massachusetts, and was born December 10, 1755. There he began his business life as a retail mer- chant. Afterward he was a dealer in dry goods in Boston, and in 1825
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he went to New York for the purpose of engaging in the book trade. He opened a store in Exchange Place, then a fashionable section of the business of the city, and in the vicinity of elegant private residences. Hle dealt chiefly in foreign books, and catered to the best literary taste of the day.
The brother-in-law of Mr. Appleton, Jonathan Leavitt, a skilful bookbinder, joined him in business under terms of a partnership limited to five years. The store and bindery were subsequently removed to Broadway, corner of John Street, where the bookselling department was placed in the hands of Mr. Appleton's son, William HI. Appleton. the present head of the house. On the expiration of the partnership of Appleton & Leavitt, in 1830, Mr. Appleton withdrew and established himself as a bookseller in Clinton Hall. on Beekman Street, between Nassau Street and Theatre Alley.
Mr. Appleton had been very successful in his undertakings, and now he determined to venture upon the career of a publisher. The first book bearing his imprint was a small volume of Bible texts, entitled, "Crumbs from the Master's Table : or Select Sentences, Doctrinal, Practical, and Experimental," by W. Mason. It was only three inches square and half an inch thick, and contained only 192 pages. It gave the firm great anxiety, but about one thousand copies were sold. The "Crumbs" was followed by two other small religious books, the last one in 1832, the year when the city of New York and other places were dreadfully ravaged by the cholera. The book was entitled, " A Refuge in Time of Plague and Pestilence." It was published at an auspicious moment, for the public mistook it for a treatise on cholera, and it had an enormous sale.
Mr. Appleton did not venture largely into the publishing business for a long time. English and German books sold readily, and he made the importation and sale of them a specialty. In 1835 W. II. Appleton, then twenty-one years of age, was sent to England and Germany to look after importing interests there, and soon afterward a London branch of the house was established, and has been continued ever since.
In 1838 William HI. Appleton became the business partner of his father. The store was then removed to No. 200 Broadway. Ten years later the founder of the house retired from business, and died in New York a few months afterward. That event occurred on March 27, 1849. He had expressed a desire that his name might be connected with the house as long as possible, for he had a clear perception of its future growth, and he was proud of the prosperous establishment which he had founded. His son promised him that no note or check of the
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firm should ever be signed, while he lived, without the full name, Daniel Appleton & Company. That promise has been sacredly kept.
Mr. Appleton was a conspicuously honorable and honest man, and despised mean things. He was sometimes reticent and often a little brusque in his intercourse with men, but he possessed a kind and genial nature, true courtesy, and many fine personal qualities, which endeared him to his family and friends.
After Mr. Appleton's death the house was reorganized with William H. Appleton at the head, and his brothers John A. and Daniel Sidney associated with him as partners. The business of the establishment increased rapidly. They imported books, they published books, and they sold books with ever-increasing expansion of their business. Their list of publications soon included all the standard works of American and foreign authors.
With the northward extension of the city the house of Daniel Appleton & Company has gradually moved up town until, after five removals after leaving No. 200 Broadway, it now seems permanently located in a spacious building, six stories in height, at Nos. 1, 3, and 3 Bond Street, near Broadway. Of this building the Appletons occupy two floors and two basements. The retail business of the house was abandoned when they took possession of the present premises in 1880.
In 1865 George S. Appleton, a brother of the other members of the firm, came into the partnership. His exquisite taste and deep interest in art caused the house to undertake beautifully illustrated books, which soon became a marked feature of their publications. He died in 1878. In July, 1881, another brother and member of the firm, John A. Appleton, departed this life. Of him it might be truthfully said, in the beautiful words of Halleck :
"None knew him but to love him. None named him but to praise."
The members of the firm now (1883) are W. H. Appleton, Daniel S. Appleton, William W. Appleton (son of W. H. Appleton), and Daniel, son of the late John A. Appleton.
The publications of the Appletons now embrace the whole range of human knowledge. from the small text-book and railway guide to the most elaborate and abstruse philosophical treatise. Some of their pub- lications are superb specimens of art. The most costly publications are undertaken without hesitation, caution and enterprise going hand in hand in their mode of conducting business. Their ventures, as a rule. have been successful.
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in order to give an idea of the extent of the business of this estab- lishment it may be stated that the cost of the white paper alone required for their use averages fully $1000 for each working day in the Year.
Let us now turn to a consideration of some of the most important current events in the city of New York during the first decade.
CHAPTER XV.
T THE long-suppressed discontent of the people of France under the rule of their Bourbon king, Charles X., finally led to a short, sharp, and decisive revolution that overturned a dynasty forever. The people had observed with uneasiness the gradual abridgment of their liberties, and the silent but sure growth of absolutism fostered by the monarch. He was not only disposed to be tyrannical, but was faith- less. His promises were made with an evident intention to violate them. In March, 1830, the king made a threatening speech to the representatives of the people. In July he signed an ordinance to put an end to the freedom of the press, and dissolved a recently elected Chamber of Deputies. These acts unloosed the pent-up tempest of popular indignation. The people of Paris flew to arms and drove the monarch from his throne, and Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, was seated in his place.
This revolution, so speedily and so effectually accomplished, enlisted the sympathies of all lovers of freedom. It especially stirred the feel- ings of the American people, for it was the fruit of their own acts in the past and in the present. Nor could that sympathy be confined to mere emotions and words : it finally culminated in a grand public demonstration in the city of New York in the autumn of 1830.
A meeting was held at the Westchester House, on October 5th, 1830, at which the following resolution was passed :
"Resolved, That this meeting cannot but express their admiration and esteem for the brave and magnanimous daring of their brother mechanics and workingmen of Paris, who, rising in their strength, regardless of consequences to themselves, nobly burst asunder the chains which an ignorant and bigoted aristocracy had forged to subvert the rights and liberties of France."
These workingmen had come together for the avowed purpose of taking into consideration the " propriety of celebrating the late glori- ous revolution in France. " After adopting the above resolution, they appointed a committee composed of one from each ward to " prepare an address and a call for a public meeting, for the purpose of congratu-
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iating the ' glorious Parisian populace' on the happy result of their noble devotion and sacrifices to the cause of the liberties of mankind."
At a meeting held on November 8 it was resolved to divest the affair of all party feeling. and the committee was increased by the addition of the names of about two hundred and sixty of the most prominent citizens. This new list of committeemen was headed by the mayor, Walter Bowne, and followed by such well-known men as General Lamb, Gulian C. Verplanck, M. M. Noah, George D. Strong, John Haggerty, General Morton, Gideon J. Tucker, Campbell P. White, Francis B. Cutting, C. C. Cambreling, ex-President James Monroe, John I. Mumford, George P. Morris, Isaac Webb, Clarkson (rolius, Henry Hone, Albert Gallatin,* S. L. Gouverneur, Thomas II. Leggett, Charles O'Conor, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Alfred S. Pell, James Watson Webb, Samuel Swartwout, Philip Hone, Henry Eck- ford, Richard Riker, Jacob Lorillard, Commodore Chauncey, Gideon Lee, Colonel Trumbull, Rembrandt Peale, Judge T. J. Oakley, Clarkson Crolius, Jr., Stephen Van Rensselaer. Morgan Lewis, Comfort Sands, Governor Yates, Colonel Varick, Charles King, and others. These men all accepted the position and joined heartily in the celebration and in preparations for it.
It was resolved to hold the celebration on November 25, the anni- versary of the evacuation of New York by the British. A meeting was called at Tammany Hall on the 12th, at which ex-President
* Albert Gallatin, LL.D., was a native of Switzerland, born in Geneva in January, 1761, and left an orphan at an early age. He graduated at the University of Geneva in 1779. Like Lafayette, he sympathized with the Americans, sailed for Boston in 1780, offered his services to the Americans, and was placed in command of the fort at Passama- quoddy. At the conclusion of peace he became a tutor of French in Harvard College. Receiving his patrimony in 1784, he invested it in lands in Virginia and Pennyslvania, settled on the banks of the Monongahela, and engaged in agriculture. In 1789 he was a member of the constitutional convention of Pennsylvania, and of the State Legislature in 1790-92. He took part in the Whiskey Insurrection in 1794, and assisted in the set- tlement of the difficulty. From 1795 to 1801 he was a member of Congress. In the latter year President Jefferson called him to his cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury, which office he filled with great ability until 1813, when he was sent on a mission to St. Peters- burg. He was one of the American commissioners who negotiated a treaty of peace at Ghent in 1814. Gallatin was United States minister at the French court from 1815 till 1823, and went on special missions elsewhere. Returning to America, he made New York City his future residence, and died there in August, 1849. There he devoted him- self to literature and philosophical and historical studies. He became much interested in the study of the philology and ethnology of the North American Indians, and was the founder and first president of the American Ethnologieal Society. In 1813 Mr. Gallatin was chosen president of the New York Historical Society, and hell that position until his death. Mr. Gallatin was one of the ablest financiers of his time.
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Monroe presided, assisted by Thomas Hertell, Mayor Bowne, and Albert Gallatin as vice-presidents, and Daniel Jackson and M. M. Noah secretaries. The great hall was packed with men. The venerable President was in feeble health (he died a few months afterward), but presided with dignity, and made a patriotic speech on the occasion, dwelling largely upon the character of Lafayette, who had been so conspicuous in the Revolution in America, and had borne such an im- portant part in the revolution they were about to celebrate.
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