Cheap newspapers manufactured in the US since the 1830s
This article is about 19th-century newspapers. For the magazine publishing company formerly known by this name, see Penny Publications. For the Cleveland newspaper, see Cleveland Press. For pressed pennies, see Elongated coin.
Penny press newspapers were cheap, tabloid-style newspapers mass-produced in the United States from the 1830s onwards. Mass production of inexpensive newspapers became possible following the shift from hand-crafted to steam-powered printing.[1] Famous for costing one cent (equivalent to $0.33in 2022) while other newspapers cost around six cents, penny press papers were revolutionary in making the news accessible to middle class citizens for a reasonable price.
Lynde M. Walter's Boston Transcript on July 24, 1830
Well known examples
The Sun, The NY Herald
Special Characteristics
Sold for one cent, which made it available to all classes
Social Impact
As a less politically influenced newspaper, it published a wider range of opinions
Selling Point
Simple vocabulary and diction meant easy comprehension by lower-class and less educated readers.
As the East Coast's middle and working classes grew, so did their desire for news. Penny papers emerged as a cheap source of news with coverage of crime, tragedy, adventure, and gossip. The penny papers represented the crudest form of journalism because of the sensational gossip that was reported.[2]
The penny press was most noted for its price – only one cent per paper – while other contemporary newspapers were priced around six cents per issue. The exceptionally low price popularized the newspaper in America and extended the influence of the newspaper media to the poorer classes. The penny press made the news and journalism more important and also caused newspapers to begin to pay more attention to the public they served. Editors realized that the information that interested the upper class did not necessarily interest the penny-paying public. These new newspaper readers enjoyed the information about police and criminal cases. The main revenue for the penny press was advertising while other newspapers relied heavily on high-priced subscriptions to finance their activities.[3]
The idea of a penny paper was not new in the 1830s. By 1826, many editors were experimenting with sports news, gossip, and cheap press.[4]
Most newspapers in the early nineteenth century cost six cents and were distributed through subscriptions. On July 24, 1830, the first penny press newspaper came to the market: Lynde M. Walter's Boston Transcript. Unlike most later penny papers, Walter's Transcript maintained what was considered good taste, featuring coverage of literature and the theater. This paper sold for four dollars a year.[4]
The penny paper's largest inspiration came from Charles Knight's The Penny Magazine (1832–1845). The main purpose of this magazine was to educate and improve England's poor, but it was also very popular with Americans. It became a very successful magazine as it attained a circulation of more than 20,000 within a year.[4]
Frederic Hudson, one of the first to write about the history of American journalism, believed the rise of the penny press to be a key factor in the development of the modern newspaper. Hudson considered newspapers to be dull during the 1840s.[4]
The penny press arrived in New York on January 1, 1833, when Horatio David Shepard teamed up with Horace Greeley and Francis W. Story and issued the Morning Post. Although both Greeley and Story went on to fame and fortune in the New York press world, the concept of bringing out a penny paper belonged exclusively to Shepard. He made a habit of taking daily walks through the teeming streets of the Bowery, where he observed merchants selling small items for a penny apiece. Other papers of the time were selling for six cents which allowed for a wider spread of people to read the Penny Press so they could afford it. He also took note of the fact that sales were brisk.[5]
Benjamin H. Day, founder of the first penny press in the USA
Benjamin Day took the lead in profoundly transforming the daily newspaper. The newspaper went from narrowly focusing on the wealthy, with sparse distribution, to a broad-based news medium. These changes were seen mostly in New York City, Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other East Coast cities.[6] Day introduced The Sun, which appealed to a wide audience, using a simpler, more direct style, vivid language, and human interest stories.[7] Day was a New Englander who worked for the Springfield, Massachusetts paper, the Republican. He came to New York to be a compositor, but in the depression of 1833 he started The Sun out of desperation. Day reasoned that a penny paper would be popular in hard times as many could not afford a six-cent paper. He also believed that a substantial, untapped market existed in the immigrant community. His paper was an instant success. Its motto, printed at the top of every page, was "The object of this paper is to lay before the public, at a price within the means of every one, all the news of the day, and at the same time offer an advantageous medium for advertisements."[8] Day made advances in written news by introducing a new meaning of sensationalism, which was defined as 'reliance on human-interest stories. He placed emphasis on the common person as he or she was reflected in the political, educational, and social life of the day. Day also introduced a new way of selling papers by putting into practice the London Plan. This plan included newsboys hawking their newspapers on the streets.[4]
The success of the penny papers was not automatic; selling the new concept of the newspaper to this new audience involved some persuasion. Consumers did not want to buy a new newspaper every day, and it was a challenge to convince them of the benefits of doing so. Most newspapers at the time did not have any sort of timeliness, so buying a newspaper daily seemed pointless to readers. But, eventually, people became interested in reading the latest news which the penny papers strove to provide.[6]
The Sun, Benjamin Day's paper
James Gordon Bennett's 1835 founding of the New York Herald added another dimension to penny press newspapers, now common in journalistic practice. Whereas newspapers had generally relied on documents as sources, Bennett introduced the practices of observation and interviewing to provide stories with more vivid details.[9] Bennett is known for redefining the concept of news, reorganizing the news business, and introducing newspaper competition. Bennett's New York Herald was financially independent of politicians or political organizations and clubs thanks to a large number of advertisers. Bennett reported mainly local news and instances of corruption and strove for accuracy. He realized that "there was more journalistic money to be made in recording gossip that interested bar-rooms, work-shops, racecourses, and tenement houses, than in consulting the tastes of drawing rooms and libraries." He is also known for writing a "money page", which was included in the Herald, and also for his coverage of women in the news. His innovations sparked imitation as he spared nothing to get the news first.[4]
Copying the idea of the northern newspapers, in 1837, Francis Lumsden and George Wilkins Kendall established The Picayune in New Orleans. The paper's initial price was one picayune, a Spanish coin equivalent to 6¼¢ (half a bit, or one-sixteenth of a dollar).[10] Under Eliza Jane Nicholson, who inherited the struggling paper when her husband died in 1876, the Picayune introduced innovations such as society reporting (known as the "Society Bee" columns), children's pages, and the first women's advice column, which was written by Dorothy Dix. Between 1880 and 1890, the paper more than tripled its circulation.[11]
Horace Greeley, publisher of 1841's The New York Tribune, also had an extremely successful penny paper. He was involved with the first penny paper in America, Boston's Morning Post, which was a failure. Instead of sensational stories, Greeley relied on rationalism in the Tribune. His editorial pages were the heart of his paper and the reason for its large influence. Greeley is also known for using his newspaper as a platform to promote the Whig and the later Republican Parties. [4]
Quite possibly the most famous penny press paper was started in 1851 by two men: George Jones (publisher) and Henry Raymond. This paper was originally named The New York Daily Times, but was later changed to The New York Times in 1857.[12] Originally sold at one cent per paper, it became famous for incorporating journalistic standards that are common today, as well as having very high-quality reporting and writing. The first issue of the New York Daily Times addressed the various speculations about its purpose and positions that preceded its release. It stated:
We shall be Conservative, in all cases where we think Conservatism essential to the public good;—and we shall be Radical in everything which may seem to us to require radical treatment and radical reform. We do not believe that everything in Society is either exactly right or exactly wrong;—what is good we desire to preserve and improve;—what is evil, to exterminate, or reform.[13]
Political and demographic changes were also significant. Much of the success of the newspaper in the early United States owed itself to the attitude of the Founding Fathers toward the press. Many of them saw a free press as one of the most essential elements in maintaining the liberty and social equality of citizens. Thomas Jefferson said he considered a free press as even more important than the government itself: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate any moment to prefer the latter." It was because of his attitude that freedom of the press gained mention in the First Amendment to the Constitution, and though early politicians, including Jefferson, occasionally made attempts to rein in the press, newspapers flourished in the new nation
However, the penny press was originally apolitical both in content and in attitude. As Michael Schudson describes in Discovering the News, the Sun once replaced their congressional news section with this statement: "The proceedings of Congress thus far, would not interest our readers."[14] The major social-political changes brought on by the development of the penny press were themselves helped by the penny press' focus on working-class people and their interests. Thus an apolitical attitude was, ironically, a political factor influencing the advancement of the penny press.
The founders of the penny press popularized both low prices for newspapers and newspaper economics based on sales instead of political party backing. Benjamin Day created The Sun without any political party backing. This was rare because this was an era where political parties sponsored newspapers. On the other hand, Horace Greeley used his newspaper, the New-York Tribune, as a platform for Whig politics.[15]
Approach to reporting
In the early 1800s, newspapers were largely for the elite and took two forms – mercantile sheets that were intended for the business community and contained ship schedules, wholesale product prices, advertisements and some stale foreign news, and political newspapers that were controlled by political parties or their editors as a means of sharing their views with elite stakeholders. Journalists reported the party line and editorialized in favor of party positions.[16][pageneeded] The emergence of the penny press greatly influenced communication technologies by covering news outside those of government interests. The first penny paper, the Sun, was founded in New York in September 1833. After that time, newspapers became nonpartisan since they were not supported by political parties.[17][pageneeded] Penny papers hired reporters and correspondents to seek out and write the news, while at the same time, started to sound more journalistic than editorial. Reporters were assigned to beats and were involved in the conduct of local interaction.[18] The penny press contributed to changes in newspaper content and structure. New journalism practices resulted in the development of concepts such as news reporting, emphasizing the importance of timeliness, and appealing to wider audiences.[19] These newspapers, though not completely uninfluenced by political parties and their views, were self-funded and not party-funded. This allowed them to shift allegiance on political issues that the papers dealt with quite easily, which also aided in their success and acceptance by the general public.
Since these newspapers were not politically funded, the core interests of the journalists themselves were obviously quite different from competing newspaper agencies that had heavy political influence. The largest portion of demand was from immigrants, traditional middle-class citizens, and nascent literate classes; journalists kept articles concise and engaging with real-life topics readers could relate to, and did so with less sophisticated vocabulary so readers would not require higher education to understand the articles.[citation needed] The penny press formula is the combination of sensational news with mass market appeal, large-scale industrial production, and economies of scale used in combination with neutrality and objectivity to create a paper that gets its point across without taking sides.[20] Also, journalist-incorporated advertisements treated readers as consumers instead of another market for demand,[18] in an effort to establish a relationship between paper and reader that was less about work and the economy and more about relaxation and reading for pleasure and relaxation.
Some reporters used the electric telegraph to share information.
The penny press newspapers became more widely read because journalists made the effort to keep their content understandable to less educated audiences. They also focused on investigating topics with more factual-based information rather than opinion-based articles, which gave the paper a less biased form of news than the elite newspapers, which were often published by those with special interests. News items and stories were also shorter than those found in elite papers. It was also believed that the working-class audiences would not have enough free time to read longer editorials, hence the shorter and more concise editorials.[21]Human interest stories were also popular with the penny press audiences. Such items took up more space compared to earlier, more expensive papers that used human interest stories more as filler content.[22] The New York penny papers were particularly known for publishing stories about interesting personalities and covering different aspects of the human condition. To connect with the urban, mostly working-class readership, New York reporters wrote about ordinary people and their experiences.[19] They also wrote about the stock market, entertainers, politics, sports, and weather, all of which became important news and are still considered absolute necessities in a newspaper, thanks to the penny press.[23] Reporters strove to deliver news in a timely manner and sometimes relied on the electric telegraph to gather and share information.[24] Penny press journalists were the first people to report on crises and crime news, something that has become a staple in newspapers since. Continuing reports on the same story were introduced in penny press papers and were read by thousands of people on the same day. This, in combination with the speed of news delivery and thoroughness in the coverage of local news, forever changed the direction of American journalism.[23]
Yellow journalism and yellow press are American terms for journalism and associated newspapers that present little or no legitimate, well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism. By extension, the term yellow journalism is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion.
The history of British newspapers begins in the 17th century with the emergence of regular publications covering news and gossip. The relaxation of government censorship in the late 17th century led to a rise in publications, which in turn led to an increase in regulation throughout the 18th century. The Times began publication in 1785 and became the leading newspaper of the early 19th century, before the lifting of taxes on newspapers and technological innovations led to a boom in newspaper publishing in the late 19th century. Mass education and increasing affluence led to new papers such as the Daily Mail emerging at the end of the 19th century, aimed at lower middle-class readers.
The news media or news industry are forms of mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public. These include news agencies, newspapers, news magazines, news channels etc.
The New-York Tribune was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker New-York Daily Tribune from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s through the 1860s it was the dominant newspaper first of the American Whig Party, then of the Republican Party. The paper achieved a circulation of approximately 200,000 in the 1850s, making it the largest daily paper in New York City at the time. The Tribune's editorials were widely read, shared, and copied in other city newspapers, helping to shape national opinion. It was one of the first papers in the North to send reporters, correspondents, and illustrators to cover the campaigns of the American Civil War. It continued as an independent daily newspaper until 1924, when it merged with the New York Herald. The resulting New York Herald Tribune remained in publication until 1966.
The New York Herald Tribune was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed with The New York Times in the daily morning market. The paper won twelve Pulitzer Prizes during its lifetime.
The Sun was a New York newspaper published from 1833 until 1950. It was considered a serious paper, like the city's two more successful broadsheets, The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. The Sun was the first successful penny daily newspaper in the United States, and was for a time, the most successful newspaper in America.
The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate is an American newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ancestral publications of other names date back to January 25, 1837. The current publication is the result of the 2019 acquisition of The Times-Picayune, which was the result of the 1914 union of The Picayune with the Times-Democrat, by the New Orleans edition of The Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Printed media in the Soviet Union, i.e., newspapers, magazines and journals, were under strict control of the CPSU and the Soviet state. The desire to disseminate propaganda was believed to had been the driving force behind the creation of the early Soviet newspapers. Newspapers were the essential means of communicating with the public, which meant that they were the most powerful way available to spread propaganda and capture the hearts of the population. Additionally, within the Soviet Union the press evolved into the messenger for the orders from the CPSU Central Committee to the party officials and activists. Due to this important role, the Soviet papers were both prestigious in the society and an effective means to control the masses; however, manipulation initially was not the only purpose of the Soviet Press.
The history of American newspapers begins in the early 18th century with the publication of the first colonial newspapers. American newspapers began as modest affairs—a sideline for printers. They became a political force in the campaign for American independence. Following independence the first amendment to U.S. Constitution guaranteed freedom of the press. The Postal Service Act of 1792 provided substantial subsidies: Newspapers were delivered up to 100 miles for a penny and beyond for 1.5 cents, when first class postage ranged from six cents to a quarter.
The history of journalism spans the growth of technology and trade, marked by the advent of specialized techniques for gathering and disseminating information on a regular basis that has caused, as one history of journalism surmises, the steady increase of "the scope of news available to us and the speed with which it is transmitted. Before the printing press was invented, word of mouth was the primary source of news. Returning merchants, sailors, travelers brought news back to the mainland, and this was then picked up by pedlars and traveling players and spread from town to town. Ancient scribes often wrote this information down. This transmission of news was highly unreliable and died out with the invention of the printing press. Newspapers have always been the primary medium of journalists since the 18th century, radio and television in the 20th century, and the Internet in the 21st century.
The modern newspaper is a European invention. The oldest direct handwritten news sheets circulated widely in Venice as early as 1566. These weekly news sheets were full of information on wars and politics in Italy and Europe. The first printed newspapers were published weekly in Germany from 1605. Typically, they were censored by the government, especially in France, and reported mostly foreign news and current prices. After the English government relaxed censorship in 1695, newspapers flourished in London and a few other cities including Boston and Philadelphia. By the 1830s, high-speed presses could print thousands of papers cheaply, allowing low daily costs.
Journalism in the United States began humbly and became a political force in the campaign for American independence. Following independence, the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteed freedom of the press and freedom of speech. The American press grew rapidly following the American Revolution. The press became a key support element to the country's political parties, but also for organized religious institutions.
In journalism, the society page of a newspaper is largely or entirely devoted to the social and cultural events and gossip of the location covered. Other features that frequently appear on the society page are a calendar of charity events and pictures of locally, nationally and internationally famous people. Society pages expanded to become women's page sections.
News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called "hard news" to differentiate it from soft media.
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports, art, and science. They often include materials such as opinion columns, weather forecasts, reviews of local services, obituaries, birth notices, crosswords, editorial cartoons, comic strips, and advice columns.
The i is a British national newspaper published in London by Daily Mail and General Trust and distributed across the United Kingdom. It is aimed at "readers and lapsed readers" of all ages and commuters with limited time, and was originally launched in 2010 as a sister paper to The Independent. It was later acquired by Johnston Press in 2016 after The Independent shifted to a digital-only model. The i came under the control of JPIMedia a day after Johnston Press filed for administration on 16 November 2018. The paper and its website were bought by the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) on 29 November 2019, for £49.6 million. On 6 December 2019 the Competition and Markets Authority served an initial enforcement order on DMGT and DMG Media Limited, requiring the paper to be run separately pending investigation.
Newspapers have played a major role in French politics, economy and society since the 17th century.
Horatio Davis Sheppard was an American physician who in 1833 founded the first penny press newspaper in the United States, the New York Morning Post.
Mass media and American politics covers the role of newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and social media from the colonial era to the present.
The history of journalism in the United Kingdom includes the gathering and transmitting of news, spans the growth of technology and trade, marked by the advent of specialised techniques for gathering and disseminating information on a regular basis. In the analysis of historians, it involves the steady increase of the scope of news available to us and the speed with which it is transmitted.
References
↑ B. Kovarik. Revolutions in Communication: Media History from Gutenberg to the Digital Age. (The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011, ISBN978-1-4411-9495-4), p. 48.
↑ Barbara Friedman."The Penny Press: The Origins of the Modern News Media, 1833–1861. " Rev. of: title_of_work_reviewed_in_italics, clarifying_information. Journalism History 31.1 (2005): 56–56. Research Library Core, ProQuest. Web. 27 Oct. 2009.
↑ "The Penny Press". A Brief History of Newspapers in America. Retrieved April 22, 2014.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Fellow, R. Anthony, America Media History. (California State University, Fullerton) Ed. Rebeckah Matthews and Megan Garvey. 2005. p. 85–109.
↑ David R. Spencer, The Yellow Journalism: The Press and America's Emergence as a World Power (Northwestern University Press, 2007, ISBN0-8101-2331-2), p. 24.
1 2 Donald K Brazeal. "Precursor to Modern Media Hype: The 1830s Penny Press". The Journal of American Culture 28.4 (2005): 405–414. Research Library Core, ProQuest. Web. 27 Oct. 2009.
↑ Bird, S. Elizabeth. For Enquiring Minds: A Cultural Study of Supermarket Tabloids. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992: 12–17.
↑ Francke, Warren T. "Sensationalism and the Development of Reporting in the Nineteenth Century: The Broom Sweeps Sensory Details." Paper presented at Conference on Sensationalism and the Media (Ann Arbor, Mich.), 1986.
↑ Musson, A. E. (1958) Newspaper Printing in the Industrial Revolution, The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol 10(3), p. 412.
External links
Media related to Penny papers at Wikimedia Commons
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