Penny press

“ The success of the Penny Magazine was a surprise to the publisher and an astonishment to most persons. At the end of 1832 it had reached a sale of 200,000 in weekly numbers and monthly parts, and it soon produced a revolution in popular art throughout the world. Stereotype casts of its best cuts were supplied for the illustration of publications of a similar character which appeared in Germany, France, Holland, Livonia, Bohemia, Italy, Ionian Islands, Sweden, Norway, Spanish America, and the Brazils. ”

“ Penny began to stammer.
“You thought that because I gave up my own paper I might not wish to see the building used by another?”
“Something like that,” admitted Penny.
“I try not to think about the past,” said Mr. Judson quietly. “Long ago I made my decision, and now must abide by it. I realize that I never can publish the Press again. I’m broken, beaten!”
The old man spoke with such bitterness that Penny glanced quickly at him. There was an expression in his dark eyes which startled her.
“Surely one can’t be defeated as long as he’s willing to fight,” she ventured. ”

“ Possibly The Sun of New York was the first to use news boys in this way. Almost at the start that paper contained a notice :
TO THE UNEMPLOYED. A number of steady men can find em- ployment by vending this paper. A liberal discount is allowed to those who buy to sell again.
For the first time journalism was brought directly to the people. By making the daily papers easy to buy, the penny press brought something of a revolution into American journalism. ”

“ The Herald, feeble as it was, managed to survive financial diseases concomitant with newspaper infancy, and at the beginning of 1847 it appeared with a new dress as The Morning Herald and The Evening Herald. An editorial spoke as follows about the penny press in Boston: "The competition of the penny press has caused a mental activity among all classes; rash and impul- sive it may be, but, nevertheless, far preferable to the dignified stagnation which, in times of yore, was seldom broken by the larger and more expensive journals." ”

“ It shall not be said of his humble efforts to continue, upon an equality with the best of his contemporaries, a publication which once had a decided pre-eminence, that
“Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage.”
He leaves this portion of popular literature to be cultivated by those whose new energy may be worth more than his old experience. The Penny Magazine shall begin and end with him. It shall not pass into other hands.’
Mr. Knight attributed the falling off in the sale of the Penny Magazine to the extended sale of newspapers and the application of wood-engravings to their illustration ”

“ The Journal of Commerce also built a semaphore telegraph at Sandy Hook by means of which it relayed news from its news-boat to Staten Island where items were promptly taken to its New York office. In this way the paper was able to be first in maritime news for some little time. Whenever important items arrived it got out extra editions in order that it might be first on the streets. Aroused by the enterprise of the penny press, the conservative blanket sheets called "our bed-quilt contemporaries" by the penny papers were not always beaten in the publishing of notable news. ”

“ Subscribers received their papers by carriers, and tran- sient purchasers had to go to the counters of newspaper offices. The penny press, however, did not wait to enroll annual sub- scribers, but tried to market its merchandise daily through boys. The pages of the early penny papers fairly bristled with advertisements of "Boys Wanted." The first issue of The Public Ledger in Philadelphia contained a small advertisement to this effect :
50 MEN AND BOYS can make it an advantageous business to circulate this paper. ”

“ The advent of the penny press concluded the transition period in American journalism, and had three effects which are easily traceable. It increased the circulation, decreased the price of daily newspapers, and changed the character of the reading-matter published.
As Charles H. Levermore wrote in an article on the rise of metropolitan journalism in the American Historical Review:
Independent journalism, as represented first by the Sun and the Herald, won a complete victory over old-fashioned partizan journalism. ”

“ Passing the stereotyping department, the girls entered the press room where slumbered ten giant double-decked rotary presses. Lying on the roller of one was a torn strip of newspaper, the last issue of the Morning Press ever printed.
“It gives one a queer feeling to see all this,” said Louise. “Why do you suppose Judson closed the plant when it was prosperous?”
[41]
“No one seems to know the answer,” Penny replied, stooping to peer into an empty ink pot. “But it doesn’t seem possible a man would give up his business, throw so many persons out of work, without a good reason.” ”

“ Naturally, politicians bitterly opposed this new press, and did what they could to prevent it from feeding at the political crib of State and National advertising. Nevertheless, the new journalism, opposed to politics and independent in spirit, continued to thrive. It was said that in ten years it did more good by exposure of municipal scandals than the older press had done in twenty. In the birth of the penny newspaper may be found the beginning of the independent press in America. ”

“ Let us suppose that the education of the people had gone on uninterruptedly in the schools of mutual instruction, and that the mechanical means for supplying the demand for knowledge thus created had sustained no improvement. If the demand for knowledge had led to the establishment of the 'Penny Magazine' before the improvement of printing, it is probable that the sale of twenty thousand copies would have been considered the utmost that could have been calculated upon. One thousand perfect copies could only have been daily produced at one press by the labour of two men. ”

“ The Illustrated London News had been announced for publication on the Saturday of the week in which I saw the wretched foreigners standing at the bar. I knew something about hurrying on wood-engravers 281 for the Penny Magazine, but a newspaper was an essentially different affair. How, I thought, could artists and journalists so work concurrently that the news and the appropriate illustrations should both be fresh? ”

“ Mr. Parker sat down on the arm of the davenport. “It’s too bad about Judson,” he remarked. “I always admired him because he was a clever newspaper man.”
“Clever? Didn’t he mis-manage the paper so that it had to close?”
“Not that anyone ever learned. No, I never could figure out why Judson quit. The Press had a large circulation and plenty of advertisers.”
“What became of the building?”
“It’s still there.”
“No, I mean who owns it,” Penny explained. “Not Mr. Judson?”
“The building was taken over a few months ago by a man named George Veeley. Come to think of it, I once brought him home with me. ”

“ A SOCIETY BAZAAR
“You see, Penny,” said Mr. Parker sympathetically, “wealthy people have a way of being inaccessible to the press. They surround themselves with servants who have been trained to allow no invasion of their privacy. They erect barriers which aren’t easily broken down.”
“If only I could have reached Miss Kippenberg I feel sure she would have wished to learn about the ring,” returned Penny. “Oh, well, let Jerry cover the story. ”

“ In the old Press building?”
“You took the words out of my mouth, Dad. Everything is there, awaiting the touch of my magic wand.”
“There’s a little matter of rent. Several thousand a month.”
“I have a solution for that problem.”
“Your staff?”
“I’ll gather it as I prosper.”
“The necessary capital?”
“A mere detail,” said Penny grandly. “I meet only one obstacle at a time. Tomorrow I shall accost Mr. Veeley with an attractive proposition. If he falls into my net, Riverview’s newest paper, The Weekly Times, makes its bow to the public.” ”

“ Penny was tempted to tell Horney about the clipping, but refrained from doing so. However, she was satisfied that employes of the Morning Press had gained no inkling of Mr. Judson’s prison record.
The picnic was well under way by the time Penny and the pressman arrived at the river cottage. A caterer had taken complete charge, and with his crew of helpers, prepared to serve nearly two hundred boisterous, hungry newspaper employes.
Always a favorite, Penny immediately was surrounded by a group of friends. ”

“ Weems!”
Leaving an exhausted housekeeper behind, the girl made a quick trip to the downtown newspaper office.
As she reached the building, newsboys were on the streets crying the first edition, just off the press.
Upstairs, in the newsroom, reporters were relaxing at their desks, taking a few minutes’ “breather” between editions.
Swinging through the entrance gate, Penny created a slight stir. At one of the desks under a neon light, Jerry Livingston, pencil behind one ear and hair slightly rumpled, tapped aimlessly at the keys of a typewriter. ”

“ Compared with the vast outlay, 'The Penny Cyclopædia' was set at too low a price for the probable demand. The class of buyers for instruction was not large enough to carry off 40,000 copies, which would have yielded adequate profit. The very word "Penny" was then repulsive, and implied something low, as apprehended by the rich vulgar. Moreover, the book occupied eleven years in its issue, and its sale fell from 50,000 at the beginning to less than 20,000 in the end. No work that occupied more than four or five years in its completion was ever successful in this country. ”

“ The dignity of man should be elevated, his affections purified, and his pursuits ennobled by the mighty influence of the press. Editors should live as ministers to the welfare of humanity. The aspiring character of our people and their thirst for knowledge will long make a heavy demand on the talent and taste of those who wield the editor's pen. ”

“ It was the most successful experiment that England had then seen of the art of illustration in combination with the steam press, and was the best attempt that had been made in a cheap form to elevate the public taste.
Mr. Charles Knight, who thus, in the Penny Magazine, led the way in combining literature with art in a popular form, was a staunch advocate of education, and he never ceased in his endeavours to improve the condition of the 277
278 masses. He said, ‘the poor man must be made a thinking man—a man capable of intellectual pleasures ”

“ Could this unequalled instrument of knowledge be kept efficiently at work, while every petty printer of every parish was ready to make a venture for a thousand penny subscribers to his Argus or his Luminary, without incurring any of the prodigious cost of a London daily morning paper? If the time should come when the land should be filled with penny newspapers, {296} it would be the same with newspapers as it is now with the weekly unstamped sheets. Quantity, not quality, would be the criterion of excellence. The lower grade of literary labourers would be multiplied tenfold. ”

“ Knight, who had been its editor from the commencement, in 1832, thus writes in his concluding 'Address to the Reader,' after stating that there then were published 14 three-halfpenny and penny miscellanies, and 37 weekly sheets, forming separate books:—"It {280} is from this competition that the 'Penny Magazine' now withdraws itself. Its editor most earnestly wishes success to those who are keeping on their course with honesty and ability.... He rejoices that there are many in the field, and some who have come at the eleventh hour, who deserve the wages of zealous and faithful labourers. ”

“ It was the forerunner of 'Punch,' and of 'The Illustrated London News.' A great art-critic of 1836 proclaimed, with oracular solemnity, "As there is no royal road to mathematics, so we say, once for all, there is no Penny Magazine road to the Fine Arts—the cultivation of the Fine Arts must be carried on by a comparatively small and gifted few, under the patronage of men of wealth and leisure." ”

“ At the Methodist Book Concern, New York, they pay to press feeders the usual price, $4 per week. It requires about six months to become a good press feeder. When work is scarce, they retain all their hands, if possible, but work a less number of hours, and pay in proportion. At a blank-book manufactory I was told their girls are paid $6 a week for feeding. Their girls think they make poor wages when they earn but ten cents an hour. Some embossers, in Boston, who employ thirty women in binding and press feeding, write: "They pay both by the week and by the piece. ”

“ Most profit arising to dentists is from making and inserting artificial teeth. It is a lucrative business, when properly understood, and one which affords constant employment.
12. Editresses. The most powerful instrument for disseminating general knowledge in the United States is the newspaper press. It does a great deal for promoting a love of letters; and the cheapness of the papers is such as to render them accessible to almost every one. The literature of the day penetrates the most remote corner of our country. Obscure, indeed, is the place that knows not the printer's power. ”

“ The part of the system which in my judgment is most worthy of study is that to which its founder gave the name of “Voluntary Labour.” So highly did he himself think of it that he always reckoned it among the three inventions on which he might chiefly pride himself. The other two were his Printing Press and his Penny Postage. In an extract that I have given from his Journal, [52] this device is partly explained. In [117] “Public Education” it is described at length: there we read:—
“The favourite subjects seem to be working the printing-press ”