In contrasting the world’s nineteenth century literature with that of the eighteenth, one is impressed with the many remarkable differences. But by no means all of such differences are to the discredit of the older literature. As instances, the prose literature of the nineteenth century may not surpass that of the eighteenth in elegance and accuracy of expression, though its progress has been very marked in the diversity of its applications to mental needs; and the poetical literature of the nineteenth century may not excel that of the eighteenth in beauty and virility, though it has advanced in loftiness of theme and tenderness of mode. And so, when literature is divided into its many minor branches, as history, philosophy, the sciences, etc., various features of the old compare favorably with the new.

It is in its general tone and universal aptitude that the literature of the nineteenth century stands out preëminent. The wonderful intellectual activity of the century has been, as it were, compelled to go forth along literary lines quite parallel with those that distinguish other fields of activity. This may have had a tendency in some instances to rob the century’s literature of some of the sweetly imaginative elements, and to harden it in some of its essential forms, but the process was necessary to secure for it just that quality which would best meet a progressive demand. As the drift of human energy was toward the practical, so the dominant literary thought took on the form of direct and exact expression. There was less and less room for the indulgence of literary foible or speculative whimsicality. Even where elegance of style met with occasional sacrifice, it was more than compensated by that general rise in literary tone which has characterized the century. Literature could not be untruthful amid active inquiry and scientific progress. It must reflect, more accurately than ever before, its birth inspirations and its legitimate uses. It must keep even pace with the demands for it. A world crying for intellectual bread could not be put off with an antiquated stone.

Without closer analysis, the above is true of the literature of all reading and writing peoples who have kept touch with the century’s progress. But it is especially true in the literature of English speaking peoples. History has, in accordance with a growing spirit of research, become more truthful, philosophy more expressive, and science more exact. The outcrop of books shows the yearnings of the century, not only as to their number but as to theme and treatment. Authors have multiplied as during no other world’s era, and the proportion of those who have attained permanent distinction was never larger.

“German literature,” says Professor Ford, in “Self Culture” for February, 1899, “has had its measure of ups and downs, but its first age was its golden age. From the beginning of the century to the present day is a far cry in German letters. Romanticism, idealism, realism—the Fatherland has lived through them all. And for what? In a land of scholars no great philosopher; among hosts of verse-makers no great poet; among innumerable story-writers, not one who has become known over a continent.

“Still these last years in Germany have not been without some good work done, though often achieved under the spur of wrong ideals and improper motives. From the days of ’48, when Young Germany felt for the first time the seductive charm of revolutionism, a new feeling has possessed German literature—a feeling that the past is past and out of date, potent once but potent no longer, and that the new age of man demands new principles, new ideals, a new faith. And so the modern literature, particularly so since 1870, has been marked by iconoclasm and startling innovation; it has discarded sentiment and line writing, and made a plea for scientific methods, with the privilege of exhibiting exact, scientific results. Crimes, disease, and grinning skeletons have been dragged forth to the public gaze, for art is no longer art that portrays the ideal and not the true. Such, in short, is the creed by which the realistic or naturalistic school has thought to overthrow the old, conventional, and frivolous, to foster the spirit of the new nationality, and prepare a balm for the wounds of the poor.

“Two men stand to-day as leaders of this new movement,—Hermann Sudermann and Gerhardt Hauptmann,—the most commanding figures in contemporaneous German literature.”

During the nineteenth century the United States took a high and firm place in the domain of literature, and, it may be said, has evolved a literature that in scope and style is peculiar to her institutions and environment. Her array of authors, both in number and reputation, compares favorably with that of countries boasting of a thousand years of literary domination, and her literature is as diversified and practical as her activities. Among the many illustrious historians of the century she numbers her Bancroft, her Hildreth, her Prescott, her Motley, worthy counterparts of England’s Lingard, Hallam, Macaulay, Buckle, and Kinglake. Among her poets are Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Lowell, Halleck, fit companions of Tennyson, Browning, Wordsworth, Scott, Swinburne. Among her novelists are Cooper, Hawthorne, Stowe, worthy congeners of Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot. And so, the comparison holds in travel, philosophy, theology, law, and science.

If in dramatic literature the United States has, during the century, produced few authors of permanent reputation, and perhaps none to be compared with Knowles, Boucicault, Taylor, and Robertson, of the Old World, nevertheless it cannot be said of these that their plays have had more than a stage value. The drama of the century in following the demand for artistic and commercial results has sustained only in part the reputation of its literature. But in lieu of this partial decadence, there have sprung up new branches of literature which are, in a measure, compensatory. Among these are the critical literature of arts and design, the literature of philology, or of language, and the literature of political and social science. To these must be added two other kinds or classes of literature which, if not peculiar to the century, have yet found in it their most surprising evolution, greatest glory, and widest influence. These are the literature of the newspaper and magazine, as distinguished from that of the book.

But before making further mention of these, let us read somewhat of New World literature as viewed from a critical English standpoint. Says the critic, “English critics are apt to bear down on the writers and thinkers of the New World with a sort of aristocratic hauteur; they are perpetually reminding them of their immaturity and their disregard of the golden mean. Americans, on the other hand, are hard to please. Ordinary men among them are as sensitive to foreign censure as the irritable genius of other lands. Mr. Emerson is permitted to impress home truths on his countrymen, as ‘Your American eagle is very well; but beware of the American peacock.’ Such remarks are not permitted to Englishmen. If they point to any flaws in transatlantic manners or ways of thinking with an effort after politeness, it is ‘the good-natured cynicism of well-to-do age;’ if they commend transatlantic institutions or achievements, it is, according to Mr. Lowell, ‘with that pleasant European air of self-compliment in condescending to be pleased by American merit which we find so conciliating.’

“Now that the United States have reached their full majority, it is time that England should cease to assume the attitude of guardian, and time that they should be on the alert to resent the assumption. Foremost among the more attractive features of transatlantic [American] literature is its freshness. The authority which is the guide of old nations constantly threatens to become tyrannical; they wear their traditions like a chain; and, in canonization of laws of taste, the creative laws are depressed. Even in England we write under fixed conditions; with the fear of critics before our eyes, we are all bound to cast our ideas into similar moulds, and the name of ‘free thinker’ has grown to a term of reproach. Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ is perhaps the last English book written without a thought of being reviewed. There is a gain in the habit of self-restraint fostered by this state of things; but there is a loss in the consequent lack of spontaneity; and we may learn something from a literature that is ever ready for adventures. In America the love of uniformity gives place to impetuous impulses; the most extreme sentiments are made audible, the most noxious ‘have their day and cease to be;’ and the truth being left to vindicate itself, the overthrow of error, though more gradual, may at last prove more complete. A New England poet can write with confidence of his country as the land

“Another feature of American literature is comprehensiveness. What it has lost in depth it has gained in breadth. Addressing a vast audience, it appeals to universal sympathies. In the Northern States, where comparatively few have leisure to write well, almost every man, woman, and child can read, and does read. Books are to be found in every log-hut, and public questions are discussed by every scavenger. During the Civil War, when the Lowell factory-girls were writing verses, the ‘Biglow Papers’ were being recited in every smithy. The consequence is, that, setting aside the newspapers, there is little that is sectional in the popular religion or literature; it exalts and despises no class, and almost wholly ignores the lines that in other countries divide the upper ten thousand and the lower ten million. Where manners make men, the people are proud of their peerage, but they blush for their boors. In the New World there are no ‘Grand Seigniors’ and no human vegetables; and if there are fewer giants, there are also fewer manikins. American poets recognize no essential distinction between the ‘village blacksmith’ and the ‘caste of Vere de Vere.’ Burns speaks for the one; Byron and Tennyson for the other; Longfellow, to the extent of his genius, for both. The same spirit which glorifies labor denounces every form of despotism but that of the multitude. Freed of the excesses due to wide license, and restrained by the good taste and culture of her nobler minds, we may anticipate for the literature of America, under the mellowing influences of time, an illustrious future.”

In treating of newspaper literature, one cannot proceed without blending its origin, style and aims with the business enterprise that cultivates and supports it. And this may be done all the more cheerfully and properly, for the reason that there is no history more interesting than that of the evolution of the newspaper, and no consummation of mental and physical energy that places the nineteenth century in more vivid contrast with preceding centuries.

For the fatherhood of the newspaper we have to travel to a land and date calculated to rob modern civilization of some of its boastfulness. The oldest known newspaper is the “Tsing-Pao,” or “Peking News,” mention of whose publication is made in Chinese annals as far back as A. D. 713, when it was then, as now, the official chronicler of the acts of the emperor, the doings of the court, and the reports of ministers. It has appeared daily for nearly fourteen hundred years, in the form of a yellow-covered magazine, some 3¾ by 7½ inches in size. The pages number twenty-four, and are printed from wooden movable type. Two editions are published, one on superior paper, for the Court and upper classes; the other on inferior paper, for general readers. Its editorship is in the Grand Council of State, which furnishes to scribes or reporters the news deemed fit for publication. As an official organ, it first finds circulation among the heads of provinces, and is by them further distributed to patrons. This ancient purveyor of news seems to have pretty fully gratified the Chinese taste for that kind of literature; for even at the present day there are few newspapers in the empire published in the native language. The few that have sprung up are confined to the larger cities, as Shanghai, Hongkong, and Peking, where they are liberally patronized. But their circulation and influence do not extend far into the interior, owing to the lack of postal facilities. The modern Chinese newspaper can hardly be called a native enterprise. It grew out of the necessity for a literature and a means of news communication which arose at the time the Chinese ports were forced open to the world’s commerce. As a consequence, a majority of the Chinese publications have found their inception in foreign brains and capital, and remain under the management of foreigners. The same is true of Japan, where the modern native newspaper practically dates from the arrival of the foreigner. But by reason of their greater mental and commercial activity, and the rapidity with which they adjusted themselves to modern modes of civilization, the Japanese have far outstripped the Chinese in their evolution of newspaper literature and enterprise. Whereas, what may be called the first modern Japanese newspaper was founded in 1872, there sprang up in the following twenty years the almost incredible number of 648 newspapers and periodicals, not only due to native capital and enterprise, but under native control. This wonderful growth took place, too, in the face of the severest code of press laws existing in any country.

In Europe, the earliest inklings of a newspaper literature consisted of news pamphlets of infrequent and uncertain publication, and dependent for circulation upon temporary demand. The earliest departure from this stage was in Germany, in 1615, when the “Frankfurter Journal” was organized as a weekly publication, for the purpose of “collecting and circulating the news of the day.” Antwerp followed with a similar enterprise in 1616. The first attempt to do likewise in Great Britain was in 1622, when “The Weekly News” was founded in London. None of these enterprises were by editors, in a modern sense, but by stationers, in the line of their ordinary trade. They did not depend for patronage on regular subscribers, but sold their publications on the streets through the agency of hawkers, corresponding to our modern newsboys, though they bore the classical name of “mercuries.”

The foundation of the first newspaper in France that attained permanence and fame was in 1631. It was called the “Gazette de France,” and owed its origin to a demand for mingled news and original discussion. It was largely under the control of Richelieu, and, of course, reflected his sentiments. In these beginnings of the newspaper, we find little or no attempt at journalism, as now understood and practiced; no promise and potency of a literature peculiar to newspaper enterprise. The journalist had yet to come into being. He first appeared as a writer of “news-letters,” generally from some capital, or seat of legislation, or commercial centre. His duty was to keep a line of masters or patrons supplied with news during their absence from court, legislative hall, or business mart. His duty evolved into a calling. His patrons became regular paying subscribers, to each of whom he wrote. These letters, coming from all countries of the continent of Europe, and covering a wide field of information, became of great interest, and many collections of them are still in existence in libraries, adding no little to their historic value.

The step was easy from this journalistic stage to the regular periodic publication, open not only to the “news-letter,” but to discursive thought. Thus, in 1641, “The Weekly News,” of London, began the publication of parliamentary proceedings in addition to its budget of “news-letters.” This era witnessed a rapid establishment of weekly newspapers, requiring editorial supervision and regular contributions. They were not without their vicissitudes. Many of their careers were brief and marked with pecuniary losses; yet out of the wreckage sprang some of the most important of the modern journals.

By 1703 Great Britain was ripe for a daily newspaper, and in that year one appeared under the name of “The Daily Courant.” The advent of this enterprise gave further impetus to newspaper publication. The English press of the eighteenth century rose into great popular favor. It was able, and quite too independent for royalty and royal courtier. For corrupt and ambitious government it often became a whip of scorpions, and in revenge was both severely taxed and invidiously censored. But it seemed to prosper amid opposition and persecution, and by 1776 fifty-three newspapers were published in London alone. During the reign of George III. (1760–1820) the history of the English newspaper is one of criminal persecutions, amid which editors and contributors were repeatedly defeated, and sometimes severely punished; yet it is doubtful if at any period the press gained greater strength from protracted conflict, or turned ignominious penalties into more signal triumphs. It is significant that out of this dark, tumultuous, and forbidding era sprang many of the newspapers whose influence is most potential to-day in English affairs of state and in the literature of journalism. The era marks the turn in newspaper values. The establishment became a concrete thing, a lively property, an energy composed of practical business minds, surrounded and supported by the best procurable literary talent, adapted for treating diversified topics. Thus “The London Morning Chronicle,” founded in 1789, rose to be a property in 1823 which sold for $210,000; while “The Morning Post” not only gave to Coleridge his fame as one of the greatest of publicists, but enlisted the brilliant attainments of Mackintosh, Southey, Young, and Moore. The sturdy “London Times,” which dates from 1785, and for years encountered malignant royal hostility, proved itself strong enough to brave the government and at the same time sufficiently enterprising to introduce steam printing and every mechanism calculated to give it precedence as a metropolitan journal. As a property, it is to-day worth a figure incredible at the beginning of the century, and so powerful was its hold on popular favor for the first half of the century that no other daily could compete with it. Indeed, it may be said to have had a lone field up to the establishment of “The Daily News,” in 1846, “The Daily Telegraph,” in 1855, and “The Standard,” in 1857.

The nineteenth century journalism of Great Britain is characterized by its great plenitude. Morning and evening papers abound in all the centres. The weekly paper is still an important literary and news factor. Class papers are numerous and excellent in their way. Again, the century’s journalism is characterized by its property value. Many of the leading English journals have become immense properties worth millions of dollars each, and requiring the ablest management to improve and perpetuate them. Further, the English press is characterized by able and conservative, if prosaic, editorial methods. Its correspondence is cautious, and covers every important field. Its news columns, so far as they depend on the telegraph and telephone, are sprightly and well filled, but limited and dull when the local reporter is the source of supply.

As already stated, the annals of French journalism began with the founding of the “Gazette de France” in 1631. The evolution of the French newspaper was not rapid till the eighteenth century was well along, when the era of the first revolution called for a news and literature peculiar to bloody and exciting times. Myriads of newspapers sprang into existence, all but two of which found their graves with the passing of the emergency which called them into being. Early in the nineteenth century (1836) the introduction of cheap journalism gave great impetus to enterprise, and by the middle of the century the number and circulation of French newspapers had more than trebled. This rate has been, in great part, sustained throughout the latter half of the century, and the French people are to-day abundantly supplied with a newspaper literature which for vivacity and amplitude is unexcelled. It may not have the solid and lasting influence of the soberer outcrop of other nations, but it is singularly adapted to a sprightly and mercurial people, and is well sustentative of the great political transition of the people and empire since the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The evolution of the newspaper in Germany was slow. Between 1615, the date of the founding of the “Frankfurter Journal,” and 1798, when the “Allgemeine Zeitung” (General News) was founded by the bookseller Cotta, at Leipsic, no journals of a high order made their appearance, and it needed the inspiration of the French Revolution to beget in the German mind a desire for a livelier newspaper literature than had preëxisted. Thus, the “Zeitung” soon sprang into great popularity as a purveyor of news and as a medium of discussion, and has ever since maintained a leading place in the German political press. It not only set the style of the press at the turn of the century, but proved to be a pioneer in that wonderful journalistic march which spread over all German-speaking countries during the nineteenth century, giving to them media of news and discussion as able and influential as exist in any land. By 1870 there existed in Germany proper 3780 newspapers and periodicals; in Austria-Hungary, 700; in Switzerland, 300; not to mention the many hundreds printed in German in other countries, especially in the United States. A proportionate increase would greatly augment the above figures by the end of the century. The rise of German socialism proved to be a prolific source of journalism. The socialist seems to be a born editor and literary combatant. He is also a great reader and bold and independent thinker. Under the socialistic demand for a literature peculiar to itself, there has arisen a score of German printing-offices and perhaps fifty political journals, a third of which are dailies.

In the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and other European countries, the press of the nineteenth century has kept pace with the mental needs and spirit of enterprise of the respective peoples. Indeed, there is no such an accurate criterion of the general make-up of a people, of their place in the lines of progress, of their influence upon civilization, as that afforded by their press. The Belgian press is nimbly commercial, that of the Netherlands prosy and substantial, while that of the Scandinavian countries is rugged, accurate, and solemnly influential. The Russian press, where free, is despotic and unprogressive. But it is so frequently under censorship that it can hardly be said to reflect with any degree of certainty the popular spirit of the empire. The Italian press is indolent and easy-going, inaccurate, spicy by spasms, of little relative influence, except as it has been improved since the unification of the Italian States. Spain is a country of 18,000,000 people, but has fewer newspapers and periodicals than the single State of New York. Of Spain’s 1200 papers, only 500 are newspapers. Of the rest, 300 are scientific journals, mostly monthly, 100 are devoted to religion, and 30 to satire, music, poetry, art, etc. Barcelona and Madrid are the great centres of journalistic literature. The political papers are the most powerful. The reading public of Spain is limited, and the average circulation of a Spanish newspaper is only about 1200 copies.

In the New World the demand for newspaper literature during the nineteenth century has proven quite as strong as in the Old World, and, in certain localities, even stronger. Even among the youthful and tumultuous republics of South America, with their large percentages of lower classes and illiterates, there are few centres of importance that do not support respectable and fairly influential journals. The news-gathering and news-consuming spirit may not be so active as elsewhere, nor the commercial sense so acute, yet the century has laid the groundwork of journalistic enterprise so firmly that future years can afford to build upon it with certainty. The same may be said of journalism in Mexico and the other Latin republics of North America.

In Canada, the century shows a highly complimentary growth in newspaper literature and influence. Great pride is taken in accurate and able editorship, and in that kind of management which is best calculated to convert investment into permanent and profitable property. What they lack on the reportorial, or strictly newsy, side, they make up in free, clean, and independent discussion. The people are readers and, therefore, generous supporters of the enterprises designed to supply them with their periodical literature. During the century the newspapers and periodicals of Canada increased in number from a very few to 862, as reported in 1894. Of these, 87 are dailies, 583 weeklies, 138 monthlies, 3 tri-weeklies, 22 semi-weeklies, 6 bi-weeklies, 21 semi-monthlies, 2 quarterlies. The largest centres of circulation are the province of Ontario with 507 newspapers and periodicals, and Quebec with 132.

The century’s grandest field for journalistic opportunity has been the United States. Here journalism has developed with the greatest rapidity, exemplified its manifold features to the fullest extent, most successfully proved its influence as an educative and civilizing agency. Starting with the great and essential encouragement of freedom, it has found unremitting and energetic propulsion in the unprecedented growth of population, in the marvelous activities requiring intercommunication of thought, in an intelligence which constantly recruited armies of omnivorous readers, and in facilities for the preparation and dissemination of the literature at command.

The beginning of newspaper enterprise in the United States was in Boston, in 1690, when the “Publick Occurrences” appeared under the auspices of Benjamin Harris. It was designed to be a monthly, and was printed on three sides of a folded sheet, each side being only eleven inches long by seven wide. It was suppressed after its first issue by the colonial government of Massachusetts, thus restricting the avenues of news to the foreign journals or local coffee-houses. But the demand for home news was not thus to be crushed. There sprang up a medium of communication by news-letters, such as then existed in England; and in 1704 the postmaster of Boston undertook to keep certain functionaries informed of the course of events by a periodical news-letter in printed form. This he called “The News-Letter,” a title which, with some, is treated as that of a newspaper. It was to appear weekly, and would be sent to subscribers for such reasonable sum as might be agreed upon. After a lapse of fifteen years, without competition, it had attained a subscription list of only three hundred copies. A subsequent postmaster started an opposition sheet in 1719, called “The Boston Gazette.” Its appearance caused him to lose his office, but the rival papers continued to exist, “The News-Letter” up to the evacuation of Boston by the British troops in 1776, and the “Gazette” up to 1754.

“The Boston Gazette” appeared on December 21, 1719. One day after, December 22, 1719, Andrew Bradford started “The American Weekly Mercury” at Philadelphia. On August 17, 1721, James Franklin started “The New England Courant,” on which Benjamin Franklin learned the trade of printer. After an existence of seven years its publication ceased. On October 23, 1725, William Bradford started “The New York Gazette.” “The New England Weekly Journal” succeeded “The Boston Gazette” and “Courant” in 1727. “The Maryland Gazette,” the first paper published in that colony, appeared in 1727. In 1728 Samuel Keimer started “The Universal Instructor in all the Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette,” at Philadelphia. The following year Benjamin Franklin bought Keimer’s plant, and shortened the name to “The Pennsylvania Gazette.” The first paper in the colony of South Carolina, called “The South Carolina Gazette,” was published on January 8, 1731. On November 5, 1733, “The New York Weekly Journal” appeared as a rival to the “Gazette.” In 1736 the first newspaper appeared in Virginia. It was published at Williamsburg, and was called “The Virginia Gazette.” In 1739 a German newspaper appeared at Germantown, Pa., and another, in 1743, at Philadelphia. All these pioneer papers, with the exception of a few, notably “The Pennsylvania Gazette” under Franklin, and “The New York Weekly Journal” under Zenger, were merely news purveyors, or, if any opinions were expressed, they were in accord with the authorities of the day.

After 1745 the press of the colonies became more independent and progressive, in obedience to a demand for literature bearing upon the questions relating to the coming revolution. New journals of the weekly class sprang up with considerable rapidity and, for the most part, in opposition to England’s methods of colonial government. Among these were “The Boston Independent Advocate,” started under the auspices of Samuel Adams, in 1748; “The New Hampshire Gazette,” in 1756; “The Boston Gazette and Country Gentleman,” in 1755; the “Newport (R. I.) Mercury,” in 1758; “The Connecticut Courant,” in 1764.

By 1775, the commencement of the struggle for independence, the colonial press numbered thirty publications, all weekly. Of these, seven were published in Massachusetts, one in New Hampshire, two in Rhode Island, three in Connecticut, eight in Pennsylvania, and three in New York. In the first year of the war eight new weeklies were added to the list, four of them being in Philadelphia. On December 3, 1777, the first newspaper, “The Gazette,” appeared in New Jersey, and in 1781, the first in Vermont, “The Gazette or Green Mountain Post Boy.” Such was the fatality overhanging the colonial press that, of the sixty-three newspapers which had come into existence prior to 1783, only forty-three survived at that date.

From 1789, the date on which the Constitution went into operation, till the close of the eighteenth century and early beginning of the nineteenth, several newspapers were founded, most of which were ardently political, and, though employing writers of ability, were bitterly vituperative. The most powerful of this class were “The Aurora” of Philadelphia, Jefferson’s leading organ; “The Evening Post” of New York, the organ of the Federalists; and “The American Citizen” of New York, an organ of the Clintonian democracy. The close of the eighteenth century witnessed also the advent of the press in the Mississippi Valley. “The Centinel of the Northwestern Territory” was started at Cincinnati, November 9, 1793; and “The Scioto Gazette,” at Chillicothe, in 1796.

The press of the early part of the nineteenth century grew rapidly in number, circulation, and influence. While it was largely partisan, the field of discussion gradually broadened, and the news departments became more vivacious and comprehensive. Many of the newspapers founded during the first decades of the century exist at its close, having enjoyed their long careers of influence with honor, and become properties of incalculable value. During this period the transition from the weekly to the daily newspaper gradually went on in the large cities. The first American daily paper, “The American Daily Advertiser,” was published at Philadelphia in 1784. With it came the first use of reporters, or regularly employed news-gatherers, an innovation as important to the public as the advent of the daily itself. Special, or class, newspapers also began to get a firm foothold during this period. “The Niles’s Weekly Register” appeared in Baltimore in 1811. The first religious newspaper attempted in the United States appeared at Chillicothe, O., 1814. The first of the agricultural press was “The American Farmer,” which appeared at Baltimore, April 2, 1818, to be followed by “The Ploughman,” at Albany, N. Y., in 1821, and by “The New England Farmer,” in 1822. Several strictly commercial and financial papers found an origin in this period, the most successful of which was “The New Orleans Prices Current,” established in 1822.

During this period the newspaper, whether daily or weekly, was distributed only to the regular subscriber,—the price of a single copy on the street being prohibitory. The slow-going mail facilities of the time prevented the large circulations that are credited to modern journalism. Prior to 1833 no leading newspaper could throw sufficient enterprise into its business to raise its circulation above 5000 copies. This kept the price of advertising low, and consequently limited a source of profit which has since grown to enormous proportions.

The period ended with the advent of the penny press, in New York, in 1833. The initial experiment in this line was made by H. D. Shepard with his “Morning Post,” and it proved a failure in the short period of three weeks. The next was “The Daily Sun,” September 23, 1833, claiming to be “written, edited, set up, and worked off” by Benjamin Franklin Day. It remained a penny paper for a long time and attained a large circulation. It was reorganized in 1867, when Charles A. Dana became its editor. Though the price was put up to two cents, it became under his control one of the most potential news and political factors of the century, and attained a circulation of over 100,000 copies daily. In May, 1835, James Gordon Bennett followed in the tracks of Day with “The New York Herald.” Its sprightly news columns and fantastic advertisements commended it to popular favor, and proved a source of great profit. It has since greatly varied its prices; but by dint of stupendous, if peculiar, enterprise, it has grown into enormous circulation, and become a property worth millions. In 1841, Horace Greeley started “The New York Tribune,” at first as a penny paper, though on an elevated plane. It soon grew into popular favor, and with its weekly and semi-weekly editions for country circulation became one of the most widely circulated and influential journals in the country. “The New York Times” also began as a penny paper in 1851, under the control of Henry J. Raymond.

While the era of a distinctive and popular penny press was short-lived, it witnessed one of the most notable advances of the century in journalism. It stimulated newspaper enterprise throughout the entire country, and journals multiplied enormously. The era practically ended with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, which event caused a rise in the price of paper, a demand for expensive correspondence, telegraph news and battle scenes, and a consequent necessity for enlarged and quadrupled sheets. Many of the penny papers went up to a five-cent price under the stimulus of war excitement, the improved system of collecting news, and the added expense of publication. This era of phenomenal newspaper expansion extended even to the end of the century. It has witnessed the wonderful evolution of the newspaper in all its modern phases,—the advent of the Sunday newspaper; the growth of the daily sheet to mammoth proportions; the incorporation of the Associated Press, with its thousands of agents in every part of the country gathering and sending the minutest events of the day; correspondence from every quarter of the globe, and covering every field of activity; a highly improved and more independent editorship; a greatly enlarged, more active, and more conscientious reportorial staff; the coming of the interviewer, at first an impertinent pest, but now recognized as a valuable journalistic adjunct in reflecting opinions and sentiments not otherwise obtainable; the employment of the thousand and one new appliances for printing, such as stereotyping, electrotyping, improved types, typesetting machines, rapid presses, folding machines, etc.

By 1883 a reaction came on in the prices of leading journals, and they were forced to reduce them by reason of the strong competition offered by the numerous and powerful two-cent journals which had come into being and had proven to be valuable properties. Indeed, this reaction did not leave the two-cent journals untouched, for it brought many of that class to a one-cent basis, with the claim that a consequently increased circulation would enhance the profits from advertising. This claim is a debatable one, and it may be safely said that most of the newspapers established near the end of the century have adopted a two-cent basis as a golden mean between the one-cent and three-cent journals.

Proportionally speaking, the growth of the press in the United States has been as even as it has been rapid. No leading city is without press establishments and prominent journals, some of them conducted on the largest scales of expenditure,—the West vying with the East, and the South with the North, in liberality and enterprise. The newspaper office of the early part of the century was generally dingy and cramped. The abode of many, especially in the larger cities, has become a handsome pile, conspicuous in architectural effects, capacious and cleanly,—fitting hive for the myriad of workers that toil at midday and midnight in pursuit of the “art preservative.” The annual expenditure of a single newspaper operated on a large scale has been thus computed: Editorial and literary matter, $220,000; local news, $290,000; illustrations, $180,000; correspondence, $125,000; telegraph, $65,000; cable, $27,000; mechanical, $410,500; paper, $617,000; business office, $219,000; a total of $2,153,500.

Nearly every town in the United States of 15,000 population has come by the end of the century to have its daily newspaper, and few of even 1000 population, especially if a county-seat, are without their weekly newspapers. It has become possible to conduct a rural weekly of fair proportions and with quite readable matter upon a very economic basis, by means of a central office in some large city. This office prints and supplies to the rural offices, of which it may have hundreds on its list, the two outside pages of a weekly, leaving to the local office only the duty of supplying and printing on the inside pages its domestic news.

In the number of its newspapers and periodicals the United States easily leads the world. Only approximate figures for the close of the century are at hand; but these, for the United States, gravitate around a total of 20,000 newspapers and periodicals, while those for other countries which report are as follows: Great Britain, 4229; France, 4100; Germany, 5500; Austria-Hungary, 3500; Italy, 1400; Spain, 1200; Russia, 800; Switzerland, 450; Belgium, 300; Holland, 300; Canada, 862. In the report of 1894 for United States newspapers and periodicals, the following subdivision appears: Dailies, 1853; tri-weeklies, 29; semi-weeklies, 223; weeklies, 14,077; bi-weeklies, 62; semi-monthlies, 290; monthlies, 2501; bi-monthlies, 70; quarterlies, 197. The States in which over one thousand newspapers and periodicals are printed are, New York, with 2001; Illinois, with 1520; Pennsylvania, with 1408; Ohio, with 1108. The States next in order, and with a number of newspapers and periodicals between 500 and 1000, are, Iowa, with 978; Missouri, with 907; Indiana, with 753; Kansas, with 732; Michigan, with 727; Massachusetts, with 664; Texas, with 656; Nebraska, with 639; California, with 637; Wisconsin, with 551; Minnesota, with 549.

The century’s newspaper literature in the United States has been further characterized by the introduction of the comic feature. The comic newspaper came into being about the middle of the century, but did not strike a practical minded people with favor. It was not until the century was well rounded out that the cartoonist’s and joker’s art came into sufficient demand to make a comic newspaper a commercial success. Even now their number is limited to a very few that can boast of permanent success.

The daily newspapers of the latter part of the century have not been dissuaded by earlier attempts to make illustrations a conspicuous feature. On the contrary, newspaper illustration has grown to the proportions of a special art, and all of the larger and better equipped dailies have organized departments into which are gathered photographs and engravings ready for reproduction as events demand. So the correspondent and reporter have added to knighthood of the pen that of the camera, and the scenic view has become an essential part of serious correspondence and sprightly reporting.

An immense, imposing, and highly useful current of literature flows through the magazines, which have, by their number, beauty, and adaptation, come to be a distinguishing feature of the nineteenth century. This class of literature is usually called “Periodical,” and it embraces the magazines and reviews devoted to general literature and science, the class magazines devoted to particular branches of science, art, or industry, and the publications of schools and societies. Most periodicals published in the English language are monthlies. The same is true of those published on the continent of Europe, save that there the old-fashioned quarterly style is still much affected.

Periodical literature found a beginning in France as early as 1665, in what is still the organ of the French Academy. The first English periodical was published in 1680, and was hardly more than a catalogue of books. The growth of the periodical or magazine proved to be very slow. Up to 1800, not more than eighty had found mentionable existence as scientific and technical periodicals, and only three as strictly literary periodicals. The advent of “The Edinburgh Review,” in 1802, gave great impetus to periodical literature in Great Britain, and the period from 1840 to 1850 was one of special development, but to be surpassed by that of 1860 to 1870, when the shilling magazine came into vogue. This class of literature also developed very rapidly in France during the century, Paris having 1381 periodicals of all kinds by 1890. There was an equally rapid development in Germany, Austria, and throughout the continent.

The English magazine found several imitators in the United States during the latter part of the eighteenth century, most of which had brief existences. Such was the fatality overhanging this class of enterprise, that until 1810 but twenty-seven periodicals could be counted in the United States. While the next forty years were marked by several magazine successes, such as the “Knickerbocker,” “Graham’s Magazine,” and “Putnam’s Monthly,” they were, nevertheless, strewn with long lines of melancholy wreckage. Indeed, it was not until the middle of the century that the demand for magazine literature became sufficiently intense to make investment in it profitable and permanent. Since then the development has been almost phenomenal, keeping even pace with that of the newspaper. At the end of the century the number of monthlies published in the United States approximates 2800; and there are over 300 fortnightlies, 56 bi-monthlies, and 192 quarterlies. These cover the vast domains of general literature, religion, science, art, and industry, and in many respects vie with the newspaper in popularity and influence. Many of them have developed into magnificent properties, whose value would appear incomprehensible to our grandfathers. They employ excellent talent when special topics are treated, and rise to occasions of war or other excitement through graphically written and highly illustrated articles. Indeed, one of their most impressive features is the high degree to which they have carried the art of illustration. Toward the close of the century, periodical literature has been greatly expanded and popularized by the introduction of the cheap magazine. The older and more dignified periodicals had not thought of permanent and profitable existence at a price less than twenty-five to fifty cents a copy; but those of the younger and ten-cent class, by dint of what seems to be a newly discovered enterprise, have found cheapness no barrier to commercial success. Within a decade they have duplicated patrons of magazine literature by the million, and proven quite as clearly as the newspapers have done that we are a nation of readers.