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First newspapers in Tennessee…
February 27, 2012 by TimHughes · 3 Comments
Tennessee–or at least a portion of it–had an interesting history. The Northeastern part originally belonged to North Carolina, and a plan was afoot to cede it to the national government. A serious of conventions at Jonesborough resulted in the adoption in 1784 of a constitution under the name of the state of Franklin. Ultimately statehood plans ended in 1788.
The first printing in Tennessee happened in Rogersville by George Roulstone, who on November 5, 1791 he printed the first issue of the Knoxville “Gazette“, because he intended to move the press to Knoxville when it was expected that town would be the permanent capital of the territory. This ultimately happened in 1792. He printed his first issue there on May 4, 1793 where it continued until 1797.
After a year in absence, Roulstone resumed the newspaper under the title of the “Register” with a subtitle of: “The Genius of Liberty“. After another year of lapse the “Gazette” was revived which in 1799 was consolidated with the “Impartial Observer“. A string of other newspapers begin in the early years of the 19th century.
First newspapers in South Dakota…
February 13, 2012 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
The very first printing of any kind to be done in present-day South Dakota wasn’t until Sept. 20, 1858, relatively late for that section of the country. It was an election notice, and less than a year later the first newspaper appeared on July 2, 1859 titled the “Democrat“, printed in Sioux Falls. It published on an irregular schedule for less than a year when it was discontinued for lack of support. Reports are that the newspaper was revived as the “Northwestern Democrat“, however no copies under that name have survived. The press was destroyed by a band of hostile Sioux Indians in 1862.
The second newspaper in South Dakota was the “Weekly Dakotian” begun in Yankton on June 6, 1861, by Frank Ziebach. A year later it was absorbed by its rival, the “Press“, becoming the “Press and Dakotan“, and a bit later the “Dakota Union“.
Note: Images are not currently available for any of the above… but will be added if/when they are available.
Perhaps the most famous 19th century title is “The Black Hills Pioneer” which was printed in Deadwood City beginning in 1876. It would be an issue in early August of that year that would report the death of Wild Bill Hickok while playing cards that would be one of the most sought after newspapers for any collection.
Curious names of newspapers…
December 26, 2011 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
There is a piece in Oswald’s “Printing In The Americas” which discusses early names of newspapers which is interesting and worth sharing with fellow collectors:
“The names selected for early American newspapers afford material for interesting study. The world “News”, now so common, was not used except in combination with some other name. Such names as “Museum” and “Repository”, that would in these hustling journalistic days be fatal designations, appear frequently in the colonial list. The most overworked word among them all was “Gazette”. Every district & nearly every town had a “Gazette”. Several had more than one. Three numbers under that name were published under different ownerships at the same time in Williamsburg, Virginia, & three with the same title but with different subtitles were published at the same time at both Richmond, Virginia and Charleston, South Carolina.
The “Mercury”, signifying alertness and swiftness, was a popular newspaper name. There were militant titles like the “Scourge”, “Inquisitor”, “Anti-Monarchist and Republican Watchman” “Sun of Liberty” and “Tree of Liberty”, and conciliatory titles like the “Olive Branch”, the “Philanthropist” and the “Missionary”. The “Lighthouse” and the “Intelligencer” would each seem to give promise of a certain amount of intellectuality, while at the opposite pole we find the “Idiot”, published in 1810 in Boston…”.
Other interesting titles of the pre-1820 era found in Brigham include: “Federal Spy” “Genius of Liberty” “Mirror of the Times” “Minerva” “Oracle of Dauphin” “People’s Friend” “Polar Star” “Rural Visiter” “Torch Light” “American Constellation” “Post-Angel” “Anti-Aristocrat” “Asylum” “Backwoodsman” “Kaleidoscope & Literary Rambler” “Boston Satirist” “Strength of the People” “Bye-Stander” “Candid Review” “Cornucopia” “Crisis” “Mountain Echo” “Engine of Liberty” “Political Banquet & Farmer’s Feast” “Honest American” “Magic Lantern” “Occasional Reverberator” “Spirit of ’76” “Temple of Reason” “Trump of Fame” “Wasp” “Temperate Zone” and so many more.
Pennsylvania’s first newspapers…
December 12, 2011 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
It was only in Boston where a newspaper came off a printing press prior to any in Pennsylvania. It was 15 years after the “Boston News-Letter” of 1704 (not counting the one-issue run of Boston’s “Publick Occurrences Both Foreign & Domestick” in 1690) when, on December 22, 1719, Andrew Bradford began his “American Weekly Mercury” (see image) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s first newspaper. This weekly would last until 1746.
But certainly the most successful newspaper in the colony, if not in all of colonial America, was the “Pennsylvania Gazette” begun in December, 1728 by Samuel Keimer. Within a year it was purchased by Benjamin Franklin. As Oswald notes: “…Under Franklin’s guidance, there appeared for the first time a colonial newspaper produced by a man of education who was in addition a capable printer, a versatile writer, and energetic news gatherer and an enterprising & resourceful businessman. This combination had the inevitable result of placing the “Pennsylvania Gazette” in the lead, and it thereby established a model for others to follow.” The “Gazette” would make Franklin a wealthy man and his name appeared on the imprint through 1765.
Pennsylvania has the distinction of having America’s first daily newspaper, the “Pennsylvania Evening Post & Daily Advertiser“, which started publication in 1775 as a tri-weekly and became a daily on May 30, 1783.
When did the “Gentleman’s Magazine” print the Declaration of Independence?
November 14, 2011 by TimHughes · 5 Comments
Fellow collector Michael Gulvin asks a question which many other collectors may have wondered: “On what day of the month did the Gentleman’s Magazine for August, 1776 become available? We have a time-line for the American newspapers, and we know that the London Chronicle printed the Declaration in its August 17th issue, but do we know the actual date the Gentleman’s Magazine printed the Declaration of Independence for its August issue?”
Magazines typically published very late in the month shown on the title/contents page. With the “London Chronicle” publishing the Declaration of Independence in its August 17, 1776 issue, and presuming they had interest in publishing such a significant document as early as possible, it is presumed the Declaration was received in London very close to that date. Their previous issue was dated Aug. 15, so August 15-17 would be the presumed period when the document arrived in London. It is curious to note that the “London Gazette” never printed the Declaration of Independence.
Monthly publications are more difficult to pin down in terms of publication dates, however datelines of news reports found within offer great clues. The Historical Chronicle near the back of the August issue of the “Gentleman’s Magazine” has datelines beginning July 10 and the latest date mentioned is August 31, the very last day of the month. Obviously the magazine could not have printed prior to August 31, so the first day or two of September would be the presumed printing dates.
The same was true with American magazines as I recall the June, 1776 issue of “The Pennsylvania Magazine” had the very significant announcement that Congress had voted to approve the Declaration of Independence, with a dateline of July 2, 1776. Obviously that June issue was printed early the following month.
Condition and pricing…
October 10, 2011 by TimHughes · 3 Comments
Many collectors may wonder what the relationship is between the condition of a newspaper and its price. Obviously the condition of a newspaper is subjective, and some problems bother some collectors more than others. But for issues offered through our company here are my thoughts as to how I price our newspapers:
* “Natural” faults are less of a problem than human-created. By this I mean problems with foxing (a darkening of portions due to the natural aging of the chemicals in the paper or the environment in which the newspaper was stored), folds, and minor edge tears. Such disfigurements are to be expected with newspapers of a certain age, and if considerable do affect the price but less so than other disfigurements. Even water staining I would consider a natural fault and can be excused as something to be expected and a minor problem if not causing loss of readability.
* Human-created disfigurements would include old tape mends & stains, trimming at the margins such that letters or words are partially shaved (caused when the bindery cuts too close to the text), lengthy tears into text, holes, portions clipped, etc. Such problems are annoying & could have been avoided with better care and I tend to discount the price of a newspaper more liberally than newspapers with natural faults. How much? It depends on the degree of the problem, so subjectivity is very important. If a newspaper has a noteworthy report which is not affected by the damage, it would be discounted less than had the notable report been affected. A small 2 by 1 inch piece clipped from the back leaf would be discounted less than a 2 by 10 inch clipped issue. A disfigurement to an inside page might result in a minimal price adjustment if the issue is offered for the displayability of the front page.
* Irregular margins, caused when a newspaper is improperly removed from a bound volume, will result in lowered values if the irregularity causes loss of type. Most irregular margins involve only the blank spine & the price adjustment would be minimal.
* Some damaged issues are relegated to our damaged pile to be sold in lots of 100 or more at a discounted price. But rare or historic issues are offered individually & priced according to the damage. Many collectors are attracted to damaged, discounted newspapers as they provide an opportunity for rare or historic reports at a much lower cost.
* Particularly bothersome to me are issues which are close-trimmed. Had the worker doing the trimming at the bindery been more carefully such faults could easily be avoided.
* Less bothersome are wear problems with “never bound” newspapers. Such issues are in their natural state as provided to the subscriber or sold on the newsstand, and logically tend to be more worn than issues taken from bound volumes. Such natural wear, when minimal, adds a certain patina to the item and would not detract from its value. For serious collectors, never-bound issues are preferable to issues from bound volume, but tend to be considerably less common.
* Guillotined issues, which are mechanically cut cleanly at the spine to facilitate microfilming, is a minor disfigurement if ample spine margin remains. Depending on the issue we might rejoin the issue at the spine with glue, rejoin using archival tape, or simply keep the issue loose.
* Repairing issues can be controversial. Some believe in repairing tears and others prefer they be left as is. In general I tend to repair rather than not repair. My primary reason is to prevent further tearing which can occur when a leaf is turned, as a tear is a weak spot which often gets worse when handling. We use a very thin strip of archival tape which does not stain and is almost invisible if properly used. When an issue is extensively repaired mention is made in the description. A newspaper’s price may be affected when archivally repaired, depending on the extensiveness of such repairs.
From the publisher of the Harper’s reprints…
August 29, 2011 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
While Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers’ archives contain nearly every issue of Harper’s Weekly… available for purchasing… all original… I suspect more collectors are aware of the “reissue” editions of Harper’s Weekly from the Civil War years, easily noted by: “THE REISSUE OF” printed just above the “H” in “Harper’s…” on the front page. Done 100 years after the Civil War, they were a successful educational tool in classrooms across the country.
I recently found this letter from the President of the firm which did the reprints, and thought it offers some interesting insight into the history of the reprint series. It is not dated, but I suspect it was written in December, 1861.
The end of the world… false alarm…
August 6, 2011 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
A few years ago several collectors contacted us wondering if the end of the Rare & Early Newspapers collectible was at hand. They had just received news about Google’s newspaper digitizing project and wondered if this would lead to an end in people wanting to collect historic newspapers. “Might this be the end of the old newspaper’s collectible world?” We tried to reassure them them that collecting the actual newspaper from the day it was 1st printed/read as compared to reading digitized versions is akin to eating an ice-cream sundae rather than looking at a picture of one. No matter how perfect the picture of the sundae reproduces the look of an actual one, it can never compare to the real deal. Apparently, time has proven this to be so. 2011 brought news from Google announcing the end of the digitizing project. The date of the announcement is rather ironic. Please read:
Google Announces End Of Newspaper Digitizing Project
🙂 🙂 🙂
Ideas on how to collect Rare & Early newspapers…
July 30, 2011 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
While we at Rare Newspapers’ History’s Newsstand Blog are committed to continually adding material to help support the hobby, every now and then we come across informative material produced by others. Just recently we found a set of videos related to the collectible produced by eHow.com. They may be viewed at:
http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_5949_collecting-comics-newspapers_-tips-strategies.html
Please enjoy!
First newspapers printed in Oregon…
July 18, 2011 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
It was in 1843 when the great migration over the Oregon trail to the Pacific Northwest began, with some 3000 settling in Oregon City just a few years later. Located on the Willamette 
River, this town became the Oregon Territory’s first capital.
It was also the location of the first newspaper in the territory, titled the “Oregon Spectator” which began publishing on Feb. 5, 1846. This newspaper changed hands several times, and one of its editors, George L. Curry, left the newspaper in 1848 to start the Oregon City “Free Press” printed on a press he crafted by hand out of wood and scrap iron. This newspapers lasted for less than eight months.
On June 8 in 1848, at Tualatin Plains, a religious newspaper was begun by the Rev. John Smith Griffin titled the “Oregon American & Evangelical Unionist“. By the early 1850’s Portland was being settled and numerous newspapers made their appearance, the first being the “Weekly Oregonian” on Dec. 4, 1850. As more migrated West, more newspapers (The Morning Oregonian & more) made their appearance in not only Portland but other settlement towns in the Oregon Territory. Oregon would become the 33rd state in early 1859. (credit: “Printing In The Americas”)