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A September, 2016 stroll back thru time – 50, 100, 150, 200, & 250 years ago…
September 1, 2016 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
What news was reported in the month of September – 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 years ago (1966, 1916, 1866, 1816, 1766)? Such a walk back through time via the eyes of those who read the daily and weekly newspapers of the period can be quite revealing. This is why we often say, “History is never more fascinating than when it’s read from the day it was first reported.” The following links will take you back in time to show the available newspapers from the Rare & Early newspapers website. There’s no need to buy a thing. Simply enjoy the stroll.
Anyone know anything about this newspaper?
August 22, 2016 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
If any of our collectors are looking for an interesting puzzle to solve, here is one. We’ve come across a single sheet newspaper from Dublin, Ireland, “THE FLYING NEWS-LETTER“, with “Monday October 11” in the dateline. This would seems to be an exceedingly rare title as an internet search resulted in nothing with this title from Dublin.
There is no issue number noted in the masthead as would be typical. There is also no year printed in the dateline, but a search notes that the only Mondays which fell on October 11 from the mid-18th century (my estimate based on paper, format, layout) in which the printer, Edward Exshaw, was working as a printer were 1736 and 1742 as he died in 1748. The years 1725, 1731 also had a Monday, October 11, but a website notes he was “active in Dublin from 1733-1748”. And 1756 and 1762 also had a Monday, October 11, but being after his death his name would not had been in the imprint at the bottom of the back page.
I would be curious to know which of these two years it was printed (no year is noted in any of the articles), and a bit more about how long the newspaper published. Is this issue unique?
Thanks for any help!
The Traveler… the first “learned society” of Washington, D.C.
August 15, 2016 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
I traveled today to Washington, D.C. by the way of the National Intelligencer dated August 15, 1816. I found there the announcement of the creation of the first “learned society” in Washington D.C.: “A number of the citizens of the District of Columbia, impressed with the importance of forming an association for the purpose of promoting useful knowledge, met on the 28th day of June, 1816,… agreeably to public notice the committee appointed as aforesaid reported the following draft of a constitution which was unanimously agreed to, after having changed the name of the association to that of the COLUMBIAN INSTITUTION for the promotion of Arts and Sciences…” (see image below).
They were responsible for the acquiring the many different species of plants and trees, an idea to apply to Congress for “the appropriation of about 200 acres of ground called “the Mall” which was designed in the original plan of the city for a public garden, the beginning of the botanic garden, many items which are now in the Smithsonian Institute, and more. Many prominent people of the day became were members, including some Presidents.
~The Traveler
An August, 2016 stroll back thru time – 50, 100, 150, 200, & 250 years ago…
August 4, 2016 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
What news was reported in the month of August – 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 years ago (1966, 1916, 1866, 1816, 1766)? Such a walk back through time via the eyes of those who read the daily and weekly newspapers of the period can be quite revealing. This is why we often say, “History is never more fascinating than when it’s read from the day it was first reported.” The following links will take you back in time to show the available newspapers from the Rare & Early newspapers website. There’s no need to buy a thing. Simply enjoy the stroll.
The Traveler… senseless tragedy…
August 1, 2016 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
Today I traveled to New York City by the way of The New York Times dated August 2, 1966. There I found tragedy had stuck the campus of University of Texas. “An architectural honor student who had been undergoing psychiatric care carried an arsenal of rifles and pistols to the top of the 27-story University of Texas tower today and shot 12 persons to death before the police killed him. The student’s wife and mother were later found dead in their homes… The police identified the man as Charles J. Whitman…”. In all, he had shot an additional 34 people.
~The Traveler
The Traveler… born to raise !%@#…
July 18, 2016 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
Today I traveled to New York City through The New York Times dated July 18, 1966. The headline was announcing “Suspect in 8 Killings to Get Hearing Today”. “Richard Franklin Speck, the suspect in the slaying of eight women in a nurses’ dormitory last Thursday, was under heavy guard today. Speck was taken into custody early this morning after he had been raced from a skid row hotel to Cook County Hospital for treatment of self-inflicted arm wounds in an attempted suicide… The police were guarding against a possible assassination attempt…”
The surgeon caring for Speck’s wounds is the person that positively identified him and had the police called. Shortly before he saw Speck, he had read the newspaper article and saw his photo. “…I picked up his head and looked at the nurse to see if she had noticed. I said to her, ‘Get the paper.’ I remembered the tattoo… Born to Raise Hell… Then he moistened his finger tips and began rubbing the patient’s left arm and disclosed the tell-tale marking…”. Later Speck asked the doctor what he was going to do with the $10,000 reward.
~The Traveler
The Traveler… Rabbi Gershom Seixas… 1st native-born American rabbi…
July 4, 2016 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
Today I traveled back to New York City by the means of the New York Evening Post dated July 2, 1816. Under the “Died” column is “Departed this life, at 9 o’clock this morning, the Rev. Mr. GERSHOM SEIXAS, the venerable Pastor of the Hebrew congregation, in the 71st year of his age…”.
Mr. Seixas was the first Native-born American rabbi. He also delivered the first Thanksgiving address in an American synagogue after the adoption of the United States Constitution. He was one of the fourteen ministers to participate in George Washington’s first inauguration.
At the merger of the 200th anniversary of his death and the 240th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence it is fitting to consider how quickly the Jewish population became acclimated and accepted in the United States. While not without considerable bumps in the road, George Washington’s outspoken support for Jewish citizens was certainly a good beginning.
Question: Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, RI received a response from Rabbi Moses Seixas. If anyone can confirm whether or not Moses and Gershom were related, please contact Guy at guy@rarenewspapers.com.
~The Traveler
A July, 2016 stroll back thru time – 50, 100, 150, 200, & 250 years ago…
July 1, 2016 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
What news was reported in the month of July – 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 years ago (1966, 1916, 1866, 1816, 1766)? Such a walk back through time via the eyes of those who read the daily and weekly newspapers of the period can be quite revealing. This is why we often say, “History is never more fascinating than when it’s read from the day it was first reported.” The following links will take you back in time to show the available newspapers from the Rare & Early newspapers website. There’s no need to buy a thing. Simply enjoy the stroll.
More on printing newspapers in the 1700’s (revisited)…
June 27, 2016 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
This article is primarily taken from the April, 1996 edition of “Collectible Newspapers” edited by Rick Brown, whom we thank for this contribution. It offers some interesting insights into the printing & distributing of newspapers in the colonial and post-colonial era of the United States.
Newspapers from the latter half of the 18th century were relatively scarce. One factor was that early settlers were busy clearing the land & otherwise making the land habitable & sustaining. Plus only a small percentage of the population had reading skills beyond that of the basic rudiments. Although most towns of any size by 1715 had tracts of land set aside for schools, few actually had schools built & in operation.
Nearly all 18th century newspapers were edited & published by printers that had a general printing business and also printed pamphlets, books, broadsides, lottery tickets, etc. Many also sold merchandise, groceries, patent medicines, and a variety of other goods. Rags, which were used to make the paper , were scarce in the colonies so most of the paper was imported from England.
Newspapers were printed on wooden hand presses with each application of ink to paper requiring a pull of by lever and screw. It was not until around 1816 that the new iron Columbian press came into general use. Instead of a screw it used a series of compound levers that multiplied the pull of the operator. But still, all hand presses were slow & laborious. The forms had to be laid by hand and the ink was poor and of uneven quality. Types were frequently old and worn.
After the newspapers were printed, distribution difficulties were encountered. Circulation was confined, for the most part, to the towns in which they were published. They were distributed to the rural areas by post-boys on horseback and by stagecoach drivers. The roads were bad & the postal system was slow. Subscribers were few & the cost of an issue relatively expensive so newspapers were typically handed around from one to another so that a single copy was ready by many. Even those who subscribed often failed to pay for their subscriptions.
It has been estimated that the largest circulation of a single newspaper during the earlier colonial period was about 350 and that only a few reached this high of a number of circulation. By the 1750’s circulation for larger city newspapers reached upwards of 600 of each issue printed and during the Revolutionary War some newspapers boasted circulations in excess of 2000. By 1790 most newspapers were printing less than 1000 copies but the very popular “Columbian Centinel” from Boston was printing over 4000 copies of each printing date.
Despite poor equipment, limited circulation, nonpaying subscribers, poor distribution facilities & the general unprofitability of publishing a newspaper, the number of newspapers being published continued to increase as the years went by. There were numerous failures, but new newspapers were established to replace them. From 1704 to 1820 about 1634 newspapers came to life and died. Of that number only two-thirds of them lived beyond three years.
(originally posted in 2009)
Movie Prop Newspaper… Can you identify the movie (round 1)?
June 23, 2016 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
Movie prop newspapers are exactly that – newspapers which have been created for the purpose of being used within a specific movie. In some instances they are created using an authentic (actual) newspaper from the period in question, and splice-in content that meets the movie’s needs. In other instances a newspaper if created from scratch. Both are collectible and are typically hard to come by since only a handful were originally printed. We’ve had the privilege of having a few to offer over the years, but a new set of movie-prop issues has us (Rare & Early Newspapers) perplexed. We simply do not know from which movies they came. How do we know they are actually movie-prop issues?
- The actual titles do not exist.
- The paper upon which they are printed does not quite match the era from which they supposedly came.
- They were included as part of the Richard Robinson Collection (see https://blog.rarenewspapers.com/?p=7359), which included several properly identified movie prop issues.
So now the fun begins. Can anyone definitively state the movie from which the movie prop newspaper shown below (The Record Herald) came from? 
Note: Since this post was initially published, we’ve posted several additional movie prop issues. These posts may be viewed at: Unidentified Movie Prop Newspapers