American Newspapers

Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
Newspapers for Free: The Economies of Newspaper Circulation in the Early Republic Author(s): Charles G. Steffen Source: Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 381-419 Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press on behalf of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3595045 Accessed: 16/05/2009 18:48
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Eleven years comparedto twenty-onemillion for GreatBritainandIreland.4 later the Essex Register of Salem, Massachusetts,put the numberfor the United States at eighty million, substantiallyabove the fifty-six million papers produced in England, Scotland, and Ireland. In 1824 William Coleman of the New York Evening Post reported that the annual productionof newspapersin his state exceeded thatfor all of England.He believed there were two newspapers published in the United States for every one in England, Scotland, and Irelandcombined. If the numberof newspaperspublished drew editorial comment, so too did the numberof newspapersread.In 1821 JosephGales of the quasi-officialDaily National Intelligencer guessed that the United States had 350,000 newspaper subscribersand 1.5 million newspaper readers.5In other words, one of seven Americansreada newspaperfor free. These nonpayingreaderswere both agents and beneficiaries of a massive giveaway that helped democratizethe culture of print. This essay addresses a central question implicit in Gales's numbers: how were newspapers transformedfrom everyday commodities into a form of public property? The quantitativeexplosion of newspapercirculationat the opening of in the nineteenthcenturysignaled a majortransformation the relationship between the public and the news. With an intensity that would have astoundedtheircolonial forebears,Americansof the early nationalperiod came to believe that access to the news, and thereforeto newspapers,was This new sense of entitlementsprangfrom the confluence theirbirthright. of two ideological currentsthat have often been treated as if they ran in opposite directions.The ideology of republicanismstressedthe importance of a well-informed citizenry.6 Because newspapers had no rival as an instrumentof generalenlightenmentand a primerof civic values, didactic republicanshad special reason to regardthem as "thebook of the people." The ideology of liberalismattachedequal significanceto the well-informed
Reportedin Daily National Intelligencer (Washington,DC), Aug. 24, 1821, p. 3,
col. 2. Essex Register, reprintedibid., Sept. 20, 1821, p. 3, col. 3; New YorkEvening Post, June 15, 1824, p. 3, col. 3; Daily National Intelligencer,Aug. 22, 1821, p. 2, cols. 3-4. 6 The literature see is on republicanism immense. Forreviews of the literature, Robert E. Shalhope, "Towarda Republican Synthesis: The Emergence of an Understandingof Williamand Mary Quarterly,29 (Jan. 1972), Republicanismin AmericanHistoriography," 49-80; Shalhope, "Republicanismand Early American Historiography,"ibid., 39 (Apr. The 1982), 334-56; and Daniel T. Rogers, "Republicanism: Careerof a Concept,"Journal of AmericanHistory, 79 (June 1992), 11-38.
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ECONOMIESOF NEWSPAPERCIRCULATION
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consumer.7Newspapers contained informationthat Americansneeded in order to make intelligent decisions about the enticing new world of consumergoods opening before them. Recent scholars have demonstrated that republicanand liberal impulses, far from working at cross purposes, could producea sharedpolitical vocabularyof sufficient flexibility to blur differences in meaning. Thus the "virtue"required to sustain a liberal republicmightbe understoodas eitherthe citizen's capacityto sacrifice for the common good or the "economic self-restraint"that consumers were called uponto exercise in the ultimateden of temptations,the marketplace.8 Whether legitimated by republican representations of the enlightened citizen or by liberalconstructionsof the enlightenedconsumer,newspapers came to be seen as an indispensableentre to modem, democraticlife. These powerfulsanctionsenablingAmericansto asserttheirrightto the news clashed with no less powerful proprietary rights claimed by newspaper editors. The intelligence contained in newspapers was not community property; it was private property gathered at considerable expense. If readerswanted this valuable commodity, editors argued,they must expect to pay whateverthe marketdeterminedwas the correctprice. And daily newspaperswere not cheap. Before the rise of the penny press in the 1830s and 1840s, they could be purchasedonly by subscriptionat rates rangingfrom six dollars to ten dollars per year. Given these sharply contrastingviews aboutwho "owned"the news, it is hardlysurprisingthat newspaper editors and readersfound themselves locked in a contentious relationshipthathistorianThomasLeonardhas likened to a bad marriage. that Nor is it surprising editors,proponentsof the marketeconomy of news, the most compelling evidence documentingan alternativeset of supplied ideas that might be called the "moraleconomy"of news. E. P. Thompson coined the term in reference to the counter-hegemonic ideology that justified resistance to the spread of commercialcapitalism in eighteenth-
on 7 The literature liberalismis as bulky as thaton republicanism.For a few important statements,see Joyce Appleby, Capitalismand a New Social Order:TheRepublicanVision of the 1790s (New York, 1984); and John Patrick Diggins, The Lost Soul of American Politics: Virtue,Self-Interest,and the Foundations of Liberalism (New York, 1984). For GlobalandLocal:Consumptionand the consumerrevolution,see CraigClunas,"Modernity the Rise of the West,"AmericanHistorical Review, 104 (Dec. 1999), 1497-1511; and John Brewer and Roy Porter,eds., Consumptionand the Worldof Goods (London,UK, 1993). 8 T. H. Breen,"Narrative Commercial of Life:Consumption, Ideology, andCommunity on the Eve of the American Revolution," Williamand Mary Quarterly,50 (1993), 501; JamesT. Kloppenberg,"TheVirtuesof Liberalism: and Christianity, Republicanism, Ethics in Early AmericanPolitics," Journal of AmericanHistory, 74 (June 1987), 9-33.
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century England.9But it has broader application if we see the cultural historyof capitalismas one long negotiationover the boundariesseparating the moral and marketeconomy, one long cycle of "creativedestruction" playing itself out in the symbolic realm of meaning. Although the battle examined in this essay was fought over nineteenth-centurynewspapers ratherthan eighteenth-centurybread, the underlying issue in both cases revolved aroundthe commodificationof somethingthatseemed vital to the well-being of the community. claims of editors,readersfueled Intheirstruggleagainstthe proprietary the expansion of newspapercirculationthatso astonishedHale, Coleman, andGales. They devised threestrategiesto subvertthe subscriptionsystem. Many readers simply refused to pay for their subscriptions; others borrowed newspapers from friends and neighbors; still others pinched papers off doorsteps and at the post office. Editors protested that these small acts of delinquency,freeloading, andlarceny addedup to a massive assault on the rights of property:each day across the nation hundredsof thousandsof newspaperswere being readfor free. In theirview, deadbeats, parasites,andthieves were crowdingout honest subscribers,appropriating a valuable commodity for which they had not paid, and putting hardworking editors on the brink of financial ruin. What editors failed to mention-and what historianshave likewise failed to appreciate-is that by circumventingthe subscriptionsystem, nonpayingreadersensuredthat historical the new republicwould be blanketedin newspapers.In standard anda government accounts,pennypapers,steam-powered cylinderpresses, policy of subsidizing newspapers sent throughthe mail are cited as the principal forces driving the growth of newspaper circulation before the Civil War.'oBut the penny press of JacksonianAmerica did not so much
9 ThomasC. Leonard,Newsfor All: America's Coming-of-Agewith the Press (New York, 1995), 36-37; E. P. Thompson, "TheMoralEconomy of the English Crowd in the Past and Present, 50 (Feb. 1971), 76-136. I wantto acknowledgemy EighteenthCentury," debt to Leonard's incisive analysis of newspapercirculation.But because he generalizes about the nineteenth century as a whole, the significance of the early national period is obscured. 10 For a critique of the standardview of the penny press, see John C. Nerone, "The 4 Mythology of the Penny Press,"Critical Studies in Mass Communication, (1987), 376of 422. For recentworksthatemphasizethe penny press as an instrument mass readership, see Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of AmericanNewspapers (New York, 1978); Dan Schiller, Objectivity and the News: The Public and the Rise of Bennett's New York CommercialJournalism(Philadelphia,1981); James.L. Crouthamel, Herald and the Rise of the Popular Press (Syracuse,NY, 1989); Andie Tucher,Froth and Scum: Truth,Beauty, Goodness, and the Ax Murder in America's First Mass Medium (Chapel Hill, 1994); and Isabelle Lehuu, Carnival on the Page: Popular Print Media in AntebellumAmerica (Chapel Hill, 2000).
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had similarconsequences for Americaneditors is unclear.What is clear is that the changing business practices of the daily press created a powerful incentiveto keep deadbeatsubscribers the books. Everyeditorknew that on the more widely his newspaper circulated, the more attractiveit was to potential advertisers. He might sign up dubious subscribers in full knowledge that paymentwould never come, calculatingthat every dollar lost to delinquency would be more than offset by additional advertising dollars that came with a longer subscriptionlist. The moral and market economies of news both worked to weaken the subscription system. who assertedtheirrightto the news forged Ironically,the citizen-consumers an alliance with the very editors who vilified them as deadbeats,parasites, and thieves. This strange alliance was based on something more than the bottom line-something we might call the political line. No less than advertising, the rise of the partisanpress in the early nationalperiod contributedto the transformationof newspaper publishing and the growth of newspaper circulation.Before the Revolutionprinterssoughtto maintaina stablebase of subscribersandadvertisersby avoidingpolitical controversiesandrisky investments that might lead to financial losses. The creation of the first party system coincided, as Jeffrey L. Pasley has explained, with the emergence of a new generationof newspapereditors who abandonedthe safety-firststrategyof theirpredecessors.RepublicanandFederalisteditors welcomedpartisan readers, conflict, and aggressivelypursueduncommitted engaged in speculative business practices that would have shocked their colonial counterparts.The partisanshipof the early national press put editors under intense pressure to recruit subscribers, in part because a newspaper'ssubscriptionlist was the closest thing availableto a headcount of active party members. It served to quantify public opinion and demonstratea party's strengthin an era before polls and surveys. Under such circumstances,it is easy to understandwhy partisaneditors gladly signed up all comers without inquiring into their creditworthiness.By putting politics above profits editors not only subsidized the two-party system but also advanced the frontierof newspaper circulation beyond anything colonial printers could have imagined. If the result was subscriptionlists bloated with the names of people who would never pay a dime for theirpapers,this was a financial loss thatpolitical editorswere willing to absorb. But it was a "loss" only in the narrowest sense. The patronage plums that politicians dropped into the laps of loyal editors whose papers circulated widely make the loss look more like an
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investment.'2Perhaps we should see the subscription list as a form of political capital,an inventoryof political assets, which a savvy editorcould parlay into, say, state printing contracts or appointive office. Whether editors set out in pursuitof the advertisingdollaror the tangiblebenefits of the political influence, they came to understand logic of giving newspapers away. They were hardlythe first capitalists to discover that charitycould pay. The unlikely complicity of editors and subscribersin promotingthe circulation revolution found institutional expression in what Jiirgen Habermashas termedthe "bourgeoispublic sphere."13 News rooms,coffee and circulating libraries multiplied houses, hotels, reading rooms, dramaticallyduring the early nineteenth century, their popularitydue in largepartto sizableholdings of newspapersmadeavailableto theirpatrons. Although scholars have examined the new discourses of rational-critical enquiry,new forms of publicity, and new hierarchiesof class and gender to which the bourgeois public sphere gave rise, this essay considers how institutionsof urbansociability contributedto the expansionof newspaper circulation.'4Some of these institutionschargeda subscriptionfee, others requiredthatpatronsbuy a cup of coffee or a meal in orderto gain access to their newspapercollections. Eitherway, the rules that came to control access to newspapers in the public sphere won widespread acceptance amongreadersand editors.This acceptanceappearedmost clearlyin what was not said. Readersdid not criticize gatekeepersof the public spherefor exacting a fee frompatronsof news rooms, coffee houses, and the like; nor did editors criticize the proprietorsof these establishments for putting papersinto the hands of nonsubscribers. In the public sphere,the citizenconsumer's demandfor access to the news coexisted peacefully with the editor's insistence on being paid for the commodity he produced.In the largest sense, the public sphereshouldbe seen as the early republic'smost
12 For the colonial press, see StephenBotein, "'MereMechanics' and an Open Press: The Business and Political Strategies of Colonial American Printers,"Perspectives in American History, 9 (1975), 127-225; Stephen Botein, "Printers and the American Revolution,"in Bernard Bailyn andJohnB. Hench,eds., Press and theAmericanRevolution (Boston, 1981), 11-57; and CharlesE. Clark,The Public Prints: TheNewspaperin AngloAmerican Culture, 1665-1740 (New York, 1994). See also, Pasley, "The Tyranny of Printers,"24-47. TheStructuralTransformation the Public Sphere:An Inquirty 13 JurgenHabermas, of into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans.Thomas Burgerwith assistance of Frederick Lawrence(Cambridge,MA, 1989). 14 The historicalliterature the public sphereis voluminous,but a good place to start on is Craig Calhoun,ed., Habermasand the Public Sphere (Cambridge,MA, 1992).
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innovative response to the culturaltension between the marketand moral economies of news. Deadbeats-they were an occupationalhazard,no less troublesometo editors than unruly apprentices, strained eyes, and ink-stained fingers. Thoughmost editorssufferedredinkin silence, a good numberwent public aboutthe losses they accruedthroughdelinquentaccounts.In 1809, a year after he commenced publication of the Baltimore Federal Republican, AlexanderC. Hanson complainedthathe was owed two thousanddollars by subscribersliving outside Baltimore. His cross-town rival, Hezekiah Niles of the Baltimore Evening Post, likewise claimed to be skirtingthe edge of financialruinbecause his delinquentsubscribershad runup a debt of twelve thousand dollars. By standardsof the trade this was a lot of money. The Federal RepublicanandEvening Post chargedsix dollarsper year for a subscription, and each paper had two-thousandsubscribersat most. Thus bad debts ate up one-sixth of Hanson's annual subscription revenue and all of Niles's. Nor were losses of this magnitude at all uncommon. In 1819 John Binns, editor of the PhiladelphiaDemocratic Press, reported that his establishmentwas sinking under the weight of outstanding accounts. Like many big-city dailies, the Democratic Press appearedin less expensive weekly and "country"(thriceweekly) editions that were mailed to Pennsylvaniasubscribersliving outside Philadelphia. Binns claimedthatover one thousandweekly andcountrysubscriberswere in arrears,that the average outstandingaccount was more than two years behind, and that the interest alone on this unpaid debt would exceed his annual"profit" a thousandsubscriptions.The passage of a year brought on no relief to the Democratic Press's balance sheet. If we are to believe Binns, by 1820 weekly and countrysubscribersowed him thirtythousand dollars, an enormoussum consideringthat the Democratic Press's annual expenses for "paper,wages, and ink"amountedto ten thousanddollars.'5 The most elusive delinquentswerethose who lived out of town. Editors had little choice but to send bill collectors after them. In 1811 Philadelphia'sEnos Bronsonannouncedin his Gazetteof the UnitedStates that his agent would spend a week knocking on the doors of delinquents who lived betweenPhiladelphiaandTrenton,afterwhichhe would proceed to Burlington and Gloucester counties. Six years later the editors of the Baltimore Federal Republican sent their collector, Joseph Purdin, on a lengthy southernjourney that took him to forty-five towns and cross-road
15 Baltimore(MD) Federal Republican, Jan. 16, 1809, p. 2, col. 4; BaltimoreEvening Post, Aug. 9, 1809, p. 3, cols. 1-2; PhiladelphiaDemocratic Press, Mar.29, 1819, p. 2, col. 1; ibid., Mar. 2, 1820, p. 2, col. 1; Feb. 2, 1818, p. 2, col. 1.
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hamlets in Maryland,the District of Columbia,and Virginia.We can only imagine the physical and mentalpummelingPurdintook from tight-fisted subscribersbefore he reachedhis final destinationof Norfolk, Virginia. In 1818 Ebenezer French urged Baltimore Patriot subscribers in rural Marylandto give his agent "a cordial reception and punctual payment," though it is hardto believe that his bill collector received much of either. Duringthe next few years the Patriot's collector made regulartours of the easternandwesternshores,as well as the Districtof Columbia,butby 1822 the continuedfailure of ruralsubscribersto clear their accountsprompted French to warn that sterner measures were in store. In 1822 Coleman directedJamesBloomfield to call uponNew YorkEveningPost subscribers living in the "states south and west of New Jersey," and like French, he signaled that his patience was wearing thin. "We need what is due to us, and ought to have it," Colemanwrote, "peaceablyif we can, forcibly, that is legally, if we must."It is doubtful that such threatsdid much good, for two years Coleman employed John West to retrace Bloomfield's old circuit,hoping the new bill collector mighthave betterluck thanthe first.16 Editors prided themselves on their independence,but the problem of delinquentaccounts often forced them to combine resources. In the early stages of the War of 1812 the New York Evening Post and the New York Herald appointeda collector to visit subscribersliving southof New York. Likewise, when the Baltimore Patriot issued a statement that "in conjunctionwith others,"it had authorizedan agent to collect bills on the eastern shore, the agent in question was probably working on behalf of other newspapersas well. In 1817 the BaltimoreFederal Republican and BaltimoreTelegraphagreedto employ an agent to make an extensive tour of delinquentsubscribersliving in the Upper South. Editors separatedby some distanceoccasionally collected debtsfor each other.In 1819 William Gwynn of the Baltimore Federal Gazette informed his subscriberswho accountshad were living nearHagerstown,Maryland,thattheiroutstanding been turned over to William D. Bell, editor of the local Torch Light, to whom they were expected to make payment.17 in Local authoritiessometimescollected debts.Postmasters, particular, could serve a useful function in facilitating payments for newspapers. While French employed a bill collector to visit the small towns and
16 Gazette of the United States (Philadelphia),July 8, 1811, p. 3, col. 3; Baltimore Federal Republican,July 31, 1817, p. 2, col. 1; BaltimorePatriot, July 22, 1818, p. 2, col. 1; ibid., Aug. 2, 1821, p. 2, col. 3; June 3, 1822, p. 2, col. 6 (quote); New York Evening Post, Dec. 17, 1822, p. 2, col. 3; ibid., July 20, 1824, p. 2, col. 4. 17 New York Evening Post, Dec. 15, 1813, p. 3, col. 3; Baltimore Patriot, Aug. 2, 1821, p. 2, col. 3; Baltimore Federal Republican, July 31, 1817, p. 2, col. 1; Baltimore Federal Gazette,Apr. 13, 1819, p. 2, col. 3.
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scatteredfarmsteadsof rural Maryland,he directed subscribersresiding near Annapolis, FrederickTown, and Gettysburgto make their payments to the local postmasters. Likewise, in 1819 J. F. Houston, the Frederick Town postmaster,agreedto collect outstandingaccountsfor the Baltimore Federal Gazette.Otherofficials sometimescame to an editor's assistance. In 1815 the Boston Daily Advertiser directed Massachusettssubscribers living outside of Boston to remit their payments via members of the GeneralCourtwho would soon be meeting in session.18 As a final and desperaterecourse, editors threatenedto stop delivery. In 1811 a fed-up Baptis Irvine of the Baltimore Whiggave his subscribers an ultimatum:they had two months to make payment,afterwhich anyone who remaineda year or morein arrears would face the ultimatedisgraceof struckoff the subscriptionlist. He was not the only one to talk tough. being In 1814 Colemanvowed at the end of one monthto cull fromthe New York EveningPost's subscriptionlist all delinquentswho were a year behind in their payments. This was probablya bluff, for ten months later Coleman issued the same policy statement. When all other alternatives had been exhausted, editors might threatentheir subscriberswith public exposure andhumiliation.In 1821 the BaltimoreFederal Republicanannouncedthat it was strikinga thousandnames fromthe subscriptionlist for nonpayment, which emboldened the editor of the American Watchman,published in Wilmington,Delaware,to call for the ultimatepenalty:"Lettheirnamesbe published, that any future proprietor may be guarded against their injustice."In 1818 the Baltimore Federal Gazette likewise threatenedto publish the name of every subscriberwho was delinquentmore than six months.9 For all theirbluff andblusterneitherthe Federal Republicannor the Federal Gazettecould bringthemselvesto shamea single subscriberin print. Why did subscribersignore the pleas and threats?How could they in good conscience refuse to pay the printer?The answer is that readersfelt strongly they were entitled to the news, notwithstandingthe editor's insistence that he was entitled to be paid. Leonard has suggested that subscribersmay have resented the editor for presumingto shape public opinion-that is, their opinion.20In other words, delinquency was an assertion of independence and an expression of democratic spirit; it
BaltimorePatriot, July 22, 1818, p. 2, col. 1; Baltimore Federal Gazette, July 28, 1819, p. 2, col. 5; Boston Daily Advertiser,Jan. 3, 1815, p. 2, col. 3. 19 Baltimore Whig,June 18, 1811, p. 2, col. 1; New YorkEveningPost, Oct. 25, 1814, p. 2, col. 4; American Watchman reprintedin BaltimorePatriot, Feb. 22, 1821, p. 2, col. 5; BaltimoreFederal Gazette,Feb. 20, 1818, p. 2, col. 5. 20 Leonard,News for All, 45-46.
18
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signaled that subscriberswould not be talkeddown to. Yet the ideological roots of delinquencywent even deeper,for editorsandreadersclashed over whetherthe news itself was a simple commoditylike any other,or a public resource above the vagaries of the marketplace. Considerthe Winchester Gazette subscriber who had received his paper for four years without bothering to make a single payment. When the editor finally confronted him face-to-face and presented the bill, "he appeared astonished, at the unreasonablenessof the demand,andin a tone of disappointment observed, thathe had only subscribedto encourage the Paper.To this it was replied thatthe barename of any Gentlemanwas not a currentcoin, with which the expenses incident to a printingestablishmentcould be defrayed;-that if his object was to encourage us, he mustpay in somethingmore substantial thanhis name."2" Gazettesubscriberhad a point, even if the editorhad The a hardtime seeing it. He reasoned that in agreeing to receive the paperhe was publiclyproclaimingthe correctnessof its principles,andwas not such valuable endorsement worth a complementary subscription? A flabbergastedNiles encounteredprecisely this logic when he approached his delinquent subscribers, many of whom were "men of the highest standing in point of property and republican character,in the state of Maryland,and in the United States. Gentlemen who would disdain to be indebted to any other mechanic than the Printer, a single cent, for a moment beyond the time contracted to pay it:-they owe us for What Niles could not years-though frequently solicited for payment."22 fathom was his readers' belief that he was not quite like "any other mechanic," and that the newspaper he produced was not quite like any othercommodity.The newspaperhad a public value thatcould not be fully measuredin the marketplace,and the printerhad a public responsibilityto provide Americans with the intelligence they needed to be good citizens andconsumers.In the teethof a pervasiveattachment the moraleconomy to of news, it is no wonder editors had an awful time collecting payment. Fromthe editor's perspectivenewspaperborrowerswere only slightly Thereis no way to know how less objectionablethandeadbeatsubscribers. many Americans borrowed newspapers, but editors were sure that the numberwas dangerouslyhigh. They condemnedthe practiceof newspaper borrowing at every opportunity.As every editor knew, the subscription system had manyleaks. Why pay six to ten dollarsfor a subscriptionwhen you could simply read your neighbor's paper?According to John Relf of Relf's Pennsylvania Gazette, borrowing guaranteedthat editors would never see the happy day when "dailypaperswould perhapsbe found only
21 22
Reprintedin (Philadelphia)Relfs PennsylvaniaGazette,Nov. 6, 1816, p. 3, col. 2. BaltimoreEvening Post, Aug. 9, 1809, p. 3, cols. 1-2.
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in the hands of subscribers."23 anticipationof the critique of extensive In that would develop after the 1830s, he insisted that there was a reading The right reason right reason and a wrong reason to read a newspaper.24 was an ennobling desire to be informedon the issues of the day; the wrong reason was "a paltrypride"that came from outshiningone's neighborsin the give-and-takeof everydayconversation.Subscribersactedon the noble impulse, while borrowers wanted nothing more than the momentary satisfaction of standing out in the crowd. More to the point, newspaper borrowersrobbed "theindustriouseditor of his just dues." Editorsoffered plenty of examples showing thatnewspaperborrowers were social parasites. "Our patrons frequently complain that they are obliged to pay for the gratificationof others,"grumbledthe Boston Patriot in 1817, "thatas soon as theirpapersaredelivered,some officious neighbor seizes upon them before they have had time to peruse a word."A year later the problem was worse than ever, eliciting from the Patriot an angry editorial entitled, "Borrowingof Newspapers a serious evil to Printers," which received sympatheticreprinting the BaltimorePatriot, New York in EveningPost, andNew York Columbian.The editorexplainedthatduring the last six months several long-standing patrons had dropped their because they could no longerendurethe harassment newsof subscriptions hungry neighbors. "It frequently happens that a paper is taken from the storeof its rightfulproprietor beforehe arrives," Patriotprotested,"and the travelsover the neighborhoodwithouthis being able to get a glimpse at it!" The editor had a solution of sorts. He challenged the sneaks to come out from the shadows and show themselves publicly. Fromnow on a stack of paperswould be set aside at the Patriot office, availableto the shameless borrowerswhose "consciencespermitthemto ask"for somethingthey had not paid for. MordecaiNoah of the National Advocate called borrowinga "monstrous evil," and urged subscribers to be firm in resisting the "Theanswer to 'lend me your paper,"' importunitiesof their neighbors.25 he said, "shouldalways be 'go and subscribefor it."' The Daily National Intelligencer had been too conservativein estimatingthat there were five borrowersfor every subscriber; Noah claimed that"10,000people readthe Advocate daily, and only one tenthpay for it."
Relf's Pennsylvania Gazette, May 31, 1822, p. 3, col. 3. For the debate, see Lehuu, Carnivalon the Page, 126-55. Boston Patriot, Sept. 18, 1817, p. 2, col. 1; ibid., Sept. 29, 1818, p. 2, col. 1; BaltimorePatriot, Oct. 6, 1818, p. 2, col. 2; New YorkEveningPost, Oct. 1, 1818, p. 2, col. 2; New York Columbian,Oct. 7, 1818, p. 2, col. 5; National Advocate (New York), Nov. 9, 1822, p. 2, col. 1; reprintedin BaltimorePatriot, Nov. 13, 1822, p. 2, col. 5.
23 24 25
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In appealingto the public againstthe practiceof newspaperborrowing, editors let put-upon subscribers speak for themselves. In 1819 Alden Spooner of the New York Columbianopened his mail to find a plea for help. "Yourpaperis deliveredregularlyat my residence at an early hourin the afternoon,but it is very seldom that I have an opportunityof seeing it 'till late in the evening, or sometimes not until next morning," the subscribercomplained.Each morninghis neighborwatchedfor the carrier to deliver the paperand "picksit up and reads it throughbefore I can get a peep into it." Likewise, the Baltimore Patriot received letters from frustrated subscribers who resented having to subsidize the reading interests of their tightwad neighbors. One came from an "old punctual customer"who said thateach morninghe could expect to find "on average The fromfourto six loungers"waiting for his paper.26 situationhadbecome so intolerablethat he requestedthe editor to stop deliveringthe Patriot to his home for a month in the hope that these "great newsmongers and politicians"would breakdown and subscribeon their own. Of course, this blanket condemnation of newspaper borrowing overlooked the social context within which it occurred.Wedded as they were to theirproprietary claims, editorsremainedblind to the rival claims of citizen-consumers.The editor of the Hudson Bee, publishedin Albany, New York, treated borrowers with no less scorn than did his big-city In counterparts. an editorial,he asked nonsubscribersto explain how they could in good conscience read a paperthey had not paid for. The lettershe received in reply suggested that borrowers, no less than delinquent subscribers, believed they had a right to the news. They characterized newspaperborrowingas more akinto good-naturedsociability thanto the social parasitismdecriedby editors.Newspaperspassed fromhandto hand in stores,barbershops, churches,post offices, and school houses. Farfrom social ties by sowing seeds of mistrustandresentment,as editors corroding insisted, newspaperborrowingaffirmedthe bonds thatheld a community In the eyes of editors, only one person was more despicable than the subscriberwho would not pay his debt and the moocher who borroweda paper rather than buying his own-the newspaper thief. If the intense demandfor news was satisfiedin partthroughneighborlyacts of borrowing and lending each other's papers, it could also lead to a decidedly unneighborlyact. Snatching a paper from the doorsteps of its owner or it appropriating in the mail may not have been the most noble thing to do,
together.27
26 New York Columbian, June30, 1819, p. 2, col. 4; BaltimorePatriot, Oct. 23, 1821, 2, col. 4; June 21, 1822, p. 2, col. 5; ibid., Oct. 23, 1821, p. 2, col. 4. p. 27 Reprintedin the Gazette of the UnitedStates, Aug. 17, 1809, p. 2, col. 3.
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but like the practices of subscribing without paying and newspaper borrowing, it expanded the circle within which newspapers circulated, underwrotethe moral economy of news, and demonstrated just how far Americans were willing to go in asserting their rights as citizens and consumers. In 1819 the editor of the Baltimore American joked about these clandestine patrons. "If the persons who are in the habit of stealing the 'American' from the doors of our subscriberswill call at the office," he wrote, "we will cheerfully give them a paperin preference,as the present plan is inconvenient to our subscribers as well as ourselves." But most editors were in no mood for joking: they believed that newspaperstealing ran rampant.In 1817 the Boston Patriot reported that the practice of at pinchingmorningnewspapersleft by its carriers the frontsteps of "stores andhouses"hadbecome "generalandfrequent." The editorwarnedthathe would henceforthstation a watchmanto keep an eye out for such thieves, and promisedthat "punishmentin any court of justice would be severe." That newspaperpilfering was a serious problem is indicated by rewards offered by editors for the apprehensionof the thieves. In 1809 the editors of the BaltimoreFederal Republicanannounceda rewardof twenty dollars for informationleading to the conviction of any newspaperstealer. Nine years later they raised the reward to one hundred dollars. Other editors were not preparedto reach quite so deep into their pockets to catch the culprits, but they took steps to encourage witnesses to come forward. In 1810 the Baltimore Whigposted a rewardof five dollars (equivalent to a six-monthsubscription), while nine yearsthe BaltimoreMorningChronicle one of thirtydollars (a three-yearsubscription).28 dangled Newspaper stealing posed a tricky problemfor editors, first because thieves and victims might be acquaintances or neighbors, and second because the thieves themselves seem to have come from all walks of life. In 1819 the editors of the Boston Patriot, who had been calling for a crackdown on newspaper thieves, reported that an honest citizen had recently chanced upon a person in the act of stealing a paper. "He was observed,pursuedandovertaken,afterrunningsome distance,by a spirited and individual,"went the account,"whoseforbearance lenity did not permit him to bestow the chastisement so clearly merited."In other words, the thief was collaredonly to be set free by a well-intentionedbut short-sighted citizen. The Patriot warned that inquiries were being made "for
Baltimore American, Nov. 2, 1819, p. 2, col. 1; Boston Patriot, Dec. 27, 1817, p. 2, col. 3; BaltimoreFederal Republican,Jan. 6, 1809, p. 3, col. 5; ibid., July 18, 1817, p. 2, col. 1; BaltimoreWhig,Sept. 21, 1810, p. 2, col. 2; BaltimoreMorning Chronicle,May 16, 1819, p. 2, col. 5.
28
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ascertaininghis name."But editorswere also reluctantto identify publicly offenders they were lucky enough to catch in the act. When in 1813 the editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser announced the apprehensionof a newspaper stealer, he reassured his readers that "punishmentwill be Six exemplary"but chose not to publish the offender's name.29 years later the same newspaperreportedthatthe domestic servantof a subscriberwho had been the targetof repeatedpilferinghad awakenedearly one morning to catch the thief in the act. The offender was broughtbefore a justice of the peace and found guilty. The Daily Advertiserprovided lots of details aboutthe case (the fine was $2 plus courtcosts of $4.04) but did not report the most obvious fact-the name of the guilty.30 Why were editors so circumspect in publicly identifying these criminals? In 1808 the editors of the Baltimore Federal Republican of speculatedthatthe disappearance many of its papersfrom the doorsteps of subscribers was due to "persons, who have a curiosity to see the 'Federal Republican,'but not sufficientliberalityto pay the subscription." Was this a case of Federalists stealing from Federalists? Perhaps so, judging from a scolding editorialthat appearedin the same paperin 1817. "While we are on this subject,"the editors wrote, "we will notice that the genteel young man who has takenthe paperseveral times from the door of No. 1, SchroederRow, is known, andthatif the offence is againcommitted, his name shall be displayed at full length in the pages of the Federal Republican:if men will have no respectfor theirown characters,we do not see why we shouldhave any."31 cravingfor news thatcould induceone The to case out a likely doorstep,watchfor the carrier,andpocket a paperwhile its unsuspecting owner was sound asleep seems to have been as strong amongthe "genteel"as amongthe common.The gentlemanlyeditorsof the Federal Republicanchose not to incriminateone of their own. A differentsortof problemarosewhen the thieves were not gentlemen. Two instances in which newspaperstealers were positively identified by editors suggest that the crime had a plebeian and racial cast. In 1813 the New York GazettereportedthatWilliam Ball and Horace Seymore, "both mulatto boys," were caught stealing papers that had been left on subscribers' doorsteps. They were in jail awaiting trial. "We hope this example," the editor wrote, "will deter others from offending in the like manner." Anothercase came fromacross the country.In 1816 the editorof
Boston Daily Advertiser,Aug. 14, 1813, p. 2, col. 4. Boston Patriot, Feb. 4, 1819, p. 2, col. 4; Boston Daily Advertiser,Aug. 14, 1813, p. 2, col. 4; ibid., May 15, 1819, p. 2, col. 1. 31 BaltimoreFederal Republican,Sept. 2, 1808, p. 3, col. 3; ibid., July 18, 1817, p. 2, col. 1.
29 30
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the Louisiana Courier announcedthat his three carriers,Dick, Sam, and JeanLouis, all slaves, had been selling newspaperswithouthis authority.32 He warned all persons who obtained papers from this source that they would be prosecutedfor the amountof one year's subscription. Carriershad ample opportunityfor small-time hustling. Newspaper stealing angerededitorsnot merelybecause it siphonedmoney out of their pockets but also because it involved insiders like Dick, Sam, and Jean Louis who worked in their shops. Before dawn and then again in the late afternoon,every day of the year except Sundaysand holidays, platoons of carriersswarmedthe streetsand alleys of Americancities, depositingtheir papers at the doors of subscribers.With its relatively limited circulation, the Louisiana Courierneeded only three carriersto serve its New Orleans subscribers.But largeroperationslike the New YorkEvening Post, which boasted of nearlytwo thousandsubscribers,employedno fewer thaneight carriersbetween 1812 and 1824.33 No one knew the city betterthan newspapercarriers.We can imagine them as the prototypicalnewsboys of the nineteenthcentury, street-wise, smooth-talking,and always on the lookout for the main chance-"the race of merryjuvenile rogues,"as New YorkjournalistGeorge G. Fosterwould later describe them. Editors issued regular threats against unscrupulous persons who purchased papers from their carriers. In doing so, they presented themselves as benevolent employers and paternalistic fathers protectingthe youths placed undertheir charge. "Theoffer of a person, a few days since," wrote Gwynn in the Baltimore Federal Gazette, "to purchasea paperof a very young apprentice,was an act calculatedto have a most injuriouseffect on the moralsof the boy, and the editor will feel it his duty to punish, by exposure, any similar attempt."The Baltimore to Federal Republicanannouncedthatits carriers"arenot authorised sell"; the BaltimoreFederal Gazettestipulatedthat"carriers not permittedin are any case to obey an orderrespectingthe paper"unless it came directlyfrom the office; the BaltimoreMorningChroniclestatedthatcarriers"havebeen expressly forbidden, to sell or give away any of the papers which are entrusted to them"; and virtually all other newspapers made similar statements.In 1808 the New York Public Advertiserclaimed that some persons were guilty not only of purchasingpapersfromits carriersbut also "of contractingwith them in some instancesfor a specified sum per week." on Three years later it repeatedthe charge and put the perpetrators notice that the editors would soon have sufficient evidence to begin prosecution.
32 Reprintedin Boston DailyAdvertiser,Dec. 22, 1813, p. 2, col. 1; LouisianaCourier (New Orleans),Dec. 2, 1816, p. 3, col. 1. 33 New York Evening Post, Oct. 24, 1812, p. 2, col. 3; May 28, 1824, p. 2, col. 6.
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In 1824 Colemanclaimed thatin his long tenureat the New York Evening Post he had prosecutedevery person who purchasedfrom a carrier,"when the fact could be establishedin a courtofjustice." But finding a remedyfor the evil was difficult, even when the editor was preparedto go to court. "We are takingmeasuresto ferretout a practice,adoptedby some," wrote the BaltimorePatriot in 1820, referringto the illicit dealings of carriers, "whichis highly censurableanddishonest,andagainstthe law."34 Whatthe were the Patriot never said. "measures" It was not only from the doors of city subscribers that papers As disappeared. editorsfrequentlycomplained,manypapersmailedto outeitherbecause of-town subscribers neverreachedtheirintendeddestination, remainedunclaimedat the post office, or because the postmasterand they his friendsappropriated For themfor theirown amusement,or both.35 years editorspleadedwith postmastersto informthemof "dead" thatpiled papers up in their offices. In 1816 PostmasterGeneralR. J. Meigs Jr. instructed postmastersnot only to notify editors of dead papers in their offices but also to ascertain whether the subscriber had moved, died, or declined delivery. But editors like French of the Baltimore Patriot were realistic enough to appreciatethe challenge facing post office clerks on the major routes who everyday had to sort through"a dozen large corn-basketsfull of newspapers.""Bushels of papers, wet from the press, their covers thin, rotten paper, paste not dry," French continued, "are sent into the Post offices to go off immediately;and way they go, federals and democrats, restrictionistsand non-restrictionists, rubbingand scratchinglike so many cats in a wallet."It is not surprisingthatthreeyears afterMeigs' s directive, Thomas Ritchie of the Richmond Enquirer composed a circular letter addressedto postmastersrequestingthemto implementthe policy. By 1823 the problemhad reached such proportionsthatColemanbegan to point an accusing finger at his fellow printers. If editors were compelled to pay newspaper postage, then they might scrutinize more carefully their
34 David M. Henkins, CityReading: WrittenWordsand Public Spancesin Antebellum New York(New York, 1998), 111; BaltimoreFederal Gazette,June 26, 1818, p. 2, col. 4; ibid., Jan. 9, 1818, p. 2, col. 6; BaltimoreFederal Republican,July 18, 1817, p. 2, col. 1; BaltimoreMorningChronicle,Oct. 25, 1819, p. 2, col. 6; New YorkPublicAdvertiser,July 28, 1808, p. 3, col. 3; ibid., June 6, 1811, p. 3, col. 2; New York Evening Post, Mar. 19, 1824, p. 2, col. 5; BaltimorePatriot, Apr. 2, 1820, p. 2, col. 5. 35 For a discussion of newspaper reading in nineteenth-centurypost offices, see Leonard,Newsfor All, 12-19.
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papers."36
subscription lists and "check the fashionable system of 'give-away' As Coleman understood, "dead"papers were not dead at all, just diverted from their rightful owners. One of the reasons why the local was postmasterspaidlittle attentionto the postmastergeneral'sinstructions thatthey liked to read the papers,and so did their friends.Like delinquent subscribers,newspaperborrowers,and out-and-outthieves, these officials believed they had a right to the news. The Baltimore Federal Gazette complainedthatin countrypost offices paperswere routinelyopened,read, and sometimes "lent to all the immediate neighbors." Likewise, the National Advocateprotestedagainstpostmasterswho permittedpapers"to be carriedaway indiscriminately." the editors of these two papersare to If be believed, postmasters convertedtheiroffices intonewspaperreading had rooms for citizens who wanted the news without paying for it. In 1818 Relf's Pennsylvania Gazettereprinteda piece from a Richmondpaperthat describedthe natureof the problem:"Sometimesthe post masteritches to learnthe news himself-opens the paper,cons it over, throwsit down, and it is never replaced in the box. Sometimes he hands out a paper to a In friend,who neverthinksof handingit back."37 permittingsuch particular backroom transactions,postmasters guaranteedthat newspapers would reach a wider public than editors ever intendedor desired. Listening to editors grouse aboutthe money they lost subsidizing the reading habits of deadbeats, borrowers, and thieves, one would never imagine that a good numberof daily newspapersmanagedto turna profit and stay afloat for decades. How do we square the editors' dire pronouncements with the impressive economic performance of such stalwartsas the Columbian Centinel, Gazette of the United States, New York Evening Post, Baltimore American, and Charleston Courier? In contrastwith most of his peers who refrainedfrom disclosing the secret of their success, Binns of the PhiladelphiaDemocratic Press explained why giving newspapers away made perfect sense. In 1818 he announced his intentionto sue any subscriberwho was a year in arrears-as might have been expected, nobody seems to have taken the threatseriously. A year later Binns gave two reasons why he and his editorial brethren were reluctantto squeeze subscriberswho owed them money:
36 New York EveningPost, Sept. 3, 1808, p. 3, col. 3; Boston Patriot, July 1, 1818, p. 2, col. 4; BaltimorePatriot, Mar. 17, 1820, p. 2, col. 2; ibid., Nov. 15, 1819, p. 2, col. 3; New York Evening Post, Nov. 30, 1821, p. 2, col. 1. 37 BaltimoreFederal Gazette, Jan.9, 1819, p. 2, col. 4; National Advocate, Dec. 12, 1817, p. 2, cols. 1-2; RichmondCompiler,July 15, 1818; reprintedin Relf's Pennsylvania Gazette,July 27, 1818, p. 2, col. 4.
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I. Because I regarded the extensive circulation of my paper, in every county in the State and the thousandsby whom it was read as giving it a political importanceand influencewhich could not otherwisebe attained and which while it flatteredthe pride of the editor assisted to secure the predominancyof the principleshe advocated:-And II. Because such an extensivelycirculatingandgenerallyreadpaper;one whicheverytraveller found on his table, not only presentedsingularadvantagesas a vehicle for ADVERTISEMENTS,but was certainto be selected by those who were desirous to have their notices read throughoutPennsylvania.38
If, as Binns said, editors chose not to purge delinquentaccountsfrom their subscriptionlists because they feared that doing so would diminish their revenue,thenthepracticeof giving away politicalinfluence andadvertising papers appears in a quite different light. The moral economy of news gained groundin the early nationalperiod not merely because Americans were determinedto lay theirhandson newspapersby fairmeansor foul, but also because editorshad an interestin giving these citizen-consumerswhat they wanted. The political and business practices of editors put the moral andmarketeconomies of news in a symbioticrelationshipwith each other. It pays to consider Binns's two points, beginning with "political importanceand influence."In the bob andweave of partisanpolitics, every editor recognized the tactical advantages of a long subscriptionlist. It meantthe party's message was gettingout. In 1813 the RepublicanBoston Patriot noted that since the declarationof war against Great Britain, its subscriptionshad increasedby over 500, "andwith a single exception, the Patriot has a greater circulation by hundreds than any Federal paper in Boston." While the Patriot took the growth of its subscriptionlist to mean that republican principles were storming the citadel of Federalist New England,the BaltimoreFederal Republicanused its circulationfigures to argue that a rejuvenated Federalism was on the march in Republican Baltimore. In 1809 Hanson published a month-long series of articles indicting Senator Samuel Smith, leader of Maryland'sRepublicanParty, for his speculationsin public securities.Sensing thatHansonhad overshot his target, William Pechin of the Republican Baltimore American characterizedthe essays as an attack on "the solidity of a commercial house" that, if allowed to stand, threatenedthe creditworthinessof every merchant, whatever his politics. He called on Federalist merchants to rememberthat they were merchantsfirst, Federalistssecond: they should
38 PhiladelphiaDemocratic Press, Feb. 2, 1818, p. 2, col. 1; ibid., Mar. 29, 1819, p. 2, col. 1. Two years laterBinns made the threatagain. See ibid., Mar. 2, 1820, p. 2, col. 1.
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register their disapprobation withdrawingtheir subscriptionsfrom the by Federal Republican. Hanson responded by noting that during the four weeks the Smith ex -ose had run, the paper signed up ninety-five new subscribers.Since the paperregisteredbetween forty and fifty new names in an average month, the sudden rush for subscriptions,according to the pleased editor,proved thatthe Federal Republican'smessage was making headway in a city bewitched by Jeffersonianism.Hanson took satisfaction in reportingthat Pechin had failed to divide the Federalistparty-he had the subscriptionnumbersto prove it.39 With so muchridingon the size of theirsubscriptionlists, editors were not above cooking the numbers. One of the most frequent accusations leveled by bothpartieswas thatanunscrupulous editor,financedby sinister intereststhatdarednot revealthemselvesin public, gave his paperaway for free in order to create the illusion of wide circulation. In 1808, with Federalistsand Republicansfuriously debatingthe wisdom of Jefferson's EmbargoAct, such accusationsbecamecommonplace.In 1808 the nation's foremost radical journalist, William Duane of the PhiladelphiaAurora, accused Bronson of mailing his FederalistGazette of the UnitedStates to nonsubscribers. Bronsoncould affordthis largesse,Duane said,because the Gazette was secretly funded by the British ministry.Lies and half truths, Bronsonshotback.He hadnever accepteda taintedpenny fromanyone.As for the specific allegation, Bronson advised his accuser to get his facts straightbefore charginginto print.The "free"Gazettein questionhadbeen sent to a bona fide subscriber who, on his own volition and without Bronson's knowledge, mailed it unidentifiedto a friend.40 The Federalist press of Baltimore found itself parrying similar suspicions. Soon afterlaunchingthe BaltimoreFederal Republican,editor Hansonwas receiving disturbing reportsfrom subscribersthattheirpapers were vanishing into the black hole of the Republican-controlledpostal system. One subscriberfrom King George's County, Maryland,asked the local postmasterwhy his paperhad not arrived,and he got this testy reply: "Iam lately fromBaltimore,andI learnedthere,thatalthoughthe managers of the Federal Republican are in the habit of issuing and forwarding thousandsof theirpapersper week, they in fact have not more than eighty subscribers,andtheirpapersarefrequentlyreturnedwith disgust."Hanson proclaimedhis innocence with no less indignationthan did Bronson. He
39 Boston Patriot, Sept. 8, 1813, p. 2, col. 2; BaltimoreFederal Republican,June 24, 1809, p. 3, cols. 2-3; ibid., Aug. 7, 1809, p. 3, col. 4; ibid., July 11, 1810, p. 3, cols. 1-2. 40 Gazette of the United States, Sept. 10, 1808, p. 2, cols. 2-3; Sept. 17, 1808, p. 2, cols. 1-3.
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assured the fair-mindedpublic that, notwithstandingthe disinformation manufactured Pechin's BaltimoreAmerican and disseminatedthrough by corruptpostal employees, the Federal Republicanwas deliveredto almost 900 paying subscribers,and to no one else. Coming to the defense of his fellow Federalist and brother editor, Gwynn of the Baltimore Federal these false accusationsin order"to GazetteblamedPechin for broadcasting his jealousy of a Federal morning paper."Gwynn knew for a fact gratify thatthe Federal Republicanwas gainingten new subscribersa day andthat Hanson had left specific instructionsthat no papers were to be mailed to nonsubscribers. Five years later Hanson turned the tables and charged Republicans with dispatching forty or fifty free copies of the Baltimore Patriot to FrederickTown.41 Although most of the allegations that editorspumpedup subscription figures through giveaways were made by one party against the other, intrapartyfactionalism also bred mistrust. For example, in 1818 the RepublicanNew York Columbian,alignedwith DeWitt Clinton,published a letter chargingthat the National Advocate, which spoke for the Monroe was circulating200 papers free of charge. This deception administration, explained why postmastersacross the state were grumblingabout "dead" Advocates piling up in theiroffices, suitable, said the Columbian,for little more than wrapping fish and making kites. In retaliation, the Advocate claimed thatfifty free copies of the Columbianhad been recentlyreceived in "thewesternparts of this state."42 Needless to say, all these chargeswere denied. A long subscription list was political capital, and editors knew it. Inflating it throughgiveaways may have cost money in the short run, by such a policy could be seen as a soundinvestment.As Jeff Pasley has made theirpolitical usefulness clear, those editorswho were able to demonstrate the party's platform and mobilizing voters moved to the by advertising front of the line when it came time to distributethe perquisites of office. After a successful careerat the helm of the New York Columbian,Charles Holt received his just rewardin the form of appointmentsas wardjudge and clerk in the New York CustomHouse-and he was not the only editor who cashed in. In Philadelphia,the battlesover Republicanpatronagewere legendary, pitting William Duane against John Binns, and both against Richard Bache, with each editor staking his claim to prefermenton the grounds that his newspaper reached the greatest number of readers. Of
41 BaltimoreFederal Republican, Jan. 11, 1809, p. 2, col. 5, p. 3, col. 1; Baltimore Federal Gazette,July 29, 1808, p. 2, col. 5; ibid., June 21, 1813, p. 2, col. 5. 42 New York Columbian,Feb. 10, 1818, p. 2, col. 3; ibid., Feb. 11, 1818, p. 2, col. 3.
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course, the high tide of journalistic patronage had to await Andrew Jackson, who duringhis presidency appointedat least seventy editors to federal office.43 Yet the promise of public printing contracts, political and appointment, elective office could not help but whet the appetiteof any his ambitiouseditor,providedthathe could demonstrate value to the party. With each new name added to his subscriptionlist, that value increased. Now let's turnto the second point made by Binns-advertising. Then as now, newspapers made money by selling advertisement space. to however, arenot profitablein proportion theircirculation, "Newspapers, but to theiradvertisingcustom,"statedthe Daily National Advertiser.The testimony of Niles of the Baltimore Evening Post and Irvine of the Baltimore Whigsuggests that subscriptionrevenue alone could not keep a papergoing. In 1809 Niles claimedthathis subscriptionrateof $7 per year "doeslittle morethanpay for thepaper consumed."He complainedthatthe cost of newsprintalone accountedfor two-thirdsof what he chargedfor the Evening Post; by the time he deductedexpenses for wages, ink, rent, and This assessmentwon equipment,the profiton subscriptionswas "trifling." endorsementamong Baltimore's editorial community, for a year general later Niles joined the editors of the Baltimore Whig,BaltimoreAmerican, BaltimoreFederal Gazette, and BaltimoreFederal Republican in raising subscription rates to $8 per year. In justifying its action, the editorial confederationof three Republicans and two Federalists (the bottom line overcame the partyline) issued a joint statementasking their subscribers to consider the spiraling costs of operating a newspaper establishment: journeymen's wages were up 12 percent, paper 25 percent, and ink 30 percent. A week later Irvine, who felt compelled to elaborate his own position, said that a newspapercould not survive if it depended solely on would supporta daily subscriptionrevenue. "If mere subscription-money he wrote, "we should not raise the price-for, within the last newspaper," monthfifty-eight subscribershave been addedto our list. Such patronage is very flattering;yet, this increase of subscribersswells our expenses for the present."44 like If experiencednewspapermen Niles andIrvinepersistedin hunting down new subscriberseven when the additionalrevenues did not justify attendantexpenses, they did so in large part to capture the advertising dollar. When Binns boasted that his PhiladelphiaDemocratic Press had
43 Pasley, "TheTyrannyof Printers," 145-46, 297-98, 392-93. 44 Daily National Intelligencer,Aug. 22,1821, p. 2, cols. 3-4; BaltimoreEveningPost, July 11, 1809, p. 2, col. 3; ibid., Nov. 8, 1809, p. 2, col. 3; Baltimore Whig,Dec. 15, 1810, p. 2, col. 1; ibid., Dec. 21, 1810, p. 2, col. 2.
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more subscribersthan any other paper in the state, he was attemptingto entice "those who have ADVERTISEMENTSto publish which they are desirous to have circulated and read throughout this and neighboring States." Unlike the Democratic Press and most other city dailies, Relf's Pennsylvania Gazette did not issue a weekly edition. But Relf assured potentialadvertisersthathis papercirculatedas widely in the "sea-portand commercial" towns as any country paper, "and of course affords an extensive and advantageousmedium for the disseminationof all kinds of advertisements." The Federalist editors of the Baltimore Federal Republican conceded that while their subscriptionbase in RepublicandominatedBaltimore was not as strong as they might wish, the paper's extensive state-wide circulationin the southernand western counties and on the eastern shore afforded advertisers "advantageswhich no other establishmentin Baltimore affords."45 Newspaper establishments that lacked a steady flow of advertising revenue were always at risk of failure, as their editors openly acknowledged.The RepublicanNational Advocate could count among its enemies not only New York's commerciallydominantFederalistpress but the Clinton wing of the RepublicanPartyas well. In 1818 its editor urged subscribersto make promptpaymentinasmuchas the Advocate "hasbeen in patronage, consequence deprivedof a considerableportionof advertising
of the stand it has taken against selfish and ambitious views . . ." Nine
yearsearlierthe New YorkPublicAdvertiser,which also struggledto break the commercial hegemony of Federalist competitors like the New York Evening Post, attributedits failure to attractadvertisementsto a sinister AGENTShave declaredthat 'mercantilesupportshall not plot: "BRITISH be allowed to Democrats."' New York editors were not the only ones to protestagainstpolitical enemies sabotagingtheiradvertisingbase. In 1813 the BaltimoreAmericandisclosed that someone had sneakedinto its shop and altered an advertisement. Even though no specific charges were leveled, the Republicaneditorsclearlyhadtheirsuspicions."Printers' boys, belonging to otheroffices," they announced,"areforbid from enteringthe office of the American."46 In competing for the advertisingdollar, newspapereditors stuck to a time-honoredformula. They charged by the "square,"with rates varying
45 PhiladelphiaDemocratic Press, Nov. 25, 1811, p. 3, col. 1; Relf's Pennsylvania Gazette, Sept. 7, 1810, p. 3, col. 4; BaltimoreFederal Republican,June 14, 1817, p. 2, col.
1.
46 National Advocate, June 16, 1819, p. 2, col. 1; New York Public Advertiser,Jan.5, 1809, p. 2, col. 5; BaltimoreAmerican,Nov. 23, 1813, p. 2, col. 4.
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accordingto the numberof times the advertisementappeared.In 1808 the Gazette of the United States charged 67 cents per square for the first insertionand 33 cents for every subsequentone. It also offered a 20 percent discountto subscribers. yearlaterthe BaltimoreFederalRepublicanused A a slightly modified version of the same formula, perhaps designed for wealthieradvertiserswho could let theirads runlonger:$1 for the first four insertions, 25 cents for later ones. As editors played with different combinations of rates to attract the widest spectrum of clients and maximizeadvertisingrevenue,morecomplicatedschemeswere devised. In 1818 the New York Columbiancharged75 cents per squarefor the first insertion,but establisheda sliding scale for subsequentinsertions.If the ad appearedonce a week, the charge was 50 cents; twice a week, 31 cents; three times a week, 25 cents. Ads thatran every day of the week received the best rate at 75 cents for the first insertion,50 cents for the second, and 12 1/2 cents for every one thereafter.In general, advertisingrates in each city tendedtowarda commonlevel. For example, afterthe Warof 1812 the BaltimoreFederal Gazette,BaltimoreMorning Chronicle,and Baltimore Americansettled on a common rate structureof $1 per squarefor the first insertion, and 25 cents for each one thereafter.47 Because advertisingratesreflected regional marketconditions as well as the numberof local newspaperscompeting for business, they differed substantiallyfrom one city to the next. In 1815 Colemanof the New York Evening Post assertedthat the cost of advertisingwas lower in New York thanin the othermajorseaboardcities. Selecting six newspapersfromfive cities, he attempted to illustrate his point by computing the cost of a hypothetical ad of 3 1/2 squares that ran six times.48The New York Evening Post chargedonly $4.37 /2 for the ad, a bargaincomparedto the Baltimore Patriot ($6), Raleigh Minerva ($6), Baltimore Federal Republican ($7), Savannah Republican ($8.75), and Charleston City Gazette ($14.86). Coleman did not include a Boston paperon his list, but he claimed that advertisingrates in thatcity were 33 percenthigherthanin New York. Nor did he mention Philadelphia,probablybecause he did not want to draw attentionto a city whose advertisingrates were comparable to those of New York.
47 Gazette of the United States, Mar. 11, 1808, p. 3, col. 2; Baltimore Federal Republican,July 21, 1809, p. 2, col. 1; New York Columbian,Feb. 28, 1818, p. 1, col. 1; BaltimoreFederal Gazette,Nov. 12, 1817, p. 2, col. 1; BaltimoreMorning Chronicle,Apr. 9, 1819, p. 2, col. 1; BaltimoreAmerican, Jan. 2, 1818, p. 2, col. 1. 48 New York Evening Post, Nov. 2, 1815, p. 2, col. 2.
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While Colemanhad no objectionto advertisingratesvaryingfromcity to city, he believed that editors from the same city should honor the same rate structure. When in 1815 his Federalist New York Evening Post announcedthat it had leagued with the largest-circulatingcity dailies to raise the price of advertisingfrom 50 cents to 75 cents per squarefor the first insertion, the Republican editors of the New York Courier and National Advocate refused to fall in line. The Courierobjected thatit had not been consultedby the "autocrats," while the Advocatelikewise mocked Coleman and the other "federal broomsticks."To deflect this criticism Coleman published his analysis of advertisingrates. Even with the rate hike, he insisted, New York remained a buyer's marketfor advertisers. Moreover, the action was fully justified in light of the recent 25 percent advancein journeymen'swages. Turningto his two critics, Colemanasked his readers whether a paltry savings of 25 cents justified placing an advertisementin the Courieror Advocate, neitherof which reachedmore than 600 subscribers, when the Evening Post claimed 1,500 to 1,600 subscribers. whatColemanfoundmost troublingaboutthe controversy But was less its overt partisanshipthanthe fact thattwo brotherprinterswould betray the trade and "attemptto undersell the market."This was "an attemptto injurethe business as unworthyas impolitic";the Courier and Advocate should put aside party bickering, swallow their pride, and acquiesce in the new rates "forthe sake of harmonyamongbrethrenof the same profession."49 As editorsworkedto negotiatean acceptableadvertisingrateschedule, they increased their revenues by defining an advertisementmore strictly than ever before. In 1809 Niles reportedthat the Philadelphiadailies had agreed to charge regular advertising rates for marriagenotices, and he advised his Baltimorecolleagues to do likewise. It took some time for the idea to catch on, but five years later the BaltimoreAmerican, Baltimore Federal Gazette, Baltimore Patriot, and Baltimore Whig notified their readersthathenceforththey would expect paymentfor notices of marriages as well as meetings of fire companies and militia units. By 1823 Coleman had lost patience with readerswho expected him to subsidize "thepractice of advertisingunderthe disguise of communicationsand editorialnotices writtenby request."He informedthemthatfromnow on these submissions would be treatedas plain advertisements.The single exception Coleman
49 Ibid., Oct. 27, 1815, p. 2, col. 1;NationalAdvocate, Oct. 31, 1815, p. 2, col. 1; New York Evening Post, Oct. 30, 1815, p. 2, col. 1; ibid., Oct. 31, 1815, p. 2, col. 2.
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was preparedto make was for charitableorganizations,whose notices the New York Evening Post would print at a 50 percent discount.50 Billing for advertisements had a clear advantage over billing for subscriptions-it was easier to collect. Most advertisers were city merchantsliving underthe editor's nose, not distantsubscriberswho could be reachedonly throughdunninglettersor itinerantbill collectors. Printers could press advertisers hard,andthey did. In 1813 the Gazetteof the United States experimented with positive incentives to discourage delinquent accounts, offering customers who paid in advance a reduction in the advertisingratefrom 67 cents to 50 cents per squarefor the first insertion. Five years later the BaltimoreAmerican adopteda hard-nosedpolicy and and informednonsubscribers people who lived outside of the city thatthey would be requiredto make payment at the time they placed their ads. The editors apparentlyfelt that a subscriberresiding in Baltimore could be counted on to pay his bill. Likewise, in May 1817 Gwynn told Baltimore Federal Gazette advertisersthat from now on they would have to pay up front, although during the next six months he relaxed the policy to accommodate a variety of circumstances. The Federal Gazette's best customerswho kept ads running"at all times"were not requiredto make immediatepayment,providedthey settle theiraccountsatGwynn's request. Even these preferred advertiserswould be obliged to pay in advanceif their accounts had fallen more than six monthsin arrears.Gwynn also clarified his policy on advertisementsthat appearedin the Federal Gazette with a request that they be published in other newspapers. Out-of-town editors who reprintedthese ads should not look to the Federal Gazette for their money, although as a professional courtesy to fellow printers, Gwynn would do what he could to facilitate payment. Six months after he had announcedhis policy of no pay-no ad,Gwynndecidedthatit should apply only to nonsubscribers.51 No one betterunderstoodthe financialcentralityof advertisingthanthe men who conductedthe pressin the nation'sadvertisingcapital,New York. In 1815 StephenGardenier estimatedthaton averagethe New YorkGazette carried forty-one first-insertionads per day, comparedto the New York Evening Post's twenty and the (New York) National Advocate's four.
50 Baltimore Evening Post, Apr. 13, 1809, p. 3, col. 3; BaltimoreAmerican,Mar. 24, 1814, p. 2, col. 4; reprintedin New York Evening Post, Mar. 28, 1814, p. 3, col. 2; New York Evening Post, Nov. 29, 1823, p. 2, col. 1 (quotation). 51 Gazette of the United States reprintedin BaltimoreFederal Republican, Apr. 30, 1813, p. 2, col. 1; BaltimoreAmerican,Jan.2, 1818, p. 2, col. 1; BaltimoreFederal Gazette, May 1, 1817, p. 2, col. 2; ibid., May 10, 1817, p. 2, col. 5; ibid., July 24, 1817, p. 2, col. 5; ibid., Oct. 14, 1817, p. 2, col. 4.
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Three years later Spooner of the New York Columbian attempted to demonstrate his contention that the city was enjoying unprecedented commercial prosperityby actually counting the numberof first-insertion advertisementsthat appearedin the morning papers of November 9. He found that the New York Gazette was well in front with 127, followed by the New York Mercantile Advertiser with eighty, the New York Daily Advertiser with thirty, and the National Advocate with thirteen.52 The table takes the information Gardenierand Spooner gave us, following andestimateshow muchmoney an editormadefromfirst-insertionads and subscriptions. TABLE: ESTIMATEOF ADVERTISEMENTAND SUBSCRIPTION REVENUE OF SELECTEDNEWSPAPERS Newspaper New York Gazette (1815) New York Evening Post (1815) National Advocate (1815) New York Gazette (1818) New York MercantileAdvertiser (1818) New York Daily Advertiser(1818) National Advocate (1818) New Ad Receipts ($) 33,579 16,380 2,184 104,013 65,520 24,570 10,647 Subscription Receipts ($) 20,000 15,800 6,000 25,000 25,000 25,000 25,000
combines withwhatwe knowabout subscription of thesepapers, it the base
Sources: New York Evening Post, Oct. 30, 1815, p. 2, col. 1; Nov. 2, 1815, p. 2, col. 2; New York Columbian,Nov. 10, 1818, p. 2, col. 2; Nov. 11, 1818, p. 2, col. 3; (New York) National Advocate, Dec. 15, 1821, p. 2, cols. 2-3. Notes: For new ad receipts I assumed that the paperappeared312 days per year, that the hypothetical ad was 3 1/2 squares(as Coleman assumed),and that the ad ratewas 75 cents per squarefor all papers except for the 1815 Advocate,which charged50 cents. Forsubscription receipts,I multipliedthe annual rateof $10 by the numberof subscribers.The numberof subscribersfor 1815 is based on the estimate of the Evening Post. Because the Gazette, Mercantile Advertiser, and Daily Advertiser had large circulations,and because few papershad subscriptionlists of over 2,500, I chose thatnumberfor their 1818 subscriptionlist. The 1818 figure for the Advocate is based on the number of subscribersit claimed to have threeyears later.
52 New York Gazette reprinted in New York Evening Post, Nov. 2, 1815, p. 5. col. 2; New York Columbian, Nov. 10, 1818, p. 2, col. 2.
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The data in the table show that advertisementswere the cash cow of early nationalnewspapers.By 1818 commercialgiants like the New York GazetteandNew YorkMercantileAdvertiserwere makingup to fourtimes as much money selling first-insertion ads than they were selling subscriptions. Even the National Advocate, whose raison d'etre was politics not profits, earned43 cents in new ad revenue for every dollar in subscriptionsin 1818. These numbersprobablyunderestimatehow much editors dependedon advertisingto keep them afloatbecause, first, they do not include repeatads and, second, they make no allowance for delinquent subscriptions. If we were able to include in our estimate the additional revenue from repeat ads and deduct the revenue lost through unpaid subscriptions, advertising would cast an even longer shadow over the finances of New York's daily press. Despite proceeding from radicallydifferentideological premises, the moraland marketeconomies of news workedin tandemto breakdown the subscriptionsystem's restrictionson newspapercirculation.Nowhere was this unexpected reconciliation more visible than in the public sphere. In every sizable city, dozens of business establishmentsbeckoned customers with the promise of conversation,a meal, a cup of coffee or pint of rum, lodging, books, magazines-and newspapers. According to Habermas, these institutions of urban sociability served as a space where private individuals could constitute themselves as a reasoning, critical public, separatefrom both the state and the privaterealmof family.53 Newspapers played a centralrole in the formationof this public sphere,for the discourse and practice of rational-critical enquirythat first developed out of face-toface conversationsin cafes and coffee houses were reproduced,Habermas argues, in the new medium of the periodical press. News rooms, coffee houses, hotels, reading rooms, and libraries that comprised the public sphere served not only as critical distributionpoints in the circulationof newspapersbut also as a culturalmiddle groundwhere competing claims of readersand editorsto "ownership" the news could be reconciled. On of the one hand, patrons of these institutions did not have to subscribe to newspapers in order to gain access to them, and in this sense the public sphere operatedaccordingto the logic of the moraleconomy of news. On the otherhand,patronswere generallyrequiredto pay an admissionfee of some kind, which mightrangefrom a subscriptionof five to ten dollarsper year chargedby many news rooms and readingrooms to the simple cup of coffee or meal served at coffee houses and hotels. By collecting a fee from their patrons,proprietorsof the public sphere validatedthe editor's view
53
Habermas,The StructuralTransformation the Public Sphere. of
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thatnews was a commoditywhose price was subjectto the forces of supply and demand. A logical place to begin an analysis of the public sphere is the newspaper office, for in addition to supplying the reading material that nurturedsocial interactionin coffee houses and the like, the editor also helped design the institutional architecture of urban sociability. the Townspeopleregarded editor's office as a public place thatsuppliedthe latestintelligence.They demandedan open-doorpolicy, andtherewas little an editor could do to keep the crowds away. Traffic peaked two times a day. The big rush came between two and four p.m., when impatient subscribersof evening newspaperspickedup theirissues fresh off the press ratherthan waiting an hour or two for carriersto deliver them to their The homes.54 scene was replayedon a smallerscale between five and seven A.M. as early birds besieged the offices of morningpapers. Townspeoplefrequentedthe newspaperoffice not only to get theirown papers but to read the editor's sizeable stock of out-of-town newspapers. The offices of the largest metropolitan dailies received dozens of newspapersin the mail each day, thanksto the Post Office Act of 1792 that permitted editors to exchange their papers free of charge.55While the authorsof the act wanted to encouragethe developmentof the press, they could not have foreseen how this exemption would transformnewspaper offices from private businesses into public arenas. In 1821 the Daily National Intelligencer was receiving exchange papers from forty-three cities, towns, and cross-road settlements, encompassing all twenty-one states; from most of these places came two or more papers, while Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston sent six each-a daily deluge of close to one hundredpapers.While the Intelligencerservedas the administration's national mouthpiece and therefore accepted an exceptionally large numberof small-townpapers, all big-city dailies had sizable exchange lists. "To turn over, examine, and compare 40 or 50 Newspaperevery day in the year, Sundaysnot excepted,"complainedthe editorof the BaltimoreAmerican,"is not so very pleasanta task, when one After considers the heterogeneous mass of which they are composed."56
54 John Relf notified subscribersthat they could get their papersafter two p.m. See Relfs PennsylvaniaGazette,Nov. 24, 1808, p. 3, col. 4. William Colemanopenedhis office to subscribers between threeand four p.m. See New York EveningPost, July 25, 1810, p. 2, col. 2; and ibid., Sept. 10, 1819, p. 2, col. 5. 55 RichardR. John, Spreadingthe News: TheAmericanPostal Systemfrom Franklin to Morse (Cambridge,MA, 1995), 32-33. 56 DailyNational Intelligencer,Aug. 24, 1821, p. 3, col. 2; BaltimoreAmerican, Nov. 20, 1813, p. 3, col. 1.
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scanning their exchange papers, editors cut and pasted those items that seemed of liveliest interest.As every editorcame to discover, therewas no shortageof readerswho hungeredto see the originals, clipped or not. Harried editors grumbled about the impossible demands of their readers, and it is easy to understandwhy. While strugglingto meet their deadlines,they were expected to satisfy the daily throngsthatinvadedtheir offices in search of reading material. In 1819 Coleman informed subscribersthat they could pick up the paperat his office after three p.m. Paying customerswould be servedfirst, afterwhich Colemanconsentedto open his doors to those "who resort to the office for gratuitousreading." However much the New York Evening Post's editor may have disliked "gratuitousreading," he dared not turn away patrons who wanted to examine his extensive files of exchange papers.Allowing readersfree run of theirexchangepaperscreatedheadachesfor editors,the mostpredictable of which elicited this notice in the New YorkNational Advocate: "Those who borrowedourfiles of the London Courier,andPublic Ledger,without When confrontedwith leave, will please returnthem when done with."57 the overwhelmingdemandfor free access to the news, the sameeditorswho admonished subscribers for loaning their newspapers to friends and neighborsturnedtheir offices into de facto lending libraries. The "newsroom"was one response to the demandsplaced on editors. In 1813 the editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser complained he could barely get his work done, subjectedas he was to "frequentinterrogatories for news of the morning,andfrom the applicationsforpermission to read papers from variousparts of the union."It was no use tryingto resist the incessant demandfor news, so the Daily Advertiseropened a room in its office where subscribersand their out-of-town friends could find files of exchange papers in addition to "an abstract of the intelligence by mail." The Baltimore Patriot likewise attempted to impose order on the newsmongerswho descendedon the office every afternoon.In 1813 French opened a news room next door to his office, "where our bulletins will constantlybe placed, and the latest mail papers,not in immediateuse, will there be left for perusal."A year later Frenchannouncedthat "a sketch of the news by the Easternand Southernmails"would be posted in the news room, which may have been a proof sheet of the next day's edition. The news room was always a busy place, even on days when no paper was issued. In July 1814, as Baltimore readied itself for a British invasion, Frenchnotified readersthatthe Patriot would shut down in observanceof
57 New York Evening Post, Sept. 10, 1819, p. 2, col. 5; National Advocate, Mar. 11, 1824, p. 2, col. 6.
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he independenceday. "Ifany news should arrive," reassuredthe public, "it will be posted as usual, in the News-Room."58 Editorswho operatednews rooms found themselves in a curious position viz-a-viz the moral and market economies of news, for at the same time that they pilloried nonpayingreadersof theirnewspapers,they invitedtownspeopleto browse exchange papersfor free. The largestnews rooms were not operatedby newspapereditors.They were stand-aloneenterpriseswhere readerscould find all the local papers, a wide selectionof domesticandforeignpublications,anddetailedshipping news that the press did not print.An examinationof two news rooms that operatedin Boston suggests how these establishmentsserved to circulate The first was the Reading newspapersamong hundredsof nonsubscribers. andNews Room of the Boston ExchangeCoffee House, an enormoushotel complex on Congress Street, directly across from the offices of the city's leadingnewspaper,periodical,andbook publishers.It subscribedto dozens of domestic papers,carefullyfiled for the convenience patrons,thoughthe collection undoubtedlyhad a Federalist flavor. In 1814 the editor of the New York Columbianreportedthat a recent visitor to the Reading and News Room had been able to find on its shelves currentissues of only one Republican newspaper published outside of New England. To use the facilities one had to purchasean annualsubscriptionof five dollars, onehalf the rate of the city's two daily newspapers.On November 3, 1818, in one of the spectacularfires that regularlyvisited early nationalcities, the Exchange Coffee House Hotel burnedto the groundand efforts to revive the Reading and News Room failed.59 Boston's second news room was the Merchants' Hall News and Reading Room, which opened its doors next to the post office in 1816. Could Boston support two such institutions? One correspondentto the Boston Daily Advertiserthoughtit unlikely, but he nonetheless applauded the "beneficial rivalry."In most respects, the regulations governing the operationsof the Merchants'Hall News Room were identical to those of its cross-townrival.60 The ten dollar annualfee gave subscribersaccess to
58 Boston Daily Advertiser,July 28, 1813, p. 2, col. 4; BaltimorePatriot, July 1, 1813, p. 2, col. 1; ibid., Aug. 16, 1814, p. 2, col. 6; ibid., July 2, 1814, p. 3, col. 1. 59 Boston Patriot, Nov. 5, 1818, p. 2, col. 5; New York Columbian,Jan.29, 1814, p. 2, col. 5, p. 3, col. 1; ibid., Mar.2, 1816, p. 1, col. 2; Boston Patriot, Nov. 5, 1818, p. 2, col. 5. 60 Boston Daily Advertiser,Feb. 19, 1817, p. 2, col. 4; Boston Patriot, Mar. 4, 1819, p. 4, col. 3. The Merchants'Hall News Room allowed free entry not only to mastersof vessels but also to commissioned officers of the armyand navy. A "stranger" defined was as anyone living more than six miles outside of Boston.
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the nation's leadingnewspaperswithouthaving to subscribeto each one or fight the crowd for the exchange papersreceived by the Boston Patriot or Boston Daily Advertiser. A month before the News and Reading Room officially opened to the public, its superintendentplaced a notice in the Patriot addressedto the editors of forty-two newspapers,requestingthat they enter the establishmentin their subscriptionbooks. The list included no Boston papers and only one from Massachusetts,presumablybecause had superintendent alreadycontactednearbyeditorspersonallyin orderto stock the News and Reading Room with city and state publications.Even with the omission of the local press and extensive files of overseas papers, the notice reveals the impressive geographical reach of the News and Reading Room's collection: the newspapers came from twenty-three communities,representingeleven states, Washington,and Canada.While New England accounted for fifteen titles, most of the papers came from outside the region. Subscribersfound a good selection of big-city dailies and price currents,seven from New York City, four from Philadelphia, threefrom Baltimore,and two each from CharlestonandNew Orleans.As one correspondentnoted in exasperation,not a few miserly Bostonians could be found lingering outside the Merchants'Hall News and Reading Room, hoping to scavenge scraps of intelligence.61Especially culpable were "gentlemen"who kept boxes at the adjoiningpost office. News rooms satisfiedone cravingbut not another.It took coffee houses to reveal the intoxicating synergies of news and caffeine.62 one end of At the spectrum were giant restaurant-hotel-banquet complexes like New York's Tontine Coffee House on Wall Street, established in 1796 and a fixture of city life for thirty-fouryears. In 1808 the Tontine proudly laid claim to "beingthe fountainof commercialinformation." readingroom Its was supplied with "all the principalpapersin the Union, and Londonfiles Across the street from the Tontine was the Phoenix by different arrivals." Coffee House, anothergrandestablishmentthatlikewise subscribedto the "principalNewspapers in the United States." The impressive physical facilities of these establishmentsis exemplified by the CommercialCoffee House of Boston, located in LibertySquare.Patronswho were interested in reading the paperstook a few steps down to the basement level where they found well-lighted readingrooms, a bar, and two kitchens;the upper stories included a banquet room, four parlors, a hall, and thirty-three sleeping rooms.The marriageof coffee andnews was also celebratedin the
Boston Patriot, Jan. 13, 1816, p. 3, col. 3; ibid., Mar. 19, 1819, p. 2, col. 5. For a discussion of newspaperreading in taverns and similarplaces, see Leonard, News for All, 6-12.
62
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cities of the South. On East Bay Street was the CharlestonCoffee House, offering "all the Newspapers of the city, and most other cities in the Union."When HenryParmbleopened a coffee shop in Richmondnearthe statecapitol, he also boastedthathis readingroom containedan impressive collection of maps and newspapers"fromall partsof the United States."63 Like commercial news rooms, the reading rooms operatedby the largest coffee houses chargedits users an annual subscriptionfee. Although smaller coffee houses had fewer newspapers on file, they were more open to people off the street.One did not have to be a year-long subscriberto enter John Cuff's coffee house in Baltimore, which opened in 1819 on the comer of North Frederickand Marketstreets-the price of admissionwas a cup of coffee. "Inhis barroom,"Cuff advertised,"maybe always found the Baltimorepapers,as well as those of Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, &c. and the Price Currentsof those places." In New York William Niblo converted a privateresidence into the Bank Coffee House where he, like Cuff, kept the "principalpapers of the United States." In 1823 0. Morse calculatedthathe could drawcustomersinto his New York coffee house by supplying not only currentpapers but "Two or 3 papers
printed during the Revolution of 1776."64
At this level coffee houses began to blend imperceptiblywith taverns, oyster houses, and the like. Beneaththe shadows of the new City Hall, the New YorkGlobe Tavern,PorterandOysterHouse on Nassau Streetoffered a fare of "Relishes, Dinners, Soup, Tea, Coffee, &c." As customers satisfied their appetites, they might also browse all the local papers, togetherwith those from Washington,Baltimore,Charleston,Boston, and "several from Europe." On the same street was the Exchange Tavern servingall varietiesof liquor,"Coffee,Beefsteaks, Chickensand Oysters." Its owner had furnisheda room "with morning and evening Papers,"but unlike the Globe Tavernand substantialcoffee shops, he did not subscribe to any out-of-town papers. Even when tavern keepers did not take out subscriptionson their own account, newspapers found a way into their who respondedto a letterpublishedin establishments.One correspondent the Baltimore Whig explained why he could not quote directly from the
New York Evening Post, June 9, 1824, p. 2, col. 2; Relfs Pennsylvania Gazette, 16, 1808, p. 3, col. 3; New York Columbian,May 19, 1813, p. 2, col. 4; Boston Daily Aug. Advertiser, Aug. 29, 1817, p. 4, col. 4; CharlestonCourier, Dec. 27, 1822, p. 1, col. 5; Richmond (VA) Enquirer,Nov. 2, 1813, p. 3, col. 5 (quotation);Nov. 19, 1813, p. 1, col. 2. 64 BaltimoreMorning Chronicle,July 27, 1819, p. 1, col. 3; National Advocate,May 31, 1813, p. 3, col. 2; ibid., June 25, 1823, p. 1, col. 4.
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letter.65"The paper which contained it," he wrote, "is the propertyof a subscriberwith whom I have no acquaintance;and the tavern keeper in whose care it was left by the stage driver,could not with proprietypartwith it." While the correspondentcould not "with propriety"take the paper away, no one in the tavernseemed to mind his readingit on the premises. If newspapers were the bait that pulled customers into coffee houses and taverns, they had the same magnetic effect on middling and affluent out-of-townerslooking for hotel lodging, or locals seeking a comfortable settingfor dinner,coffee, madeira,orjust conversation.In the hierarchyof hotels, sizable establishmentslike the PhiladelphiaMansion House, with its fortyto fifty bedrooms,maintainedwell-stocked readingrooms for their guests. When J. B. Barry advertised the opening of his City Hotel in Philadelphia, he drew special attentionto his "COFFEEROOM"where visitors could find on file "the principal papers in the United States, together with foreign journals." Not far away on MarketStreet was the Globe Inn, which also had "an extensive Reading Room." Hoteliers who did not operatetheirown readingrooms could point to nearbynews rooms and readingrooms as a way of attracting business, a strategyemployed by the New York City Hotel on Broadway.66"A fashionable circulating library, and splendid reading-room,"its proprietors announced, "are directly opposite, and will serve to occupy a leisure hour." The same sorts of people who frequentedthe premier coffee houses could be found in the finest hotels. One of the largest hotels, which could accommodate150 lodgers, was Baltimore'sIndianQueenTavern.In 1818 the IndianQueen announcedthe opening of a new readingroom "withall the most desirablenewspapersof the union, togetherwith prices currentof our commercial cities." Like the Boston Exchange Coffee House, Merchants' Hall, and Tontine Coffee House, the Indian Queen Reading Room admittedonly residentsof the hotel and personswho had purchased a subscription.A yearlaterthe peripatetic hotelierDavidBarnum,who was the Boston Exchange Coffee House when it collapsed in flames managing andwho earlierhadkeptthe Phoenix Coffee House in New York,took over the lease of the IndianQueen. In singing its praises, he seemed most proud of its six bathingrooms and the readingroom "suppliedwith all the most importantnewspapers, prices current&c. from every part of the United
National Advocate, June 7, 1813, p. 2, col. 3; ibid., June 19, 1819, p. 3, col. 1; correspondent reprintedin BaltimoreFederal Republican,Sept. 27, 1810, p. 2, col. 4, p. 3, cols. 1-2. 66 BaltimorePatriot, Dec. 10, 1823, p. 3, col. 4; Relf's PennsylvaniaGazette,May 12, 1809, p. 1, col. 5; BaltimorePatriot, June4, 1823, p. 4, col. 3; NationalAdvocate, June 10, 1817, p. 3, cols. 1-3.
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States,"which he presumablycontinuedto operateon a subscriptionbasis. The GoldenEagle Hotel of Philadelphia also collected "theprincipalpapers of the union" in its reading room, and like the Indian Queen, restricted access to guests and subscribers.The registerof any substantialhotel was filled with the signatures of merchants, and hotel keepers attemptedto provide their guests with suitable reading material.The Western Hotel, Tavern and Stage Office of Baltimore, which had nearly one hundred who convergedon the city rooms, cateredto "WesternCountrymerchants" to lay in their yearly stock of merchandise.67 proprietorassumed his The patrons were in town for business not pleasure, so he dispensed with newspapersaltogetherand limited his subscriptionsto "theprices current of all the principaltowns in the United States." Hotels that lacked the facilities of the Mansion House, IndianQueen, or Western Hotel may have had less than elegant readingrooms, but they were more open to walk-through traffic. In this respect, small hotels resembled small coffee houses. New York's Fly MarketHotel could take no more thanten to twelve boarders.Its proprietors seem to have received a few out-of-town papers, but generally limited their subscriptionsto the New Yorkpress.The nearbyWashingtonHall Hotel on Broadwaylikewise stocked its coffee room with local papers exclusively, but the public was invited to drop by, quench its thirst, and browse through its files. The Marine Hotel of Fell's Point was situated in a plebeian community of shipbuilders,sailors, and workingmen,a mile distantfrom the commercial centerandopulentresidencesof Baltimore.68 Unlike the fashionableIndian Room across the harbor,which barredall but guests and Queen Reading subscribers,the MarineHotel opened its files of local papersto "thosewho visit the coffee-room, free of expence." Beyond the news rooms,coffee houses, hotels, andtavernswere dozens of miscellaneous enterprisesthatused newspapersto createan atmosphere of relaxed sociability. At the gardens of Philadelphia'sVauxhall, where music, lights, concerts, and balls drew crowds every Tuesday and Friday night, the proprietorsset out the city dailies and a few out-of-townpapers for patronswho had paid the fifty cents admissionfee. W. L. Hortonkept a "MineralWaterEstablishment" Baltimore,and he invited customers in
67 BaltimoreFederal Gazette,Apr. 30, 1817, p. 4, col. 2; BaltimoreAmerican, Sept. 12, 1818, p. 3, col. 3; Boston Patriot, Nov. 3, 1819, p. 4, col. 1; New York Evening Post, May 20, 1813, p. 3, col. 3; Baltimore American, Dec. 8, 1818, p. 3, col. 4; Baltimore Federal Republican,Feb. 17, 1817, p. 3, col. 4. 68 National Advocate, July 7, 1817, p. 3, col. 3; New York Evening Post, June 14, 1813, p. 2, col. 1; Jan.4, 1814, p. 4, col. 3; BaltimoreEveningPost, Feb. 14, 1809, p. 2, col.
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who enjoyed his "AeratedCyder" and beer and ale "charged withfixed gas" to browse throughhis "files of papersfrom all the principalcities in the United States." At the foot of MurrayStreet was the New York Salt WaterFloatingBath, a 2,000-squarefoot structure supportedby fourboats, which enticed batherswith "a fine large airy Reading and Sitting Room, Whetherone sought a reprievefrom providedwith the papersof the day."69 the jangle of city life in outdoor fireworks, bubbling cider, or a bracing bath, newspapers were close at hand, the indispensable lubricantof all social transactions. While news rooms, coffee houses, and hotels circulatednewspapers among practical men who wanted information about state politics, congressional proceedings, Europeanaffairs, and the state of marketsat home and abroad,literary"reading rooms"put newspapersin the hands of men of culture. Owners of reading rooms amassed some of the largest collections of domestic andforeignnewspapersandmagazinesto be found anywhere. They saw periodicals as the literary material from which America would achieve its great cultural awakening. In 1814 Edward J. Coale expressed his hope that Baltimore would prove itself the equal of New York, Philadelphia,Boston, and Georgetown, each of which could boast of reading rooms.70As he envisioned them in his prospectus, the Baltimore Reading Rooms would advance the noble goal of cultural improvementratherthan the narrowaims of profit or party. Republicans and Federalistsalike would receive a warmwelcome as well as access to "themost important news-papersfromevery partof the Union, withoutthe slightest regardto the peculiar politics of any of them,"perhapsa veiled referenceto the partisanleanings of the news rooms. According to their proprietors, reading rooms would harness newspapersto the cause of enlightenednationhood.In 1811 the playwright John Howard Payne established a reading room in New York. At his "Literary Exchange"patronscould peruse "everynewspaperandmagazine published in New-York, Charleston,Washington,Baltimore and Boston, all preservedandfiled in due order." Paynepredictedthathis readingroom, located across the streetfrom the City Hotel, would set for itself centrally a higherstandard thanpedestrian"Coffeehouses, newspaperrooms,or any of the kind."Nine years laterthe New York publishingfirm of Kirk thing andMerceinopened a "Literary and CommercialReading Room"on Wall
Relfs Pennsylvania Gazette, Apr. 25, 1816, p. 3, col. 4; Baltimore Federal Republican,Dec. 9, 1817, p. 1, col. 2; NationalAdvocate,May 23, 1823, p. 2, col. 5 (quote); July 2, 1823, p. 2, col. 3. 70 BaltimorePatriot, Apr. 26, 1814, p. 1, col. 5.
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files of newspapersfrom all our principal Street,which contained"regular cities." In orderto carve out a space of unhurriedcontemplationamid the bustle of neighboring banks, the custom house, and post office, the managers of the Literary and Commercial Reading Room offered their patrons access to a backyard garden with a "spacious summer house." Perhapsless bucolic was anotherreadingroom at the corer of Broadway and Broome streets, this one dominatedby a "News Table, forty feet in length, furnished with a great variety of papers." The owners of the Charleston Reading Room, located above the office of the Charleston Courier,claimed that they held subscriptionsto the newspapersand price currentsof "every city and principaltown in the United States."71 Like the news rooms and premier coffee houses and hotels, literary reading rooms granted admission through annual subscriptions. The WashingtonReadingRoom of New York did not stipulateits subscription rate but insisted it was well worth the money. "The Books, Reviews, Magazines, Maps and Newspapers with which this Room shall be furnished," its owner boasted, "are too costly and numerous to be purchasedby an individual-here, every information,whether political, literaryor scientifical, may be had for one hundredth partof the expence." Kirk and Mercein charged "a small annual sum," while the Literary Exchange and CharlestonReading Room sold subscriptionsat ten dollars per year and permittedvisitors to use its facilities for a payment of one dollarper month.72 There remained one final for-profit institution that gave nonsubscribersaccess to newspapers-the circulating library.A formidable combination of entrepreneurialand enlightened motives lay behind the establishmentof dozens of librariesin Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore,and othercities. They joined news rooms, coffee shops, hotels, and literary reading rooms in expanding the circulation of newspapers beyond the orbit of subscribers.While books were the principalattraction of circulatinglibraries,newspapersand magazines also pulled patronsoff the streets.In 1824 J. V. Seamanopened a circulatinglibraryon Broadway
New York EveningPost, Feb. 15,1811, p. 2, cols. 4-5; New York Columbian,May 11, 1820, p. 2, col. 3; (New York) National Advocate, May 11, 1820, p. 2, col. 3; National Advocate, Aug. 11, 1823, p. 3, col. 3; CharlestonCourier,July 13, 1809, p. 3, col. 1; Feb. 20, 1810, p. 3, col. 1; Jan. 11, 1813, p. 2, col. 1. The institution was referredto as the Reading Room and the News Room. 72 New York Public Advertiser, Oct. 13, 1810, p. 2, col. 2; New York Commercial Advertiser,Oct. 18, 1810, p. 2, col. 3; CharlestonCourier,July 13, 1809, p. 3, col. 1; New York Evening Post, Feb. 15, 1811, p. 2, cols. 4-5; National Advocate, May 11, 1820, p. 2, col. 3.
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and stocked its reading room with "the New York morning and evening papers,a Philadelphia,Baltimore,Washington,Boston and Albany paper, together with the Periodicals and New Publications." The Union CirculatingLibraryof Boston, which its owners said was the largestin the state,likewise kept "thePapersof the day"in its readingroom. Newspapers were preservedfor their historic as well as currentinterest, as in the case of of the MarylandCirculatingLibrary Baltimorewhich announcedin 1823 that it hadjust received complete files of the Daily National Intelligencer for the years between 1811 and 1814.73 John Robinson's CirculatingLibraryof Baltimore, which opened its doors in 1809, reveals where newspapersfit in the overall scheme of these institutions. From its first day the library included a reading room that contained "American and European Newspapers, Magazines, &c." It charged subscribers six dollars per year, not counting extra fees for borrowing books. The use of the newspaper reading room cost library subscribers another three dollars while nonsubscribershad to pay five In dollarsper year.74 1822 the librarywas expandedinto a complex of four rooms. On the first floor was the main library room that contained the collection of books. Adjoining the library room was a music room for women only, stockedwith sheet music and a piano forte. Keeping men and women apart was important. Robinson explained that since "a great proportionof the patronsof the Libraryare ladies," it would be necessary for male patronsof the libraryroomto maketheirselections expeditiously. If the men wished to peruse the books they were thinkingaboutborrowing, then Robinson advised they remove themselves to one of the two rooms upstairs.Both of these rooms were restrictedto men. The first roomwas for quiet study, the second for open conversation. The library's periodical of collection, describedas "upwards thirtynewspapersfromdifferentparts of the United States, and nearly as many Magazines and Reviews from Europe, and this country,"was filed in the upstairs room set aside for talkativemen.75 In the end, whatunderlaythe expansionof newspapercirculationin the early national era was not a single technological breakthroughlike the
73 NationalAdvocate, July 5, 1824, p. 1, col. 5 (quotation); July 10, 1824, p. 2, col. 3; Boston Daily Advertiser,Aug. 23, 1815, p. 3, col. 5; BaltimorePatriot, July 12, 1823, p. 1, col. 2. 74 BaltimoreEvening Post, July 25, 1809, p. 3, col. 3; ibid., Sept. 18, 1822, p. 3, col. rates. Therewas a rate scale calibratedto the numberof books 1. These were the standard one borrowed and the length of time they were kept. See General Catalogue: To Robinson's CirculatingLibrary(Baltimore, 1823). 75 BaltimorePatriot, Jan. 4, 1823, p. 1, col. 2.
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steam-poweredcylinder press, or a new marketingstrategy like selling papers by the issue ratherthan by yearly subscription,or a government policy of subsidized newspaper delivery like that provided in the Post Office Act of 1792. Newspapers were both agents and emblems of the larger culture in which they were embedded, and by the opening of the nineteenthcenturythatculturewas being configuredalong democraticand capitalist lines. Americans had come to believe that as citizens and consumers they had a right to the information contained in newspapers. Newspapers were viewed as a cultural resource of vital interest to the public, not as a simple commodityto which any one person or groupcould lay a claim of exclusive ownership. In the popular mind, there existed a moral economy of news that legitimated the widespread assault on the proprietary rights of editors. Ratherthan allow the subscriptionsystem to them of a resource without which the full promise of republican deprive citizenship and material prosperity could not be realized, Americans begged, borrowed, and stole newspapers on a massive scale. Editors of protested against this unjust appropriation their property,but they did not crack down on delinquent subscribers. They continued to deliver newspapers to nonpaying readers because an editor's political influence and advertisingrevenue depended on the length of his subscriptionlist, whether subscriberspaid or not. The same editors who most insistently defendedthe position thatnewspaperswere commoditieswhose value was determined by the marketplacejoined hands with readers to erode the subscriptionsystem from within. Recall that Nathan Hale of the Boston Daily Advertisermarveledat "ouruniversalrelish for newspaperreading." "Itis a thirstso universal,"he said, "thatit has given rise to a general and habitualform of salutationon the meetingof friends and strangers:What's the news?"76 However unwillingly, editorsof the early nationalpress gave these news-hungrycitizens what they wanted. In more ways than one, this was a free press.
76
Boston Daily Advertiser,Apr. 7, 1814, p. 2, cols. 3-4.

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Society for Historians of the Early American Republic

JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

Reportedin Daily National Intelligencer (Washington,DC), Aug. 24, 1821, p. 3,

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

combines withwhatwe knowabout subscription of thesepapers, it the base

JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

Habermas,The StructuralTransformation the Public Sphere. of

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

JOURNALOF THE EARLY REPUBLIC

Boston Daily Advertiser,Apr. 7, 1814, p. 2, cols. 3-4.

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