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Critical Studies in Mass Communication

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The mythology of the penny press

a
John C. Nerone
a
Research Assistant Professor of Communications , University of Illinois
Published online: 18 May 2009.

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 Critical Studies in Mass Communication

The Mythology of the Penny Press

JOHN C. NERONE

[]In this essay, I examine common scholarly characterizations of the U.S. penny
press of the 1830s and 40s that together provide a myth of origins of the contemporary
U.S. press. I criticize inaccuracies and misleading elements in this mythology,
especially regarding the political stance, readership, and content of the penny papers
and their role in "revolutionizing" U.S. journalism. I also criticize the implications of
this mythology for subsequent debate about U.S. journalism, especially regarding the
relationship between objectivity, market forces, and freedom of the press. [Editor's
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Note: An exchange between four journalism history scholars and Nerone follows this
essay.]

NE OF THE commonplaces of U.S. These ideas provide a myth of origins

O communications history is a my-
thology about the penny press of the
for the contemporary press. As such, the
mythology has been involved in the
1830s and 40s. This mythology consists development of the institution it de-
of a set of vivid characterizations that can scribes, providing historical legitimacy
be found in histories of every shade of for current practices and ideas. The
opinion. With roots going back more mythology originated in the self-charac-
than a century, the mythology of the terizations of penny press operators, was
penny press is part of the common sense adopted by the writers of the first jour-
about U.S. journalism. nalism histories (generally designed as
The gist of the mythology is that a texts to be used in journalism schools),
small number of daring innovators, and has provided a genealogy for the
working especially in New York City, contemporary culture of journalism.
revolutionized the content and style of The mythology of the penny press also
American journalism by creating what serves to direct research into the history
was essentially the modern popular com- of the American press. Scholars seem to
mercial newspaper. These penny papers agree that a revolution in American jour-
were the first commercial papers, the nalism took place in the middle decades
first popular papers, the first politically of the nineteenth century, and that the
independent papers, and the first "news" penny press wrought it, even though
papers. They were the ancestors of con- they disagree on the precise conse-
temporary U.S. newspapers. quences and whether they were benefi-
cial. Most surveys choose 1833, the year
Benjamin Day's New York Sun demon-
Mr. Nerone is Research Assistant Professor strated the viability of the penny press
of Communications, University of Illinois. format, as the dividing point between

Critical Studies in Mass Communication Copyright 1987, SGA

4(1987), 376-404
 377

GSMC NERONE

two diametrically opposite periods of pers: politicization and commercializa-

press conduct. While detailed research tion. These twin processes were appar-
on either side of this divide may fail to ent in every sector of the press but
invoke the epochal influence of the shaped different classes of papers in dif-
penny press, the mythology rarely has ferent ways: Because of accidental fac-
been challenged and always finds its way tors in some of the major Eastern cities,
back into fresh syntheses. politicization, or the integration of the
Describing this set of beliefs as a press into the party system, and commer-
mythology does not necessarily mean cialization, or the integration of the press
that it is factually false. Indeed, many of into the market economy, seemed to come
the facts invoked in the mythology of the into conflict with each other. This epi-
penny press are true. What is character- sode has given birth to the myth of a
istic of the mythology, however, is its revolution in journalism.
system of organizing these facts around a I argue that the development of Amer-
heroic narrative with didactic effect. ican journalism is more properly under-
Because a mythology is a story organized stood as an evolutionary development
around a set of values, it almost always rooted in shifts in social and cultural
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involves an oversimplification of history. environment. The penny press is prop-

Mythology's shortcoming is not a falsifi- erly understood as a mutation in one
cation of facts but a misappropriation of class or species of newspaper, rather
facts. than as a revolution in editorial policy
In this article, I outline the main and business strategy. The innovations
characterizations of the penny press and associated with the penny press are func-
show how they constitute a set of beliefs tions of forces external to the papers
with implications beyond the arguments themselves rather than the result of
or intentions of any particular scholar. unique personal initiative. The strate-
To support this point, I then outline gieseditorial, political, and commer-
briefly the historiography of U.S. jour- cialadopted by penny press operators
nalism, with special attention toward were responses to changes in specific
attitudes concerning the penny press. environments rather than discoveries of
Finally, I present a detailed critique of fundamental human truths (e.g., the
conventional ideas about the penny press people want news, not opinions) or of
and propose some alternate characteriza- new principles (e.g., political indepen-
tions of the history of its period. dence). And changes in newspaper struc-
The main points I make about the tures and techniques were more the
history are these: The expansion of the products of processes of evolutionary
press in the United States was a result of change than the inventions of imagina-
ideas and expectations popularized in tive entrepreneurs. The same forces that
the period of the American Revolution. produced the dramatic innovations in
This change, beginning in the eighteenth penny papers acted simultaneously on
century, was deeply affected by two the press as a whole.
grand developments in the nineteenth This point of view changes the
century: the rise of popular partisan emplotment of journalism history in the
politics and the appearance of a market penny press era in key ways. It also
economy. Two resulting trends are promises to shift attention away from the
apparent in nineteenth century newspa- usual characters and settings. The moral
 378

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

of the story should be different too. I tional mainstay of newpaper circulation.

begin with a review of the mythology of Street sales dictated sensational content
the penny press. (Peterson, Jensen, & Rivers, 1965,
p. 43) and different graphics created
"better makeup and more readable type"
THE MYTHOLOGY (Emery and Emery, 1984, p. 143). All of
Conventional ideas credit the penny these innovationsstreet sales, sensa-
papers with revolutionizing U.S. news- tionalism, and graphicsmade the pa-
papers in several areas. First, they revo- per more accessible to the working class.
lutionized circulation by making papers Consequently, the penny papers are
cheaply available to the public. Second, said to have achieved readerships radi-
they revolutionized content by declaring cally larger than earlier papers. Indeed,
their independence from political parties the commonly discussed New York
and concentrating on news rather than penny papers achieved unprecedented
opinion. And third, they revolutionized circulations. By 1836, for instance, the
the newspaper business by introducing Sun claimed a circulation greater than
new technologies (such as the telegraph), that of its 11 six-penny competitors com-
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new occupations (such as that of the bined (Sun, 8/20/1836). The Sun later
reporter), and new sources of income was rivalled by the New York Herald
(such as advertising). Put together, these and the New York Tribune, the Balti-
characterizations in effect argue that the more Sun, and the Philadelphia Public
penny press transformed the U.S. news- Ledger, all with much larger circulations
paper from a tool of political privilege to than the six-penny dailies that preceded
a social instrument of popular democra- them (Schudson, 1978, pp. 17-18).
cy. It will be helpful to analyze each area It is claimed that the large circulations
in some detail. of penny dailies signalled a new empha-
sis on seeking out readers. Earlier papers
are treated as exclusive and elitist: the
Price and Circulation
special property of "the aristocrats"
The definitive innovation of the penny (Lee, 1923, pp. 204-205), of the "politi-
press was the introduction of a newspa- cian and entrepreneur" (Crouthamel,
per that sold daily for one cent. The 1964, p. 95), and of the "mercantile and
cheapness of these papers made them political elites" (Schudson, 1978, p. 15).
accessible to new readerships. Before the penny press, "metropolitan
The penny papers also introduced the papers paid little attention to ordinary
cash system of circulation, which meant people" (Heren, 1985, pp. 36-37).
that the papers were sold for cash to Payne (1920, p. 243) calls the Sun the
distributors who then sold the papers to "first popular paper" and J. M. Lee
readers in whatever manner they deemed (1923, p. 201) writes that, with the
appropriate. Distributors are usually penny press, "for the first time journal-
depicted as newsboys, ulive lads" who ism was brought directly to the people."
"wrought the greatest change in journal- More specifically, it is argued that the
ism that had ever been made, for they penny papers were the first U.S. news-
brought the paper to the people" papers to tap the working class. Thus
(O'Brien, 1928, p. 19). These newsboys Crouthamel (1964, p. 91) writes,
are said to have concentrated on street "Newspapers priced moderately enough
sales rather than subscriptions, the tradi- to be available to the average reader were
 379

CSMC NERONE

unknown in the United States before the as the obedient servants of social forces.
1830s." The penny papers were papers In both versions, though, the penny
for the masses, u the mechanics and ser- papers play a decisive and revolutionary
vant girls" (Lee, 1923, p. 188; see also role.
Bleyer, 1927, p. 155; Emery & Emery, Before the penny press, it is argued,
1984, p. 139; North, 1881, pp. 89-90; all papers were political. Thus Hudson
Peterson, Jensen, & Rivers, 1965, p. 42). (1873) designates the period 1783-1832
They were, it is argued, deeply colored as the age of "The Political Party Press,"
by artisanal consciousness and tapped and his label has been adopted by vir-
the urban working class sources of radi- tually every historian since. Mott (1950),
cal Jacksonian democracy (Saxton, for instance, in his chapter titles con-
1984; Schiller, 1981). Schiller (1981, trasts the "Dark Ages of Partisan Jour-
chaps. 2 & 3) goes so far as to credit the nalism" with the "Sunrise" of the penny
penny press with inventing the appeal to press. Bleyer (1927, p. 152) refers to
the total public, as opposed to specific earlier newspapers as "primarily politi-
interests. cal party organs," and North (1881,
Most standard treatments of the p. 19) talks of "the emancipation of the
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penny press argue or imply that it cre- American press from thralldom to party,
ated a mass readership and gave that under which it struggled for so many
readership a self-awareness of its politi- years, years in which its growth and
cal interests. Most quote with tacit usefulness seemed to stagnate. . . . " Since
acceptance a Sun editorial celebrating the time of the revolution, at least, the
that paper's impact that reads, in part: American press had been a partisan
"Already we can perceive a change in the advocate and not a source of public
mass of the people. They think, talk, and enlightenment. Hudson (1873, pp. 410-
act in concert. They understand their 414) again writes, "Every newspaper
own interest, and feel they have the writer and every printer had been edu-
numbers and strength to pursue it with cated for half a century in the belief that
success" (6/28/1838; cited in Hughes, no journal of any respectability could be
1940, p. 160; Payne, 1920, p. 246; Sax- established without the consent of politi-
ton, 1984, p. 225). cians and the pecuniary aid of party."
Thus the press was "the slave of the two
Content political oligarchies."
The penny press, unlike its predeces-
The penny papers are said to have sors, was politically independent (Lipp-
cultivated a new readership by capitaliz- mann, 1931, p. 435; North, 1881, p. 91;
ing on striking innovations in content. Schiller, 1979; Schudson, 1978, p. 21).
Three main claims dominate the litera- Because penny papers served readers
ture. First, the penny press initiated a and not politicians, they printed infor-
policy of political neutrality. Second, it mation of use to citizens rather than
emphasized news over opinion, pioneer- opinionated arguments on behalf of par-
ing in sensationalism and human interest tisan interests. Thus North (1881, p. 91)
stories. Third, it simplified writing asserts that the penny press "taught the
styles, making the American newspaper higher-priced papers that the political
more readable. In some accounts, penny connection was properly subordinated to
press operators are depicted as heroic the other and higher function of the
agents of change. In others, they appear public journalthe function of gather-
 380

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

ing and presenting the news as it is, perhaps opposed to opinion. (For news-
without reference to its political or other papers to consider news as their primary
effect upon friend or foe" (see also Crou- content they must reject, at least implicit-
thamel, 1964, p. 92; Emery & Emery, ly, a primary role as promoters of opin-
1984, p. 143; Schudson, 1978, p. 22). ion.) Finally, when news becomes the
Commentators agree that the penny chief content of a newspaper, new criteria
press was novel in capitalizing on the for judging performance become possible,
popular audience for news but are not perhaps necessary. Accuracy, complete-
precise in identifying news as a category. ness, and timeliness are aspects of
Consider the following: news that are foreign to newspapers of
opinion.
The product sold to readers was a news," and
By concentrating on news, it is argued,
it was an original product in several respects.
First, it claimed to represent, colorfully but the penny press performed a function
without partisan coloring, events in the that conventional papers had ignored: it
world. Thus the news product of one paper presented a picture of ordinary social
could be compared to that of another for life. Here is Schudson (1978, p. 22) on
accuracy, completeness, liveliness, and time- this issue:
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liness. (Schudson, 1978, p. 25)

For the first time the American newspaper
But the commercial penny press substituted made it a regular practice to print political
the market for the mission. Its object was to news, not just foreign but domestic, and not
sell, not its influence, but the news, and its just national but local; for the first time it
customers, therefore, were those who were printed reports from the police, from the
more interested in the news than in the courts, from the streets, and from private
editor's interpretation of the news. (Hughes, households. One might say that, for the first
1940, p. 7) time, the newspaper reflected not just com-
The Sun and its galaxy of imitators proved merce and politics but social life. To be more
that the news was a valuable commodity, if precise, in the 1830s the newspaper began to
delivered in a sprightly manner. (Emery & reflect, not the affairs of an elite in a small
Emery, 1984, p. 142) trading society, but the activities of an
James Gordon Bennett . . . created the idea increasingly varied, urban, and middle class
that the newspaper is primarily a purveyor society of trade, transportation, and manu-
of news, not of editorial opinion. (Peterson, facturing.
Jensen, & Rivers, 1965, p. 43)
So, not only did the penny press liberate
These statements are representative of the newspaper from partisan interest, it
characterizations of the novel nature of also made the newspaper into a medium
the news carried in the penny press. of everyday life. The penny paper trans-
What then are the novel characteristics formed the American newspaper from a
of news? It is event oriented rather than political to a social instrument.
issue oriented, for one. Thus a news item Part of this transformation was the
recounts an event rather than simply introduction of the human interest story
presenting an artifact from the event, such as a mainstay of news content. While
as a transcript of a speech. News then is earlier papers had carried such stories
more lively, or so it is claimed. And, as filler material, the penny press is said
because it is more lively, it is said to have a to have specialized in human interest
broader appeal and to be a marketable stories, particularly in the interest of
commodity. Further, news is said by its selling newspapers (Hughes, 1940,
nature to be separate from opinion, and p. 47). Hughes sees this as a case of the
 381

CSMC NERONE

newspaper assuming a function that had ized the commercialization of the news-
traditionally been performed by gossip paper." Schudson (1978, p. 25) agrees:
and folk tales; other commentators see it "Until the 1830s, a newspaper provided
as a more fundamental change. Schud- a service to political parties and men of
son (1978, p. 30) writes that "the new commerce; with the penny press, a news-
journalism of the penny press . . . paper sold a product to a general reader-
ushered in a new order, a shared social ship and sold the readership to advertis-
universe in which 'public5 and 'private' ers." The penny paper was sold as a
would be redefined." Whether the penny commodity to an undifferentiated public
press created new concerns and styles of in the open market. It was a strictly
thought or catered to old ones, writers commercial product.
have agreed that the exploitation of As a consequence, penny papers
human interest stories in newspapers became excellent advertising media.
was novel. Commentators stress the new reliance on
Just as common is the characterization advertising revenue that resulted from
of penny press content as sensational. It mass readership (Bleyer, 1927, pp. 183
is generally assumed that the popularity 184; Emery & Emery, 1984, p. 142;
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of the penny press was directly tied to Hudson, 1873, pp. 419-420). Schudson
sensationalism. Thus Bleyer (1927, (1978, p. 20) argues further that, while
p. 164) writes, "The basis of the Sun's earlier papers had limited advertising for
success is unquestionably to be found in noneconomic reasonsfor instance,
its giving the masses what they wanted some had refused to carry patent medi-
sensational, 'human interest' news . . . " cine adsthe penny papers "appealed to
(Emery & Emery [1984, p. 146] agree; the equal right of any advertiser to
see also Crouthamel, 1974). Schudson employ the public press, so long as the
(1978, p. 23) argues that sensationalism advertiser paid." The penny papers
was one of the roots of the hostile reac- rationalized the business of newspaper
tion of conventional papers to penny advertising, in obedience to the market,
papers. so that "advertising, as well as sales, took
on a more democratic cast" (p. 19).
In step with economic rationalization,
Structure and Conduct
the penny papers also refined the occu-
The penny press is usually credited pational structure of the newspaper.
with several dramatic innovations in They hired reporters for the first time,
structure and conduct. Among these are: an innovation that was considered shock-
mass readership and, along with it, a ing by some politicians (Schudson, 1978,
new reliance on advertising; a new occu- pp. 23-24). At the same time, the new
pational emphasis on news reporting occupational structure and the new con-
and, along with it, a new interest in cern with the market of readers and
timely reporting; and because of these advertisers bred new values.
other factors, a new receptiveness toward It has been a commonplace, for
new technologies. instance, to assume that the emphasis on
The penny papers are said to have timeliness in news was a creation of the
been the first papers run strictly as busi- penny papers and that these were the
nesses. According to Hughes (1940, p. first papers to seek ways to speed up
15), "the whole complex of the penny delivery of news (Heren, 1985, p. 39;
press, its news and its marketing, signal- O'Brien, 1928, pp. 90-98; Schudson,
 382

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

1978, p. 26). In line with this novel often commissioned by individual papers
emphasis on timeliness, the penny and usually sympathetic to their subjects.
papers were uniquely supportive of new Also common are studies of specific
technologies, like the steam press and the issues as treated in the press. Such
telegraph, to the extent that such inven- issue-oriented studies, together with bi-
tions might not have been developed ographies, make up the bulk of mono-
without support from the penny papers graphic research in the area. These
(Czitrom, 1982, p. 15; Emery & detailed studies, however, rarely propose
Emery, 1984, pp. 142-143; Pickett, broader syntheses. Indeed, this division
1960; Schudson, 1978, pp. 33-35). of labor between synthetic and mono-
According to the mythology of the graphic works has been a major weak-
penny press, then, the contemporary ness in journalism history.
newspaper is the direct descendant of the The work of synthesis has been car-
penny paper. It was the penny paper ried out by a series of comprehensive
that invented modern systems of distri- histories, dating from Hudson's Journal-
bution, mass circulations, the modern ism in the United States (1873) to the
concept of news, the occupational and latest revision of Edwin and Michael B.
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business structure of the modern news- Emery's The Press and America (1984).
paper, and the technologies that pro- Usually designed in part as textbooks,
duced the modern newspaper. All of these histories approach journalism from
these innovations were introduced over within. Their aims are to provide histor-
the active or passive opposition of a ical roots for an industry and a profes-
conventional newspaper establishment sion and to encourage appropriate
that was the servant of political parties behavior by presenting modern stan-
and social elites. The rise of the penny dards as the result of a long chain of
press constituted the liberation of market progress. This latter goal encourages a
forces and the triumph of democracy in concentration on the heroes of journal-
the press. ism, shapers of history and role models
for the present and future. (This is espe-
cially true of the older studies of Hudson,
HISTORIOGRAPHY OF Payne, Bleyer, and J.M. Lee.) Such
JOURNALISM treatments harmonize well with both
In the preceding review, I draw freely biographical studies, which sympatheti-
from works with widely differing atti- cally highlight important papers and
tudes toward the press and press history. editors, and issue-oriented studies, which
All of these works, I contend, are tend to emphasize the power of the press
influenced by the mythology of the in shaping public opinion.
penny press, even though many of them The first half of the twentieth century
work from points of view that are clearly also saw the publication of a few classic
at odds with the implications of this works in the sociological history of the
mythology. I now briefly review the his- press. The key works here are A.M.
toriography of U.S. journalism to Lee's The Daily Newspaper in America
broaden the context for this discussion. (1937), Hughes' News and the Human
U.S. journalism history has spawned Interest Story (1940), and several essays
several subgenres. Most numerous are by Robert Park, especially u The Natu-
biographical studies, treatments of the ral History of the Newspaper" (1955).
lives of famous editors or newpapers, These works outline an ecological
 383

CSMG NERONE

approach: Changes in environment, tory of the penny press. First, there is a

especially economic and demographic common concern with modernization;
factors, encouraged through a process of the mythology of the penny press easily
natural selection an evolution of struc- can be made to fit the sociological scheme
tures and behaviors, especially editorial of modernization. Second, there is an
policy. While notable for their theoreti- interest in the social bases of ideological
cal bent, these works remain disappoint- shifts (Kaul & McKerns, 1985); again,
ing in terms of actual historical research. the received history of the penny press is
With the exception of Lee's massive opportune, combining as it does a change
accumulation of statistical data, these from partisanism to independence or
studies draw their history from the more objectivity with shifts in readerships and
anecdotal biographical and compre- market strategies. Third, there is a gen-
hensive studies. Also, perhaps because eral interest in conflict: of social groups,
they were the products of sociologists of ideologies, and of economic structures.
whose interest in the past was ancillary Again, the mythology of the penny press
to the study of contemporary institutions, is convenient, emphasizing as it does the
these studies led to little historical conflict between penny papers with their
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research. They stand as isolated excep- constituencies and conventional papers

tions to the main styles of journalism with their traditional elite readerships.
history, at least until the past few years. Consequently, recent histories have
Dissatisfaction with prevailing styles not challenged the mythology of the
of journalism history became vocal in the penny press, even though they have
1970s. A flurry of historiographical cri- reacted strongly against the Whig or
tiques appeared, calling for new styles of Progressive tradition in journalism histo-
research and announcing the demise of ry. Rather, they have tended to accept as
the "Whig" or "Progressive" paradigm. fact the raw material of traditional jour-
(The most prominent examples are nalism history, even while proposing
Carey [1974], Dicken Garcia [1980], and alternative interpretations. Thus it has
McKerns [1977].) In part, this was a been possible to quote recent histories
reflection of controversies in the study of alongside of traditional ones in recon-
U.S. history in the 1960s; in part it also structing the mythology of the penny
signalled a coming of age for communi- press. The mythology remains the com-
cations history, which was no longer as mon sense of journalism history and as
closely tied to the interests of journalism such perpetuates errors of fact and inter-
education. It was time to write social and pretation.
cultural histories of the press.
In recent years, several important THE MYTHOLOGY
monographs and at least one synthesis REVISITED
(Schudson, 1978) have offered alterna-
In this section, I analyze standard
tive approaches. Often informed by a
critical attitude toward the press, these characterizations of the penny press,
social histories have directed attention to showing where each misconstrues or is
issues such as the influence of class struc- misleading.
tures, market concerns, and occupational
ideologies on newspaper behavior. Street Sales
Several features of this recent research It has been argued that in adopting the
reinforce themes from the received his- cash system of distribution the penny
 384

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

press shifted the crucial basis of newspa- preferred to deliver their papers to regu-
per support from subscriptions to street lar customers on a subscription basis.
sales. There is truth in this characteriza- (Bleyer [1927, p. 161] refers to carriers
tion but also an element of exaggeration. delivering penny papers to "subscrib-
It is not clear that the cash system of ers," though later writers concentrate
distribution actually translated into exclusively on newsboys making street
street sales. Circulation records are very sales.)
rare, and the self-reports of penny paper It also is inaccurate to say that single-
editors are probably unreliable, but what issue sales did not exist before the penny
little hard evidence I have seen seems to press. The London dailies were com-
indicate that subscription sales remained monly sold on the streets, and in many
the overwhelming majority of newspaper ways the history of the New York press
sales. Benjamin Day's New York Sun, in the early nineteenth century is a reca-
for instance, in 1835 reported that of pitulation of the development of the Lon-
more than 19,000 total sales, more than don press. But is seems clear that other
16,000 went to regular subscribers in papers in the United States were sold on
New York and Brooklyn while only a single-issue basis before the mid-
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2,000 were sold in the streets. (The 18308, at least from time to time. This is
remainder were sent out of town, pre- indicated by the common practice of
sumably on a subscription basis printing extras for late-breaking news, a
[O'Brien, 1928, p. 49].) Furthermore, practice that was particularly common
these figures were from around the time among weekly and semi weekly papers.
of the celebrated moon hoax, which It could be argued that the most signif-
probably generated an uncommon num- icant contribution of the cash system of
ber of street sales. A subscription list circulation was not single-issue sales, or
remained a most important ingredient even street sales, but the cash exchange
for starting a newspaper, even a penny itself. Hudson (1873, p. 425) treats the
paper (see, for instance, Greeley [1868, introduction of the cash system as a
pp. 139-140]). money-making reform that eliminated
There are sound pratical reasons why the common problem of unpaid subscrip-
steady subscription sales likely remained tions. The cash system should be looked
of crucial importance to newspaper con- upon as a separation of labor or a ration-
ductors. An obvious reason was the alization of the newspaper economy, one
importance of steady advertising reve- step in a continuous evolutionary process
nue, for which penny papers competed that included the separation of printing
vigorously: advertisers naturally sought from editorial duties and would later
to exploit the paper with the best- include the creation of the position of
established readership, and that paper managing editor and the consequent sep-
likely was the one with the most exten- aration of business from editorial duties,
sive subscription list. A second reason is and the introduction of publicly held
the economic interest of the newspaper newspaper companies.
distributors, the newsboys who bought While it seems clear that the penny
papers in bulk from the proprietor and papers did introduce a change in distri-
sold them to readers. As newsboys paid bution, it is not clear how significant that
cash for their papers, 67^ per 100 copies, change was. It does not seem fair to
and as they probably operated with a conclude from the existing evidence that,
rather small cash cushion, they probably with the advent of the penny press, street
 385

CSMC NERONE

sales suddenly became the crucial index has been taken as the epitome of Ameri-
of a newspaper's success. In the absence can journalism. Because in New York
of hard data, speculations on the ways City the six-penny dailies were particu-
newspaper sales patterns changed must larly well established, a situation that
be considered tentative. was somewhat true for Boston and Balti-
more and perhaps Philadelphia, the
introduction of the penny paper was
The Penny Press dramatic. But this is not true of other
and the Cheap Press cities and certainly not true of nonurban
areas where the transition to a commer-
In terms of cost, it seems accurate to cial press was gradual.
say that a penny paper sold for a penny, The first penny papers sold for a
and that this price marked a sharp penny, but the successful ones, like
departure from previous pricing for daily James Gordon Bennett's Herald, raised
newspapers. Yet some background is their price to 2</: when it became clear
called for here also. that profits would not fall. The rule
Prior to the penny press, the typical seemed to be that as a penny paper
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American daily sold for 6^. The typical became more substantial as a newspaper
American newspaper, however, was not it increased its price. The trend con-
a daily. In most parts of the country, and tinued until, by the 1880s, the usual
in most cities outside the major Eastern price for a daily was again up to 5^, this
metropoles, daily newspapers were un- despite the general deflation of the cur-
known or at best a novelty. Even in rency in the nineteenth century (Hud-
Eastern cities, a large readership existed son, 1873, pp. 426-427; North, 1881,
for weekly papers. And, precisely p. 90). There were still penny dailies;
because these were issued less frequent- the earliest journalism historians, Hud-
ly, the weekly papers were much cheaper son and North for instance, write of a
on an annual basis than dailies. Thus "cheap press," but this is not the press
while the introduction of penny papers that recent jounalism historians describe
constituted a sharp drop in prices for as the penny press, namely the New York
dailies, it is not clear that it marked a Sun, Herald, Tribune, and The New
sharp drop in the price of newspapers. York Times. These latter successful
Again, in the context of American papers quickly became an establishment
newspapers taken as a whole, the intro- themselves, enabling a new wave of
duction of penny papers was a step in a penny papers, Pulitzer's New York
process of evolution, a process that might World and Hearst's New York Journal,
best be conceived of as the augmentation to appear as revolutionary in the 1880s
of the newspaper, or the addition of and 90s. Emery and Emery (1984, pp.
different newspaper formats: The se- 139-140) identify a cyclical process of
quential introduction of weeklies, bi- readers becoming more demanding while
weeklies, triweeklies, and dailies was newspapers improve, until a new gener-
followed by the penny paper, and later ation of unimproved readers calls forth a
the evening paper and the all-day paper. new popular press. But did the cheap
In each case the innovation was an aug- press disappear when the Herald began
mentation and not a revolution (see charging 2^ ?
Nerone, 1982, chap. 2). It is clear that a class of "cheap" daily
It is unfortunate that New York City newspapersas they were called by con-
 386

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

temporariescame into existence in the The Expansion of Readership

1830s and that the well-known penny
papers were among those cheap papers. Standard treatments of the penny
But it also seems likely that the highly press claim a revolutionary expansion of
successful penny papers migrated away newspaper readership, a claim that is
from their less prestigious cognates. It is usually supported by circulation figures
possible that the cheap press proper con- for the Sun, Herald, and Tribune in
stituted a class of newspapers separate New York. Again, qualifications are
from the penny papers that have been needed. First, these figures are only for
studied. It is a fact that a large number of the most successful papers in the largest
cheap papers were founded in New York cities. Less successful papers are not
and in other major cities in the 1830s and considered, and the penny papers of
40s (Emery and Emery [1984, p. 147] smaller cities are also ignored. While it
say 35 were established in New York in can be determined that some penny
the 1830s; Hudson [1873, p. 425] says papers achieved previously unimagined
over 100 between 1833 and 1872; circulations, it cannot be concluded that
O'Brien [1928, pp. 84-85] says u a dozen penny papers as a whole expanded circu-
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a year" in New York in the 1830s. In lation by a radical amount. Second, even
Cincinnati 33 penny papers were begun the figures given are suspect, since they
before 1848 [Nerone, 1982, p. 80].) But are based on self-reports in editorial
this subclass of newspapers has not been columns and are obviously biased toward
studied, largely because it left no legacy self-promotion. The falsification of cir-
for modern mainstream American jour- culation data in the early to mid-
nalism and also because records and nineteenth century is a well-known
surviving copies of these papers are very problem.
rare. Even so, it seems fair to say that the
The price of the penny paper, like its circulation of penny dailies was larger
method of distribution, is a complex mat- than six-penny dailies. After all, the
ter. The qualities attributed to the cheap logic of economic necessity suggests
press cannot automatically be trans- larger circulations were needed to cover
ferred to the penny papers commonly printing costs, and an increased empha-
treated by journalism historians, which sis on advertising income also suggests
came in time to resemble the earlier the need for increasing circulation.
six-penny dailies in terms of prestige Expanded circulation therefore should
and, perhaps, attitude. Cheap papers be acknowledged.
were of a different nature than the Still, should expanded daily circula-
mighty Herald of the Bennetts. Horace tion lead us to accept the assertion that
Greeley (1868, pp. 141-142) himself the penny press was the first popular
recognized the distinction between cheap press? On the contrary, there is every
papers and the more substantial dailies reason to believe that newspapers were
when he remarked that "No journal sold popular before the penny press. Their
for a cent could ever be much more than basis of comparison makes the standard
a dry summary of the most important or arguments misleading in this area.
the most interesting occurrences of the Penny dailies justifiably are shown to
day; and such is not a newspaper, in the have larger circulations than six-penny
higher sense of the term." dailies. The hidden and incorrect
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GSMC NERONE

assumption, however, is that the six- tion of its readership has the appearance
penny dailies were characteristic of of conventional wisdom: the established
American journalism as a whole. But the papers of the time probably did have 10
typical American newspaper in the readers per copy. It is unlikely that
1830s was not a metropolitan daily; the penny dailies had that many readers per
metropolitan daily was only one class of copy. Their very cheapness suggests that
newspaper, and that was a minority the penny papers were purchased as
class. Far more common were country individual and disposable. This pattern
weeklies and other nondailies with of use is an interesting and suggestive
regional circulations, and these obviously change in American news habits and
had less restricted circulations than the may indicate the advent of consumerism
six-penny dailies. or heightened individualism. It is not fair
Impressionistic evidence concerning to argue, however, that it indicates the
newspaper circulation before the penny first appearance of popular newspapers.
press indicates that ordinary people Earlier newspapers had reasons of
habitually read newspapers. Foreign their own to seek broad popular
travelers like De Tocqueville (1954, audiences. The "political" newspapers
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chap. 11) and Trollope (1949, pp. 92- that the penny papers are said to have
93) described newspaper readership as superceded were integral to a party sys-
universal in the early 1830s, and it is tem that was election oriented. These
clear that they were not referring to papers were designed to tap and organize
penny papers or metropolitan dailies. an expanding electorate, to assist in gain-
One reason why the popularity of ing power by motivating voters. The
earlier newspapers is misunderstood is second party system in the United States
that higher circulation is translated into appeared in the 1820s, the decade imme-
expanded readership in a direct and diately preceding the appearance of the
unambiguous manner. Earlier newspa- penny press, and was novel in its appeal
pers, however, usually had readership to mass voter support (Hofstadter, 1972;
far in excess of circulation. There are McCormick, 1966). The newspapers
several reasons for this: the durability of associated with the parties were self-
paper with high rag content; the ten- consciously popular too. The six-penny
dency of higher prices to encourage shar- dailies of the major Eastern cities, again
ing and saving papers; less-than-daily the major source for scholarly compari-
publication, which meant that an issue of sons of the penny press, are not represen-
a paper was current for a longer period tative of the partisan press.
of time; and dense content, which invited It seems that a tremendous expansion
prolonged browsing. Historian Law- of newspaper publishing began in the
rence Cremin (1980, p. 188) puts the period following the American Revolu-
ratio of readers to copy of the typical tion, and that this expansion was fueled
early weekly as high as 20 to 1. That by the consciousness of the implied
multiple readership was common prac- necessity for effective communication in
tice is attested to by the example of a a nation to be governed by popular con-
Cincinnati penny paper called the Daily sent. This awareness is evident in the
Microscope, which claimed a readership writings of Thomas Jefferson and in the
10 times its probable circulation (July formulation of early postal policies; it
12, 1842). The Microscope's magnifica- was apparently the common sense of the
 388

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

revolutionary and post-revolutionary The perception that penny papers

generations. were oriented to the working class is
Explosive growth in newspapers in based in most histories on the case of
America dated from the turn of the cen- New York, an example that limits
tury and was fueled by the republican broader generalizations. While New
ideology of the revolution. What figures York was becoming America's premier
are available show a smooth increase in city at the time, that status tends to
the number of papers published and in undermine its claim to being representa-
the total number of copies circulated tive of U.S. political and social structures
through the first four decades of the and patterns. New York was the excep-
nineteenth century (North, 1881, p. 47). tion, not the rule, and class consciousness
It is true, as is commonly pointed out, in New York penny papers, which may
that newspapers grew explosively in the indicate a working class uprising against
United States in the 1830s, but it is also dominant classes there, does not indicate
true that explosive growth had been a similar battle between elite and popu-
characteristic of all the earlier years of lar media elsewhere.
that century. The circulations achieved The evidence for class consciousness in
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by the successful penny papers were one New York's penny papers also is incon-
aspect of a process of evolution then. clusive. Schiller (1981, p. 46), for exam-
ple, cites rhetoric of "equal rights,
enlightenment, and political indepen-
Working Class Readers dence" as expressing an artisanal con-
The penny papers are said to have sciousness and considers this rhetoric to
tapped for the first time a massive be a novel contribution, an innovation.
audience of working class readers, an The rhetoric of popular enlightenment
audience ignored by conventional six- and the appeal to the independent citi-
penny dailies. This is a claim difficult to zen, however, were integral to newspa-
demonstrate in the absence of subscrip- per ideology from the time of the revolu-
tion lists and other concrete indicators of tion onward. Saxton is more detailed,
readership. Nevertheless, it seems ob- examining the early penny papers' posi-
vious, both from impressionistic evidence tions on various issues to demonstrate
and from indications in the newspapers' their alignment with the political pro-
content, that the intended audiences gram of the left wing of the Jacksonians.
were not elite, and it seems clear also that But the sympathy of these papers with
the subscribers to the six-penny dailies the working class, and the artisanal
did belong to a mercantile elite. But backgrounds of their operators, are of
again the comparison is only partly only local significance and do not demon-
appropriate, as the six-penny dailies strate a national realignment of newspa-
constituted only one part of one class of per structures. And, in fact, Saxton and
American newspapers. Because other Schiller both note that artisanal control
papers, particularly partisan weeklies of the press quickly waned with the
and semiweeklies, did consciously appeal coming of the depression following the
to the working classes, it is not accurate Panic of 1837.
to portray the appeal to a total nonexclu- Schudson (1978, pp. 52-60) sees the
sive public to be an invention of the pen- rise of the penny press as tied to the rise
ny press as does Schiller (1981, chaps. of a democratic market society. The cru-
2&3). cial class in both phenomena was the
 389

CSMG NERONE

middle class. Schudson supports this readership. Newspapers of this class

argument by discussing the intended were frequently monopolies, often run
audience of Bennett's Herald. While this by small printers and often edited by
line of analysis is attractive, it remains postmasters or other local authorities in
unclear whether the middle class that a similar fashion to the colonial press
read the Herald differed in fundamental (Botein, 1975). A third class of newspa-
ways from readers of political papers. It per was the metropolitan daily, the
seems likely that the sorts of people who immediate predecessor and rival of the
bought the Herald in New York likely penny paper.
read partisan papers in other cities or All of these classes of newspapers
regions. Was the Herald's readership tended to be political in focus, just as
typical of all Eastern metropolitan newspapers today are political in focus.
penny papers? There remains insuffi- On the other hand, they were not neces-
cient evidence to link the penny press sarily, and I think not usually, partisan.
with the rise or fall of any particular While it is true that the elite papers of
class. the day were partisan in some way (they
are studied because politicians read
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them), we should not focus exclusively

Partisanism on the elite papers to determine whether
the American press in general was
Perhaps the single most persistent partisan.
characterization of the penny press While virtually all newspapers fo-
describes it as the first impartial or non- cused on politics, and it should be kept in
partisan class of newspaper. The penny mind that the expansion of the press in
press transformed the American news- this period was fueled by a common
paper by freeing it from the control of belief that newspapers were essential for
partisan interests. Here the mythology is democracy, it is not true that common
most misleading. newspapers were as a rule partisan
It is not possible here to evaluate throughout the early national period. It
thoroughly the behavior of the press is true that, upon careful scrutiny, a
before the 1830s. Furthermore, it is party preference can be found for most
doubtful that any general characteriza- papers, but it is not true that this prefer-
tion would suffice to cover the highly ence determined the content of the paper,
diverse and essentially local newspapers nor is it true that such papers designed
of the early republic. It is unfair to talk their content to function as propaganda
of "the American newspaper" in that for a political party. A political prefer-
period, I think, because there really was ence did not make a paper a party organ.
no such thing. It is more meaningful, as I (Isaiah Thomas' list of newspapers in
have suggested earlier, to refer to classes 1810, which includes a party affiliation
of newspapers. for most, is misleading because it does
The newspaper of opinion was one not indicate the quality of party affilia-
kind of newspaper in the early republic, tion. Surely we could assign party affili-
and this newspaper tended to be parti- ations to most newspapers today, but it
san. Another class of newspaper existed, would hardly be acceptable to designate
though, and was common; this class of them as organs. Thomas' list, however, is
newspaper espoused an ideology of frequently cited as evidence of the over-
impartiality and usually served a local whelmingly partisan nature of the early
 390

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

American press [see, for example, North, gencer was famous. While partisan
1881, pp. 38-45; Botein, 1975, p. 11].) designs no doubt lurked behind much of
A simple designation of partisanism is the impartial material and close reading
far less important than an assessment of of newspaper content in this period
the quality of partisanism in a newspa- reveals subtle biases, the public commit-
per. It is here that the standard charac- ment to impartiality moderated the tone
terization of a "dark age" of partisan of partisanism. In many cases, especially
journalism that is associated with the in smaller monopoly newspapers run by
mythology of the penny press has its printers and not by professional editors,
most regrettable effect: it promotes the it seems that impartiality was actually
belief that the quality of partisanism was pursued.
constant throughout the early national This style of press politics changed
period. This is far from true. swiftly with the coming of the second
Prevailing patterns of political in- party system. Candidates set up newspa-
volvement changed dramatically in the pers as part of their campaign strategy,
1820s with the rise of the second party and existing newspapers were co-opted
system. Before this time, newspapers into party organizations. Instead of being
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espoused an ideology of impartiality and passive conveyors of fact and opinion,

impersonality. Even newspapers that newspapers began to portray themselves
were involved in partisan promotion as lawyers arguing a cause in the
opposed in principle the exclusion of courtroom of public opinion or as military
opposing arguments and claimed to be leaders organizing armies of voters. At the
open to all parties. At the same time, the same time, newspapers came to concen-
newspapers opposed "personalities" in trate on personality in candidates and to
political discourse; that is, personal pursue readers as voters with increased
attacks were to be excluded, and the force zeal. (For an extended discussion of this
of an argument was to be based on transformation in a local context, see
intrinsic merit not on personal authority. Nerone [1982, chaps. 3 & 4].)
Newspapers should discuss measures, The quality of partisanism in newspa-
not men. This ideology of impartiality or pers had changed. Against the backdrop
rational liberty, as it was called, was of this new kind of electoral partisanism,
embodied in certain newspaper conven- the appearance of a penny press that
tions, such as the usual absence of any claimed to be politically neutral was
editorial voice and the habit of publish- more a return to traditional values than
ing letters over pseudonyms rather than an innovation in press ideology.
actual names. This ideology is reflected, What, then, of the actual political
for instance, in the pseudonymous publi- stance of the penny papers? It is cer-
cation of the Federalist papers in the late tainly true that the first penny papers, at
1780s in New York newspapers. In least in New York, invoked political
terms of information (as opposed to neutrality and paid less attention to
opinion), impartiality and rational lib- political discourse, both opinion and
erty meant the publication of the raw information, than their conventional six-
stuff of political discourse: verbatim penny predecessors. But this was not
transcripts of important speeches, often novel. Rather it was a reaction against
printed in extras, and unbiased digests of novelty, namely the novel partisanism of
debates and legislative actions, the sort of the press in the 1820s. In the course of
content for which the National Intelli- the history of press political behavior,
 391

CSMC NERONE

this episode in neutrality is neither pendence need not be questioned here; it

unprecedented nor of enduring conse- should be noted, though, that some ear-
quence. lier partisan editors could also claim
Partisanism was never absent from independence.) Independence of opinion
penny papers, and it became more pro- is not the same as objectivity or political
nounced as the penny paper became neutrality: the penny press did not invent
more successful. Saxton (1984, pp. 224- political independence and did not insti-
234), for example, has shown that early tute neutrality or objectivity.
penny papers backed the workingman's Penny press editors frequently used
wing of the Democratic party on vir- their papers as instruments of their own
tually every relevant issue. This makes political ambitions. Bennett's and Greel-
sense, given those papers' conscious ey's intrigues in politics are well known.
appeal to working class readers. Still, Emery and Emery (1984, pp. 152-153)
historians claim the penny papers were also note the political ambitions of
different and attribute a fledgling sense Henry Raymond of The New York
of objectivity to the penny papers. Times, though they say his newspaper
There may be cause to consider the remained fair and impartial. Leonard
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earlier penny papers to be different from (1986, p. 132) also notes the persistence
other newspapers in their political pur- of partisanism even while demands for
pose, though to do so, as I have argued, factual accuracy increased.
requires adopting a simplified view of What, then, can we make of the issue
the conventional press. For the later of partisanism in the American press? I
penny papers, however, political pur- have argued here that a process of politi-
poses were clearly present at the cre- cization began in the 1820s and that this
ation. The classic example here, of partisanism was essentially different
course, is Horace Greeley's New York from earlier partisanism. In this scheme,
Tribune, begun as an explicit Whig the initial political neutrality of the
alternative to the less explicit Demo- penny press was a temporary aberration
cratic thrust of earlier penny papers. from a long-term process of politicization
As Greeley (1868, p. 138) himself of editorial policy. As organs of opinion,
explained: there is no doubt that the penny papers
came to fit well into the scheme of ongo-
I had been incited to this enterprise by ing politicization. North (1881, p. 37)
several Whig friends, who deemed a cheap remarked in the 1880s that "The great
daily, addressed more specifically to the mass of the newspapers of the United
laboring class, eminently needed in our city, States continued to be conducted in the
where the only two cheap journals then and
still existingthe Sun and the Herald interests of one or the other of the exist-
were in decided, though unavowed, and ing parties, and still continue to be so
therefore more effective, sympathy and affili- conducted, and they will so continue for
ation with the Democratic party. Two or an indefinite time to come." Partisanism
three had promised pecuniary aid if it should remained the rule. As North concludes,
be needed. . . . "It is neither unnatural nor improper
that this relationship should exist." It
The Tribune, then, was initiated by was and is one of the purposes of news-
Whig politicos and launched with an papers to facilitate political discourse,
explicit promise of cash support if and it is to be expected that, when parties
needed. (Greeley's own editorial inde- compete and when newspapers compete,
 392

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

newspapers will become aligned with needed to make informed decisions on

parties. The penny papers may have political issues, and consequently news-
fought this tendency, but only for papers carried surprising amounts of the
awhile. undigested stuff of politicsspeeches
Another argument is made about the and accounts of debates and verbatim
politics of the papers: namely that the copies of bills and huge tables of budgets
penny press caused a shift in the balance and vote tallies. (Leonard [1986, pp.
of power between newspaper and party. 63-66] sees an increase in the printing of
Whereas earlier the newspaper was political debate in the 1820s.) There was
dependent on the party for support and much political information in the parti-
therefore servile to the interests of politi- san papers; it was the penny press, with
cians, it is argued, the penny papers its professed lack of concern with electo-
became more dominant, and their editors ral politics, that took emphasis away
acquired influence independent of party from the transmission of political infor-
functionaries. While this argument cor- mation.
rectly accords great prestige in political
circles to men like Greeley, it incorrectly
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denies the prestige and authority exer- The Penny Press and News
cised by other and earlier partisan edi- The penny press is said to have cre-
tors. The newspaper wielded power in ated a new notion of "news" as factual
party circles before the penny press. reports with marketable appeal that
have no necessary public significance.
Several points need to be made about this
Political Information concept of news before we try to judge
There is another aspect of the penny the role of the penny press in inventing
press to be dealt with here, that is, the it. First, besides the assertion of market
newspaper as a conveyor of information. appeal, there is nothing particularly
Here there are two questions to be democratic about news as opposed to
answered: Did the penny press offer a other sorts of newspaper content. News
different or superior amount or style of does not necessarily promote popular
political information? Did the penny interests, nor does it necessarily protect
press introduce new nonpolitical catego- rights, nor does it necessarily enable
ries of news content? The first question citizens to participate more actively in
can be dealt with briefly; the second will governing processes. On all of these
require deeper consideration. points, an argument can be made that the
According to standard charateriza- newspaper of opinion is more demo-
tions in the mythology of the penny cratic. Second, the nineteenth century
press, earlier partisan newspapers were concept of news does not necessarily
devoted to persuasion. Because of their require the twentieth century concept of
partisan connections, it is claimed, they objectivity. The presentation of news can
were woefully inadequate in conveying be as subjective and as partisan as any
information. They were all opinion and other type of newspaper content; if it
no fact. were not so, the causes should be sought
The partisan papers were full of polit- in the constellation of attitudes that sur-
ical information. Early newspapers had rounded the presentation of news. Third,
an ideological commitment to presenting it is clear that the notion of news attrib-
the reader with all the raw material uted to the penny papers is actually
 393

GSMG NERONE

based on the values of American journal- exploitation of sensationalism and the

ists in the twentieth century. Writers on human interest story, two topics which
the penny press, like many journalism will bear examination in more detail.
historians in the United States, have a Two points should be made about the
tendency to seek out the roots of contem- sensationalism of the penny press. First,
porary journalism. Schiller (1979, the researcher expecting to find exam-
1981), for instance, argues that the ples of modern tabloid sensationalism in
penny press invented objectivity when it the penny papers of the 1830s and 40s
adopted political neutrality, an idea, I will be disappointed. Beyond an interest
think, that is an anachronism. in remarkable or melancholy events, an
What contribution did the penny press interest, incidentally, also quite common
make to the evolution of the news content in conventional papers, the penny papers
of U.S. newspapers? First, it is clear that were not lurid or scandalous either by
news as a type of content preceded the modern standards or those of their own
introduction of the penny press. It is also time. It was, however, very common for
clear that at least the well-known penny newspapers to accuse each other of licen-
papers initially emphasized news over tiousness and it has been the habit of
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other kinds of content, but it is not clear researchers to take these accusations at
that this was the rule, especially outside face value.
of New York City. It is also clear that the Second, the appeal to the sensations in
differences between penny papers and penny papers was fundamentally moral-
their conventional rivals regarding the istic. When sensational details were giv-
balance of news and opinion decreased en, they were intended to arouse an
over time: the penny papers of the 1840s appropriate moral response, one of
were less distinctive than those of the revulsion or compassion, depending on
1830s. The ultimate question is whether the situation. This practice of appealing
the news practices of penny papers sig- to readers' emotions by giving details of a
nal a revolution in American newspaper sensational nature was not considered
content. The answer here is no. Content immoral or shameful unless it was exces-
analysis does not reveal any revolution- sive, and the penny papers claimed to be
ary change in newspaper content in the sensational only within proper moral
period 1820-1860 (Shaw, 1981, p. 38). bounds. The publication of police court
In a study of the Cincinnati press in the reports, for instance, was explained as a
years 1793-1848, a gradual rise in the method of exposing the evils of criminal
percentage of items in newspapers that life to discourage criminal behavior
might be categorized as news was found, (Bleyer, [1927, chap. 6] presents copious
but this rise was in no way revolution- evidence of the expressed concern of
ary, nor was it initiated by penny papers penny papers with morality). In some
(Nerone, 1982, chap. 2). Far too much cases, this moralizing function took the
has been made of the penny papers' form of exposing the immorality of the
substitution of news for editorial well-to-do, as Schiller (1981, pp. 57-65)
opinion. has shown in the case of the Robinson-
Jewett murder trial (see also Saxton,
Sensationalism 1984, p. 224).
Accusations of sensationalism were an
Scholars likewise have been too uncri- attempt to capture the moral high
tical about the penny papers' pioneering ground in newspaper battles of the time.
 394

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

It is tempting to conclude that this moral actually an extension of a style of news

posturing indicated a conflict between a initiated by the partisan press and
commercial mentality and a moralistic already quite common in the conven-
set of attitudes toward the function of a tional papers.
newspaper in society, with the penny On the other hand, it may be argued
press adhering to the former and the that the penny papers were radically
conventional press to the latter, but the different from conventional newspapers
penny press was just as moralistic as because they directed attention to ordi-
conventional papers, and probably more nary people rather than to the holders of
so. Also, the moral battle lines were not political authority. The penny papers of
as a rule drawn between penny papers New York were more likely to print
and conventional papers. Penny papers nonelite human interest stories than the
joined in the moral war against Bennett's six-penny dailies of New York. But did
Herald, for instance, and the harshest the penny papers initiate a similar trend
critics of the morality of penny papers in U.S. journalism as a whole? The
were often other penny papers. evidence that they did is slim. Indeed,
The appeal to righteous emotional outside of New York, penny papers often
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sentiments through sensational material reacted against the trend toward person-
was not a novel practice in American ality. Consider the comments of the edi-
newspapers. Sensational items can be tor of the Cincinnati Commercial who
found in colonial newspapers and were deplored the behavior of uvile and slan-
common during the early national peri- derous sheets that, engendered by the
od. The content of the penny press in this low and vulgar avarice of petty larceny
regard was not revolutionary, nor did it knaves, pander to the sympathizing taste
institute a new trend. Rather it more of scoundrels and harlots in the purlieus
resembled a conservative appeal to tradi- of our large cities" (October 19, 1843). It
tional values. was not atypical that a penny paper
should appeal to the sober guidelines of
traditional U.S. press ideology. The rise
The Human Interest Story of the Sun in 1833 did not signal a rush
It is true that the New York penny either to a new type of content or to a
papers at least took a particular delight new set of values in U.S. journalism as a
in printing items that we would charac- whole. The dramatic divisions of the
terize as human interest stories: that is, New York daily press are misleading
items whose compelling interest is rooted here.
either in personality or in some funda-
mental illumination of the human condi-
tion. Such items seem to strike a stark Readability
contrast with the content of partisan It is claimed that the penny papers
newspapers, but too much can be made pioneered a more accessible style, a style
of this difference in content. Insofar as calculated to appeal to ordinary people
human interest stories signalled a preoc- who lacked both leisure time and erudi-
cupation with personality, for example, tion. It is true that they tended to print
they were not too much different from shorter items with more of an emphasis
the personalities that appeared in the on events than did conventional papers,
party press. It is possible that the concern and the contemporary researcher will
with personality in the penny press was detect a different flavor to the paper as a
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CSMC NERONE

whole. It is not clear, however, that the actual practice, such clipped items were
penny papers were actually more read- reprinted alongside items clipped from
able to their contemporaries, and espe- party or denominational organs and
cially penny papers like the Tribune other sources, diluting their distinctive-
seem to have indulged as much in florid ness. Also, it was not necessarily the most
language and obscure allusions as con- important of the news items that were
ventional papers. Shaw's content analy- clipped, and the context for the item was
sis of U.S. newspapers in the period changed, meaning that the producer of
1820-1860 concluded that u as a group, the item did not have the ability to set
American newspapers did not become agendas for the nation's press as a whole.
more popular in style or more responsive Because the clipping ultimately ap-
to their readers . . ." (1981, p. 49). peared in another newspaper under
Given all these qualifications about another aegis, frequently without attri-
standard interpretations of penny press bution, it can be argued that the clipping
content, it nevertheless should be recog- enhanced the authority of the newspaper
nized that newspaper content changed that printed it or, more generally, that of
gradually throughout the period, and in local newspapers. Although penny pa-
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ways that seem to give some support to pers produced stories and information
the mythology of the penny press. News that reappeared in other formats
became more common as a category of throughout the country, they did not
newspaper content; personalities were thereby have the power to impose novel
also more common; and local news also news values on the nation's press as a
seemed to become more common (Russo, whole. Again this is a topic that has not
1980). Where the mythology errs is in been sufficiently researched to permit
delimiting the change to and assigning conclusive evaluations.
causes for it to the penny papers. Because changes in content were not
Changes in content were not limited to restricted to and in many cases not ini-
penny papers; conventional papers too tiated by the penny press, the causes of
increased their news content and pub- changes in content should be looked for
lished more local news. While penny outside of the penny press. I would like
papers led this movement in New York, to suggest that the reason new types of
it is not clear that they did so in other news appeared in newspapers was that
parts of the country, even in other cities. new types of organizations were produc-
A further point should be made here ing news. To take the most obvious
about the practice of clipping and examples, the New York penny papers
reprinting news items. It was common are frequently credited with inventing
for papers that were not penny papers to the printing of news about Broadway,
copy items from the penny press, thereby Wall Street, and the police courts.
amplifying the penny press audience. It Though the six-penny papers had
seems likely that this practice enhanced included some news from these sources,
the authority of the penny press, as well the penny papers did actually greatly
as the other elite news organs from increase the concentration on such news.
which items were frequently clipped. It But the mythology of the penny press
might be inferred further that the news then leaves us with the impression that
values of the penny papers were trans- the editors of the penny press were the
ferred to the papers that clipped them. ones who created this news. Broadway,
Was this the case? On the contrary, in Wall Street, and the police courts actu-
 396

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

ally were three news sources that had p. 212). Furthermore, it is not clear what
only come into their own in the decade or patterns of segmentation prevailed in
so before the penny papers: they had not newspaper readerships. Did daily pa-
lain neglected for ages, awaiting the pers pursue undifferentiated reader-
astuteness of Day and Bennett. From ships, or were readerships segmented
this perspective, the penny press would along lines of social or economic class,
seem more to have been the creature of political or social attitudes, or cultural
novel news sources than the other way styles? There is no doubt that readership
around. The evolution of the social orga- patterns varied widely from place to
nizations that produced news was an place, but it seems unfair to project
essential precondition for the news con- modern mass readership back upon the
tent of the penny press. By mythologiz- 1830s and 40s, even if important changes
ing the penny press, writers have tended were taking place in some cities.
to make it a heroic agent of social change Just as it is unclear that the penny
rather than a product of social forces. papers were mass media, it is also
Change in the medium was the result of unclear that they were radically modern
changes in society and was reflected in in their pursuit of advertising revenue. It
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conventional and penny papers alike. is true that new kinds of consumer prod-
uct advertising appeared in the early to
mid-nineteenth century, but here again,
The Penny Paper as in the case of certain kinds of news
as Mass Medium content, it seems that tradition has
Commentators have argued that the reversed cause and effect. New types of
penny papers were the first real mass consumer goods were marketed in the
media because they were the first media 1830s and afterwards, the most noto-
organized to sell to a mass or undifferen- rious type being patent medicines, and
tiated audience. Further, they have these utilized newspaper advertising, in
argued that the penny press subse- both penny papers and conventional
quently transformed the American papers. As consumer advertising became
newspaper, making it a market-oriented more prevalent, the importance of adver-
business enterprise that relied on adver- tising revenue to a newspaper's financial
tising revenue rather than on subscrip- security became more pronounced. This
tions or subsidies. change, however, already was well
The major difficulties with this set of underway by the advent of penny papers.
characterizations are a misattribution of The percentage of newspaper columns
causality and the projection of present- occupied by advertising matter had
day patterns onto the past. While penny increased steadily; indeed, if there was a
papers did tend to sell more copies and to point of radical increase, it was in the
carry what might be called more market- jump from weekly to daily publication,
able content, neither development was as not in the shift from six-penny to penny
striking or revolutionary as has been dailies. One of the frequent negative
claimed. The penny press did not create characterizations of six-penny papers by
a mass readership in the modern sense of contemporaries is that three-fourths of
the word; the average circulation of daily the content was ads.
newspapers was increasing regularly Nevertheless, penny papers had some-
throughout this period but was still what different advertising rates and poli-
under 3,000 in 1850 (Saxton, 1984, cies than conventional papers. They
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CSMC NERONE

downplayed repeat advertising and made per's employees in 1849 as the beginning
single daily insertions cheaper, changes of joint-stock newspaper companies.)
that indicated more reliance on market By shifting attention from penny
forces and less on ongoing patronage. papers to the integration of the newspa-
These subtle changes, however, were to per industry as a whole into the market
be incorporated by conventional dailies economy, it is possible to see how many
also and are more indicative of how of the standard attributions of change to
market forces were changing the news- the penny papers are inappropriate. It
paper business than of how newspaper becomes clear that changes said to have
policies were changing the marketplace. been initiated by penny papers were part
In terms of business structure, long- of processes already in place and affect-
term trends in newspapers can be ing all sectors of the newspaper industry.
summed up as the shift of the newspaper The expansion of advertising revenue
from a craft to an industry. This process was one such process. So were develop-
involved sources of revenue, like adver- ments in occupational differentiation
tising, and it also involved mechanisms of (i.e., the rise of the reporter) and techno-
production, as we shall see. What was logical sophistication.
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taking place in the long run was the

integration of the newspaper into the
market economy that itself was just com-
The Professional Reporter
ing of age in antebellum America. The It is commonly claimed that penny
changes in structure and conduct that the papers transformed news reporting by
penny press introduced should be looked paying people to do it, that is, by invent-
upon as features of this long-term pro- ing the professional reporter. While it is
cess. The penny press did not revolu- true that, in New York at least, penny
tionize newspaper development. Rather, papers were the first to hire reporters to
in most aspects of its business history, it cover the police courts and so forth, this
advanced in a direction that had already action marked neither a change in direc-
been indicated by earlier dailies. tion in the development of reporting nor
Concentration on the penny press has a very considerable leap in its effective-
diverted attention from other significant ness. It already had become common for
moments in this long process of change. elite newspapers to pay political corre-
For instance, virtually no attention has spondents. Even among less elite news-
been paid in standard U.S. journalism papers, regular contributors performed
histories to incorporation in newspapers, reporting functions, and in many cases
though publicly held newspaper compa- editors acted as reporters. Furthermore,
nies must have differed from privately the trend in newspaper operation was a
held newspapers in many significant continual one toward specialization. In
ways, including economic motivation fact, editorial work too had recently been
and perhaps a sense of accountability. separated from printing as the newspa-
Perhaps standard histories ignore incor- per proprietor changed in status from
poration because they already have pro- craftsman to publisher. The rise of the
jected changes, erroneously I think, in editor might be seen as one of the pecu-
economic structure back into the penny liar contributions of the partisan news-
papers. (Incidentally, J.M. Lee [1923, paper, but this development should be
pp. 214-215] sees Greeley's distribution seen as part of a larger trend of speciali-
of stock in the Tribune to that newspa- zation that included the rise of the
 398

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

reporter, rather than as a trend in oppo- installed the first steam presses [Nerone,
sition to it. The mythology of the penny 1982, p. 26].) And in inland cities, tele-
press, though, tends to depict the rise of graph lines were built with funds under-
the reporter and the rise of the editor as written by conventional and penny
contradictory developments. papers alike. While much has been made
of the contribution of Moses Beach, a
penny paper publisher, in promoting
New Technology
early telegraph construction, another
The mythology also claims that important promoter was Amos Kendall, a
because penny papers were the first to Jacksonian partisan editor and politico.
compete vigorously for news and readers In many cases, penny papers actually
they were responsible for the develop- were technologically retrogressive. The
ment and adoption of new technologies, earliest penny papers seemed to harken
especially the steam press and the tele- back to the days of craft production and
graph. But this claim is incorrect: penny artisan control rather than look forward
papers were not the only ones that com- to the modern newsroom. Benjamin
peted for circulation, nor were they the Day, for example, began the Sun with a
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only ones to feel a need to accelerate hand press and a few helpers. His entire
news transmission. operation was contained in a room that
The drive to accelerate news transmis- measured 12 by 16 feet (O'Brien, 1928,
sion was well established before the p. 4). The Cincinnatti Daily Times, one
advent of the penny press. Earlier news- of the earliest successful penny papers,
papers printed extras and hired postriders began publication on an old Dickinson
to hustle information to the public as hand press, which it rented from the
quickly as possible. O'Brien (1928, conventional Republican for $5 a month.
p. 65), for instance, records that it was the For several years, the paper employed
six-penny papers in New York that only two men (Coggeshall, 1851, p. 46).
formed a combination to run a horse There seems to have been no inherent or
express line from Philadelphia in order to exclusive relationship between advanced
take Washington news more quickly to technology and penny papers, especially
New York; afterwards, the penny Sun outside of New York City.
and New York Transcript set up a rival In terms of structure and conduct,
line. Crouthamel (1964, p. 93) refers to a then, it seems that penny papers fol-
news rivalry between the Journal of Com- lowed trends but did not necessarily set
merce and the Courier and Enquirer in them. Most of the trends were rooted in
New York before the advent of the penny forces that operated on the newspaper
press. And outside of New York the establishment as a whole, not just penny
relative contributions of conventional papers, and some penny papers did not
papers to the speeding up of news trans- follow dominant trends.
mission were even more pronounced.
This was also the case with other news
technologies. In many cities, probably in
CONCLUSION
most cities, it was the well-established I have reconstructed a set of character-
conventional dailies that first introduced izations of the penny press and evalu-
steam presses. (In Cincinnati, for tated their accuracy, but it remains to be
instance, it was the Cincinnatti Daily seen how these characterizations operate
Gazette, a conventional paper, that as a mythology. I contend that the body
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CSMC NERONE

of ideas I have discussed exist as the The modern American system of bureaucrat-
common sense of historical writing. As a ic, non-ideological parties. . . .
mythology, it has an autonomous But "democratization" was not solely
influence on thought beyond that of any political either in its causes or conse-
particular work or writer. Many of the quences. . . . A culture of the market became
commentators I have drawn on, ironical- a more pervasive feature of human con-
ly, have argued against many of the sciousness. And this culture, it is fair to say,
was democratic. In the market there were no
implications I will now sketch out. special categories and privileges.
The received history of the penny
The penny papers were the unique
press, I contend, operates as a myth of
spokespeople for this egalitarian market
origins of present newspaper practices
society:
that serves to legitimate contemporary
U.S. newspapers by presenting them as These papers, whatever their political pref-
the heirs of papers that were popular and erences, were spokesmen for egalitarian ide-
als in politics, economic life, and social life
democratic and that overthrew a press through their organization of sales, their
establishment that was elite and privi- solicitation of advertising, their emphasis on
leged. Two commonplaces of the penny news, their catering to large audiences, their
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press mythology operate here: first, that decreasing concern with the editorial.
the penny press was democratic and that The penny papers expressed and built the
democracy could not have flourished culture of a democratic market society, a
without it, and second, that the penny culture which had no place for social or
press is the direct ancestor of the contem- intellectual deference, (p. 60)
porary U.S. newspaper. By its practices as well as by its ideals,
Before the penny press, the argument the penny press was uniquely demo-
goes, there were no democratic newspa- cratic. Two points must be made about
pers because all newspapers were instru- this argument. First, it defines democ-
ments of restricted privilege (Payne, racy in a particular way. Democracy is
1920, p. 255; Lippmann, 1931, p. 437). I equality before market forces; that is,
already have shown that earlier newspa- democracy is the absence of acknowl-
pers did indeed circulate popularly and edged special privilege. Stated this way,
provide citizens with the political infor- it is possible to agree that a commercial
mation necessary to make decisions on press is more democratic. Yet the word
political issues, but there is another "democratic" means a great deal more.
issue, that of the definition of democracy, In its root, it means rule by the people,
that needs to be addressed. It is claimed and this is something quite different
that newspapers, at least until the 1820s, from equality in the marketplace. The
operated in a society that maintained mythology of the penny press, however,
ideas of privilege and deference and so substitutes the marketplace for the
could not have been democratic in the broader meaning of democracy (though
modern egalitarian sense of the word. It certainly Schudson, Schiller, and Saxton
is necessary here to quote Schudson do not agree with the thrust of this
(1978, pp. 57-58) at length one more substitution). It thereby gives the
time: impression that, without a specifically
commercial structure, newspapers can-
By "democratic" I refer to the replacement of not enable rule by the people.
a political culture of gentry rule by the ideal A second point to be made about the
and institutional fact of mass democracy. . . . "democracy" argument is that it accepts
 400

PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

as fact many things that are questionable states that "they demonstrated the sorts
and some that simply are not true. For of relationships that must prevail
instance, it accepts as fact that penny between publishers and readers, readers
papers were mass circulation papers, and advertisers, if mass circulation was
and this is questionable. It also accepts as to be achieved. In this sense they staked
fact that earlier papers were exclusively out the boundaries in which second, and
special interest papers, and this is not ongoing, waves of daily newspapers
true. And it accepts as fact that rebellion would be obliged to operate." The penny
against privilege indicated a belief in press defined what would be possible for
equality, and this is highly questionable. future American newspapers. And so the
It adopts the notion that Jacksonian formula for success established by penny
America saw the creation of an equality papers led directly to the current busi-
of opportunity and an equality of condi- ness structure of contemporary Ameri-
tion that was unprecedented, but many can newspapers, and the advance of
historians have called this interpretation democracy that the penny papers spear-
into question (e.g., Pessen, 1978). headed, it might be concluded (though
One final point should be made here. Saxton does not so argue), finds its cur-
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Most writers on the penny press assume rent champions in modern American
that the attack against privilege in the dailies.
Jacksonian Era was led by adherents The ancestor myth is largely true: the
and leaders of the Democratic party in penny papers do seem more modern than
politics. If, however, the Democratic their contemporary rivals. It is also clear
party was the spearhead of the attack on that this ancestor myth acts as a powerful
privilege, and if the new party system legitimation for modern practices and
championed electoral democracy, then ideals, objectivity and commercial sup-
why should we regard the party press as port, and so forth. To locate your roots in
a restricted, privileged, and antidemo- a glorious past is to clothe yourself in
cratic press? Rather, if we are to look for glory.
the rise of equality and democracy in this The ancestor myth too needs qualifi-
period, should not we expect to find it cation. First, many of the qualities
first in the partisan press, and not exclu- attributed to the penny press are read
sively in the penny press? into it from present experience. For
It is possible to argue that commercial instance, the news values of penny
papers are democratic in a specific way, papers are presented as similar to and
and this is what Schudson in effect does. sometimes identical with modern news
And it is also possible to argue that the values. Likewise, it is claimed that the
rise of a market society in antebellum same circulation patterns, the same divi-
America led to the rise of a more specifi- sions of labor, and the same production
cally commercial press. But it is mythol- techniques were used. There was, how-
ogy to maintain that commercialization ever, a great deal in the penny papers
took place only in penny papers, and it is that was nonmodern and actually anti-
nearsighted to restrict democracy to that modern, and there were sectors of the
one class of commercial newspapers. penny press that were distinctly back-
Finally, it is argued that the penny ward-looking, both in ideals and prac-
papers were the direct ancestors, the tices. Thus I have argued that the politi-
prototypes, of the contemporary Ameri- cal neutrality of some penny papers was
can newspaper. Saxton (1984, p. 217) nearer the impartiality of the papers of
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CSMG NERONE

the early republic than it was to twen- explain and justify themselves on the one
tieth century objectivity. The same may hand, and to provide textbooks for the
be said for the concern with morality in training of future journalists on the oth-
human interest stories. er. Later scholars inevitably relied on the
Second, contemporary American jour- facts if not the interpretations left by
nalism is not monolithic. As journalism their journalistic predecessors.
in the nineteenth century was, it is made In addition to legitimating contempo-
up of classes of papers and segmented rary press structures, the mythology of
audiences. Much of American journal- the penny press also serves to set limits
ism today traces its roots not to the penny on proposals for change. To give the
press but to weeklies and country papers most obvious example, the mythology of
and reform journalism. The mythology the penny press insists on a connection
of the penny press oversimplifies the between the business structure and the
present just as it oversimplifies the past. political function of a newspaper: politi-
Third, the ancestor myth implies a cal independence and reliance on the
gradual building up of successful ideals, marketplace were linked in the rise of the
the retention of the best of the past and penny press. Consequently, a necessary
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the addition of the best that the present theoretical relationship between com-
can supply. It implies a continual mercialism and political independence is
improvement both in practices and ide- argued. But commercial newspapers
als. This attribution of moral superiority actually remained partisan in editorial
is clear in much of the mythology of the policy in many cases; there was no neces-
penny press: penny papers were superior sary relationship between commer-
insofar as they came to resemble contem- cialism and political neutrality. The ini-
porary papers, and modern papers are tial historical argument is false, and the
superior because they trace their lineage theoretical argument also may be false.
back to penny papers. The search for Political neutrality and objective report-
roots always tends to emphasize what is ing may be perfectly possible in newspa-
considered best in contemporary journal- pers that have government subsidies.
ism. Just as it gives the impression that The experience of several Western
all of history conspired to create The nations attests to this possibility. Thus
New York Times, so it gives the impres- the mythology of the penny press exerts a
sion that all American newspapers today significant inertia on attitudes toward
are run like the Times. By claiming that the modern newspaper.
political independence was initiated by In this essay, I have argued indirectly
penny papers, it leads us to believe that that historical research into nineteenth
all newspapers today are politically century American newspapers would
independent. By saying that penny benefit from a redirection of focus.
papers initiated democracy, it leads us Instead of focusing on notorious or dra-
to say that today's newspapers are matic newspapers and editors, we should
democratic. focus on the typical. Instead of focusing
The concerns and ideals of contempo- on the major Eastern metropoles, w'e
rary journalists lie behind much of the should focus on smaller cities and towns.
mythology of the penny press. For the Instead of looking for a monolithic char-
pioneering journalism historians were acterization of American journalism, we
themselves journalists, and their motives should talk about classes of newspapers
for writing journalism history were to and segmented audiences. Instead of
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PENNY PRESS DECEMBER 1987

looking at newspapers as independent circulation and readership, in business

actors in the historical arena, we should and occupational structure, and in cer-
look for the long-term, broad-based tain types of content, like news and the
social and cultural developments behind human interest story. But these features
them. were not unique to the penny press, and
All of this is not meant to deny the these developments were not discontin-
distinctiveness of the penny press, uous. Evolutionary developments can be
whether in New York or in other cities. separated from unique features; one of
Specifically, it should be acknowledged the effects of mythologizing the history of
that historians of the penny press are the penny press conductors has been to
correct in identifying its tone as lively, confuse the two. Thus we have the per-
popular, and at times rebellious: the sistent claim that the penny press
penny papers reflected much of the cul- invented the idea of the newspaper as a
tural ferment and social dislocation in business or the idea of political neutrality
Jacksonian cities. As creatures of their or the human interest story.
time, they stand out as discontinuous; There is no doubt that the unique
they have a character that is not simply culture of the penny press left a legacy
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the product of evolutionary forces. We for U.S. journalism as a whole. Nor is

should also acknowledge the creativity of there doubt the leading conductors of the
the penny press conductors. Men like penny press served as role models for
Bennett and Greeley were more than just other and later journalists. But there is
servants of historical processes; they doubt as to whether the historical invoca-
were also agents of change, and there is tion of the penny press has served to
more than a little truth to the common accurately portray actual practice, or
view that they were not only the most whether instead it has functioned as a
influential but also the best newspa- kind of mystification of actual practice.
permen of their age. This is a question that requires detailed
Acknowledging the distinctiveness of research to answer. Though the argu-
the penny press is also a way of putting ment is a compelling one, there is insuffi-
limits on its historical significance. If, as cient evidence that the actual practices of
Schiller, Schudson, and Saxton have the penny press conductors were models
agreed, the penny press was a unique for the actual practices of either their
creature of the social and cultural con- contemporaries or of subsequent genera-
text of the cities of the 1830s, then it is tions of journalists.
cut off from subsequent history by the Recognizing the uniqueness and dis-
same measure as it is cut off from preced- tinctiveness of the penny press does not
ing years. Inasmuch as its unique fea- require that it be considered revolution-
tures were not inherited from the past, ary. Successful penny papers were the
by the same token they were not handed most prosperous and the most widely
down to the future. Again, as Saxton in circulated newspapers of their time.
particular has argued, both the artisanal They were feared and respected by con-
control of manufacture and the populist temporary politicians and the news they
flavor to content tended to pass away. carried was reprinted from newspaper to
Distinctiveness faded with time. newspaper throughout the country. The
The features of the penny press that penny papers were the newspaper elite
persisted were evolutionary in nature. of their day and were powerful indeed.
These features include developments in They were not, however, the first elite
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CSMC NERONE

newspapers, nor were they necessarily the contribution of the penny press was
different in their functioning from other to develop an established trajectory of
elite papers. And here is another unfor- change rather than alter it.
tunate result of the mythology of the The reason why the penny press has
penny press: It leads us to believe that been so popular with historians, after all,
the populist flavor of the early cheap is that it seems to represent a stage in the
papers also characterized the later func- evolution of journalism. I propose that we
tion of the penny papers as elite newspa- study the evolution of journalism by
pers. This is not necessarily true. And studying the rise of components of jour-
again it is important to distinguish the nalism: the development of readerships
unique features of the penny press as and technologies, the rise of crime report-
cheap press from the characteristics that ing or sensationalism, and the nature of
historical forces were producing in the working class readerships and the appeals
leading newspapers of the day, the accel- to working class sensibilities. The fact
eration of information transmission and that some of these components sometimes
occupational differentiation in reporting seem to have been combined in the penny
and so forth. Even as elite newspapers, press is frequently misleading. D
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REFERENCES
Bleyer, W. G. (1927). Main currents in the history of American journalism. Boston: Houghton
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