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EDITED BY John C. Parish
Associate Editor of the State Historical Society of Iowa
| Volume I |
August 1920 |
No. 2 |
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Copyright 1920 by the State Historical Society of Iowa
(Transcribed by Gayle Harper)
NEWSPAPER HISTORY
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What is the value of yesterday's
newspaper? In a bygone day it served the thrifty housewife as
a cover for the kitchen table, or in company with its fellows
of the days before as a lining for the ingrain carpet ; and if
the good husband was handy, it might on a winter evening be
cut into strips and deftly rolled into the long slender tapers
that stood in the tumbler on the shelf beside the Seth Thomas
clock to be used in carrying the necessary flame from the
briskly burning hickory wood fire in the air-tight stove to
the wick of the kerosene oil lamp.
But in these
ultra-modern days of steam heat, electric light and power,
enamel topped tables, and hardwood floors, the newspaper, like
the grass, "today is in the field and tomorrow is cast into
the oven" ; or it may find its way to the baler in the
basement and presently it is returned to the paper mills from
whence it came in the endless round of pulp and paper and
print.
The average subscriber to that
''largest circulation", which is the daily boast of every
newspaper of any standing, would probably scoff at the
suggestion that there is anything of real value from the
standpoint of scientific history in the newspaper; and yet we
know that the leading historical institutions of the country
are piling up literally tons and tons of newspapers. Although
their rapid accumulation presents a very real problem, if not
a genuine embarrassment to every great historical library,
thousands of dollars are spent annually in binding and
properly shelving the newspapers of the day – for the use of
the historian of the future.
That there
is trouble ahead for the historian we will admit. In his
endeavors to retrace the foot- prints of this present age of
black-face type, what is to be the criterion of the relative
importance of news? Does the 120 point headline set forth
public information that is twice as consequential as the 60
point, and four times the public concern of that of the 30
point Is he to believe as he turns the yellowing pages of the
Iowa newspapers that the news ''Ames Defeats Iowa" was, in the
public mind of the period, of twice the importance of the news
that "Wartime Coal Regime Begins", while the news that "2 3/4
Beer Gets Hearing" and "Mary Pickford Divorced" was of twice
the importance of the Ames-Iowa game and of six times the
public concern of the war time coal regime?
How will the
historian winnow out the pregnant facts that lie buried “under
bushel-heaps of worthless assertion" in an age of censored
dispatches, ''doctored stuff", "prepared dope", private
propaganda, camouflaged news, and extravagant advertising? How
will he distinguish the work of the competent, independent,
investigating reporter in the record of current topics and
passing events from the manipulated news of the clever press
agent attorney? How will he treat the deliberately scraped and
sponged and overlaid palimpsests of this newspaper epoch that
they may tell the true story that is there recorded?
With
due allowance for the extravagant use of 120 point type, for
the insidious press agent and the organized manipulation of
public opinion and for all the ''fecundity and fallibility
which are peculiar to journalism", what is there in these
great library files of daily newspapers that justifies their
preservation and proper classification? Almost everything that
the student of history wants. For in spite of "slang-whanging"
and editorial vituperation, and the sometimes startling
results of "the carelessness of the compositors and the absent
mindedness of the readers of proof", in spite of its double
role of "universal advertiser and universal purveyor of
knowledge”, the daily newspaper is the best reflector of the
times that the student of history can find.
In our own
day it has become something of a vogue to speak contemptuously
of the "lurid press", the “scandalous gossip" of the
“brazen-faced reporter", the “incurable lying habit of the
newspapers", ''the millionaire-owned press", and of the "A.
P." as ''the damndest, meanest, monopoly on the face of the
earth". Nevertheless, the daily newspaper holds the mirror up
to modern society and reflects with unflattering faithfulness
the life and psychology of the times. Old records, official
reports of events, and the more carefully written and
leisurely revised monographic and book literature give us the
"cabinet picture" of the times, with head clamped in place "a
little more to the right, please, and chin up", with the
"pleasant expression" patiently held while the photographer
counts off the requisite number of seconds, and with perhaps a
final smoothing out of wrinkles in the retouching.
The
newspaper, on the other hand, gives us all unconsciously the
natural record of the every-day life of a community, and the
snapshots of the times in working clothes – which are always
the best pictures. These pictures with all their
incongruities, vulgarities, and blemishes may not always be
pleasing; but they are, for the most part, "speaking
likenesses" of the community, with all of its "roughness,
pimples, and warts".
It is the every-day newspaper
snapshot that gives us the local color in the description of
passing events, the dominant passions and prejudices in the
discussion of current topics, the sudden disclosure of popular
temper and sentiment in the acceptance or rejection of
political issues, and that ''preserves imperishably the
fashion prevailing for posterity to look upon with reverence
or a smile". The testimony of gossipy letters and memoirs no
longer goes unchallenged and the critical reviewer of
historical monographs now scrutinizes the footnotes to see
whether the writer has made use of the newspapers of the
period.
For a concrete illustration, let us
take the newspapers not of the present day nor of the remote
past, but of eighty years ago in our own Commonwealth. The
Iowa newspaper of 1840 was a very modest affair – innocent of
the glaring headlines of the ''extras", innocent of cartoons,
half-tones, the wondrous depiction of "Wilson's Boiled Ham"
and "Sunshine Biscuits", or the adventures of Mr. Jiggs; but
we find abundant material in every four-page issue concerning
the three chief phases of the life of the people which
constitute their history – the social life, the political
life, and the industrial life.
Eighty years
ago Iowa City was the capital of the Territory of Iowa, and
the two leading newspapers of the early forties were the Iowa
Capitol Reporter, the Democratic "organ", and the Iowa
Standard, the "Whig journal – the Reporter being referred to,
by the Standard, as the "Locofoco Rag", and the Standard being
referred to, by the Reporter, as the "Whiggery Humbug". These
old files of the "Rag" and the "Humbug" fairly bristle with
information concerning the life of the period – the beginnings
of church life, the character of the schools, the amusements,
the reading matter, the follies, hopes, ambitions, and ideals
of the people of the community.
We read, for
example, that on two Sundays, in January, 1841, the Methodists
held services with frontier camp meeting fervor in the open
air near the post-office on some lumber belonging to John
Horner. The Baptists with equal fervor ''buried in baptism"
two candidates for membership beneath the ''limpid waters of
the Iowa River".
The opening of a private school is
noted: "Tuition per Quarter of 12 weeks $3.50. House rent,
fuel, etc. 1.00 additional." There is mention of a school for
Young Ladies with special emphasis on instruction in "Reading,
Writing, and Mental Arithmetic. History – Sacred, Profane,
Ecclesiastical and Natural. Natural, Moral and Intellectual
Philosophy."
We note the laying of the corner
stone of Mechanics' Academy, which afterwards became the first
home of the State University. Both Democratic and Whig papers
urge special training for agricultural and mechanical
employment. "Agriculture", says the editor of the Reporter,
"is the noblest pursuit of man and we deplore the fact that so
large a part of our new country has given itself up to
visionary projects of speculation."
"A course of
lessons in Music" is announced "according to the Pestallozian
system of instruction." A Glee Club, it is said, "will bring
out a new set of glees for the approaching election." A
lecture in the Legislative Council Chamber on ''Astronomy" is
reported. ''The lecturer's remarks", we are told, "were within
the comprehension of the humblest intellect." There are
notices of camp meetings, and lyceum and literary association
meetings which the ladies of Iowa City and its vicinity are
especially requested to attend.
The citizens
are requested "to turn out and attend a meeting of the
Temperance Society in the school house at early candle light".
The cause of temperance was popular in the pioneer days of the
forties, and there are many notices of meetings of the
Washingtonians and the Total Abstinence Society.
Public
dinners were given to honor public men, and Fourth of July
celebrations held with the ladies four abreast taking their
place behind the officer of the day. Cotillion figures are
described and balls recorded. One comes upon many newspaper
apostrophes "To the Ladies" (who were scarce on the frontier);
and there was much writing of poetry.
There are
records of marriages and deaths, elopements and
house-raisings, and a list of river accidents and steamboat
disasters. A citizen announces he will no longer be
responsible for his wife Hulda's debts. There are notices of
claim, sales, of petitions for bankruptcy, and of the
foreclosures of mort- gages. In short, bits of the sunshine
and shadows of the every day life of the period are recorded
with an unconsciousness that gives them special value.
The
political life of eighty years ago is reflected far more than
it is to-day on the editorial page. This page has, as it no
doubt will ever have, its problems for the student of history.
In these early news- papers of the first capital he finds the
Whig editor variously referred to by his esteemed contemporary
as ''that miserable caricature of his species", ''the
contemptible slang-whanger of the Standard", and "that biped
of the neuter gender whose name stands at the mast head of
that servile truckling organ of Whig skullduggery". He finds
numerous references in the Standard to the "Bombastes Furioso"
and to the "red hair and spectacles of the Loco-foco
scribbler", to the "hybrid politician who furnishes the wind
for the Reporter", and to "the thing which says it edits that
filthy and demagogical sluice of Loco-focoism, the Reporter".
He finds national as well as local issues treated with
uncompromising thoroughness and partisanship. He finds
scorching editorials on "The Tottering Fabric of Federalism"
on the one hand, and bitter denunciation of "Loco-foco. Black-guardism"
on the other. "Iowa" is referred to by the Reporter as "the
apex of the Noble Pyramid of Democracy” ; and the Standard
replies, "Whew dont we blow a shrill horn".
The Standard
declares that Democracy leads logically to a dissolution of
the Union, to which the Reporter replies :
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Bow wow wow
Whose dog are thou?
I'm Henry Clay's
Dog
Bow wow wow. |
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The Legislative Assembly meets, and
the Standard calls attention to the fact that the “Committee
on Public Printing is composed of only four members and every
one of them most bitter and uncompromising Locos ". “Nothing
good”, it adds, “was anticipated from them and the result has
precisely answered the expectations.” To which the Reporter
replies that “the people of Iowa have had enough of the yelps
and whines of the Standard puppy on the subject of
Extravagance in Public Printing".
A Whig
leader in the Council makes a speech and the Reporter remarks
that "it is the poorest wheel of a wagon that always creaks
the loudest."
There are editorials and
communications on Abolition, Tariff and Free Trade, The Right
of Petition, The Preemption Law, State Banks, Retrenchment and
Reform, Bribery and Corruption, Resumption of Specie Payment,
Cider Barrels and Coon Skins. One correspondent thinks too
much pressure is being brought upon him to vote. ''I do not
like to be drove “, he explains with genuine Iowa
independence, “I can be led but can not be drove."
What
is there here for the student of political history! A mine of
information. No miner expects to find his gold ready for the
jeweler's hands. Much labor is required to free it from base
metal. And so the student of political history will clear away
vituperation and partisanship, personalities, and ''the
shorter and uglier words", and find nuggets of valuable
material in this collection.
In like
manner advertisements reflect something of the industrial life
of the period. The rise, and yea the fall, of infant
industries in the Territory, the occupations of the early
settlers, the degree of specialization in the trades, labor
organizations, wages – all these and more one is able to
portray from the paid advertisements. Either space was more
valuable in those days or there was less money to pay for it,
for with very few exceptions these advertisements consist of
from five to eight line notices to the public signed by the
merchant or mechanic himself.
The public
is informed that ''a ferry across the Mississippi River at
Bloomington, Iowa Territory, has been established and as soon
as the river is free from ice next spring a boat will be in
operation." There are proposals for carrying the ''mail of the
United States from Bloomington to Iowa City thirty miles and
back once a week." Territorial scrip is taken in payment (at
par) for all articles at a certain store. Elsewhere Dubuque
money will be accepted at five per cent discount. ''Just
received per Steamer Rapids the following Groceries", reads
one advertisement, "6 Boxes Tobacco. 40 bbls. New Orleans
Molasses. 30 Sacks Rio & Havana Coffee 13 bbls. Rum, Gin &
"Whiskey. 25 Sacks Ground Alum Salt & 16 Kegs Pittsburg White
Lead." A variety of "spring goods" is advertised as received
by the "Steam Boats Mermaid, Agnes & Illinois", including "2
Bales of Buffalo Robes, Jeans & Linseys, Merinoes &
Bombazines, Fancy and Mourning Calicoes, Boots & Brogans,
Salaratus, Tobacco, Loaf & Brown Sugar. Fashionable Hats &
Crockery." “A Raft of Hewed Oak Timber" is offered for sale. A
remedy for fever and ague is recommended. A hotel with the
"best of table and stables" offers its services. So does a
“Portrait & Miniature Painter “. A bricklayer announces that
he has arrived in the Territory. A partnership is formed in
the plastering business. Eight lawyers and nine doctors
respectfully call the attention of a community of six hundred
souls to their existence; and we note the beginnings of the
''Doctors' Trust" in the following published rate of charges
as adopted at a meeting of the physicians held in Bloomington
on the fifth of February, 1841 :
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First visit in town in
the daytime 1.00
Every succeeding visit .50
Visit in the night time 1.50
Bleeding 1.00
Tooth extracting 1.00
Attention on a patient all
day or night by request 5.00 |
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In addition to the "Doctors' Trust"
there were those who practiced the "healing art"; and one
Botanic Physician advertises that "the remedial agents
employed for the removal of disease will be innocuous
vegetables.”
The arrival of the "Steamboat
Ripple", the first boat to reach Iowa City, is announced; and
in an editorial it is learned that its arrival was witnessed
by a delighted throng of four hundred. The event was
celebrated by "as good a dinner as has ever been gotten up in
the Territory." This convincing proof of the navigability of
the Iowa River was prophesied as the "turning point in the
commercial life of the first Capital."
An
enterprising farmer makes eighty gallons of molasses ready to
sugar from corn stalks, and this is regarded as the beginning
of an important industry in this new country. A "load of lead"
fourteen feet below the surface is discovered on the banks of
the Iowa River, and in the excitement and local enthusiasm
which followed, the editor of the Standard declares that
"Nothing better could have happened to make this section of
the country and especially Iowa City, a perfect Eldorado, than
the discovery which has been made in Johnson County. It has,
ever since the settlement of this county, been believed, that
it abounded with immense mineral of various kinds. Several
townships of land west of Iowa City, we are told, were
returned to the General Land Office as mineral lands. This
must form a new era in the history and existence of Iowa City.
“
Incidentally from a survey of news items, editorials, and
advertisements, one gathers something of the early history of
the press itself and something of the trials and vexations of
the early editor. That ye editor of eighty years ago was more
than the "slang-whanger" and the "biped of the neuter gender"
his contemporary would lead us to believe, we learn from the
versatility of his weekly contributions. In addition to
pointing out the “skullduggery” and the “venom and impotent
malignity" of the opposite party, and his weekly combat on
Abolitionism, Federalism, Our Legislature, The Public
Printing, and Banking, he writes of Flowers, Sympathy, The
Wed- ding, The American Girl, Winter Evenings, Setting Out in
Life, The Progress of a Hundred Years, The Bunker Hill
Monument, Christmas, and New Year's Musings. He observes that
"true politeness is not a matter of mere form of manner but of
sentiment and heart." He maintains that ''virtue and honesty
are better recommendations for a husband than dollars." He
deplores ''the senseless rage for gentility", "the silly
ambition of figuring in a higher station than that to which we
belong", "the folly of sacrificing substance to show", and of
"mistaking crowd for society".
The editor
threatens to publish the list of delinquent subscribers; and
he denounces the borrowing of a neighbor's paper as unworthy
of a citizen of this promising country. The scarcity of money
is reflected in the editor's offers to take produce of any and
every kind in exchange for subscriptions to his paper ; and he
demands the delivery of the wood that "a certain gentleman not
a thousand miles from a neighboring town promised him last
month". "It is the height of folly", he adds, "to tell an
editor to keep cool when he has to burn exchange papers to
keep warm." Finally, the editor takes a bold stand and
declares that ''candidates for office who wish their names
announced for office will hereafter accompany such notices
with two dollars cash for trouble, wear of type, etc."
In
spite of times being "so hard that you can catch pike on- the
naked hook", the paper is ''enlarged at several dollars extra
expense but will be afforded at the same low price as the
small one has been."
A Democratic postmaster is warned
that "the packages of Whig papers (which we ourselves deliver
at the post office every Friday evening at 6 o'clock) are not
so minute as to be imperceptible, and are not hereafter to be
delayed by party malice. If they are, just wait till the 4th
of March – that's all!"
The Iowa Farmers and Miners Journal
is announced; and Godey's Magazine is noted by the press of
Iowa as "the only magazine intended for the perusal of females
that is edited by their own sex."
Such are
some of the glimpses we get of the life, of the politics, and
of the industries of eighty years ago – of the hopes and
ambitions, the prejudices and animosities, the plans and
activities, the successes and disappointments of the early
Iowan – gleaned from a file of old newspapers. And so we make
our acknowledgments to the newspapers of to-day and lay them
carefully away in fire-proof quarters for the student of
another generation.
BERTHA M. H, SHAMBAUGH
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