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American Negro Newspapers, 1880–1914*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Emma Lou Thornbrough
Emma Lou Thornbrough
Affiliation:
Professor of History, Butler University
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Abstract

The organizational and financial sides of Negro publishing are examined in this study of weekly newspapers before World War I.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , Winter 1966 , pp. 467 - 490
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1966

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References

1 There were a few examples of Negro newspapers before the Civil War, notably Russworm's Freedom's Journal and the papers published by Frederick Douglass. A few more papers were started during Reconstruction and the number grew rapidly after 1880. S. N. D. North, “History and Present Condition of the Newspaper and Periodical Press of the United States,” U. S. Bureau of the Census, Tenth Census (1880), VIII.

2 Detweiler, Frederick G., The Negro Press in the United States (Chicago, 1922)Google Scholar deals principally with the period following World War I. Oak, Vishner V., The Negro Entrepreneur (Yellow Springs, 1948)Google Scholar deals principally with the Negro press during the 1940's. Many of the extant newspapers for the period covered by this article are available on microfilm, having been filmed as a project of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Library of Congress. The present study excludes publications financed primarily by religious and fraternal groups.

3 Rapid increase and a high mortality rate were also characteristic of the white press of the period, but not always for the same reasons as the Negro papers. North, op. cit.

4 Garland Penn, I., The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (Springfield, Mass., 1891), 113Google Scholar; Williams, George W., History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1882 (New York, 1882), 576–78Google Scholar; Ayer, N. W. and Sons, American Newspaper Annual, 1914 (Philadelphia, 1914), 1231–33.Google Scholar

5 Penn, Afro-American Press, 94–95, 111, 262, 264; Meier, August, Negro Thought in America 1880–1915 (Ann Arbor, 1963), 226Google Scholar; Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1903, 67, 327.

6 Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1914, 125, 153, 176, 247, 640, 732, 847, 981. The Washington Bee ceased publication in 1925; the Richmond Planet in 1945; the Cleveland Gazette in 1946; the New York Age and the Savannah Tribune in 1960. The Philadelphia Tribune is still being published.

7 Ibid., 246, 378, 879, 923. Of these papers the Baltimore Afro-American was the most successful, but the Indianapolis Recorder and the Dallas Express have also survived until the present.

8 Ibid., 176, 642, 849.

9 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States 1920–32 (Washington, 1935), 5, 53.Google Scholar

10 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negro Population in the United States 1790–1915 (Washington, 1918), 95, 96, 98, 103Google Scholar; Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1914, 140, 366, 923.

11 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Tenth Census (1880), I, 417, 424Google Scholar; U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negro Population in the United States 1790–1915, 96, 101, 102; U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States 1920–1932, 5, 53.

12 Penn, Afro-American Journalism, 157, 287–90; Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1881, 107; ibid., 1884, 115; ibid., 1903, 102; ibid., 1914, 125.

13 Penn, Afro-American Press, 111; Adams, Cyrus Field, “Timothy Thomas Fortune: Journalist, Author, Lecturer, Agitator,” Colored American Magazine, IV (January-February. 1902), 224–28Google Scholar; Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1884, 66, 594; ibid., 1914, 640, 642.

14 Penn, Afro-American Press, 145; Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1914, 847. Part of the lack of private Negro newspapers in Philadelphia may have stemmed from the strength and longevity of the A.M.E. Christian Recorder and the Oddfellows Journal which were published there.

15 Ottley, Hoi, The Lonely Warrior: The Life and Times of Robert S. Abbott (Chicago, 1955), 96Google Scholar; Chicago Brood Ax, Dec. 30, 1905, Nov. 10, 1906; Indianapolis Freeman, Nov. 30, 1912; Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1903, 144, 146; ibid., 1914, 176.

16 Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1884, 202; ibid., 1903, 214–16; ibid., 1914, pp. 246–47; Thombrough, Emma Lou, The Negro in Indiana before 1900 (Indianapolis, 1957), 384–88.Google Scholar

17 Penn, Afro-American Press, 282; Cleveland Gazette, Jan. 7, 1905; Meier, Negro Thought, 32, 235–36; U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States 1920–1932, 9.

18 Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1914, 389; Meier, Negro Thought, 174–77; U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States 1920–1932, 9–10. In 1910 the total Negro population of New England was 66,306; of Boston, 13,564.

19 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States 1920–1932, 231.

20 Detweiler, Negro Press, 7.

21 North, op. cit., 93; Mott, Frank Luther, American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States through 260 Years, 1690–1950 (New York, 1950), 478.Google Scholar

22 Washington Bee, June 10, Deo. 16, 1882; Cleveland Gazette, Aug. 12, 1911; New York Freeman, Nov. 23, 1884; Thombrough, Negro in Indiana, 387; Simmons, W. P., Men of Mark (Cleveland, 1887), 787.Google Scholar

23 Ottley, The Lonely Warrior, 88; Emmett Scott to Charles Alexander, Feb. 28, 1904, Alexander to Washington, March 1, 1904 and May 26, 1904, Booker T. Washington Papers (Manuscript Division, Library of Congress). All correspondence cited in this article unless otherwise identified is in the Washington Papers.

24 Penn, Afro-American Journalism, 157, 223, 287; Simmons, Men of Mark, 786; Philadelphia Tribune, Jan. 7, 1928; New York Freeman, Jan. 2, 1886, May 28, 1887; Indianapolis World, Jan. 7, 1893; T. Thomas Fortune to Emmett Scott, April 4, May 13, 1907.

25 New York Freeman, Jan. 10, 1885; Alexander to Washington, Feb. 17, 1904, Washington Papers; Fortune to Washington, June 2, 1905, Fortune Papers (in the possession of Fortune's descendants).

26 Fortune to Washington, Jan. 28, 1904; Thornbrough, Emma Lou, “More Light on Booker T. Washington and The New York Age,” Journal of Negro History, XLIII (Jan., 1958), 39.Google Scholar

27 Alexander to Washington, April 2, 1904; Fortune to Washington, Aug. 13, 1906.

28 Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1881, 155; ibid., 1884, 63, 115; ibid., 1903, 214, 350, 594, 671; ibid., 1914, 245, 378, 642, 732, 870, 923.

29 New York Globe, May 5, 1883; New York Freeman, Nov. 27, 1884, Nov. 21, 1885; Indianapolis Freeman, Jan. 10, 1914; Fortune to Washington, May 17, 1905, Fortune Papers; Washington to Fortune, July 8, 1907, Fortune to Emmett Scott, March 1, 1907, Fred R. Moore to Emmett Scott, Jan. 20, 1911, Washington Papers; Detweiler, Negro Press, 7.

30 Washington to Fortune, Sept. 30, 1905.

31 In 1880 white weeklies derived 39 per cent of their income from advertising; white dailies, 51 per cent. By 1910 advertising represented 60 per cent of the income of all white newspapers. North, op. cit., 85; Park, Robert E., The Immigrant Press and Its Control (New York, 1922), 364.Google Scholar Failure of white businesses to advertise in Negro papers was interpreted by Negroes as evidence that they did not want Negro patronage. The Cleveland Gazette therefore advised its readers: “to carefully examine the Gazette's advertisements before making purchases. Businessmen who advertise in this paper should have the patronage of Afro-Americans. The fact that they advertise is assurance that they want it.”

32 Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1884, 934; Indianapolis Freeman, 1889.

33 See Mott, American Journalism, 505, 596 on the importance of department store advertising for white newspapers.

34 A typical issue of the New York Age (Jan. 3, 1907) contained advertisements for nine different undertaking establishments. In most instances the establishments which advertised in Negro papers were Negro-owned or were operated for a Negro clientele. Unusual was an advertisement by the leading funeral directors in Indianapolis which declared: “WE DO WANT COLORED TRADE. Is not your dollar as good as that of your white neighbor? Can any colored man or woman say that we do not attend to their funerals as well as to their white neighbors?” Indianapolis Freeman, Aug. 15, 1896.

35 It was estimated that patent medicine manufacturers spent as much as one third of their gross profits in advertising. Park, Immigrant Press, 370.

36 A typical advertisement for a clairvoyant promised: “We do hereby solemnly agree and guarantee to make no charge if we fail to call you by name and name your friends, enemies or rivals. We promise to tell you whether your husband, wife or sweetheart is true or false; tell you how to gain the love of the one you most desire, even though miles away; how to succeed in business, speculation, lawsuits; how to marry the one of your choice; how to regain youth, health and vitality; remove all evil influences.” The cost of consultations ranged from 25 cents to $1. New York Age, Jan. 1, 1907.

37 Some of the most extreme claims were made by Crane and Co, of Richmond, Virginia, which sold a combination package of Black Skin Remover and Hair Straightener in a box for $1. The products, the advertisement claimed, “were guaranteed to do what we say.” If used as directed the skin remover was said to produce a “peach like complexion.” It would “turn the skin of a black or brown person four or five shades lighter and a mulatto person perfectly white.” The hair straightener would make anyone's hair grow long and straight and prevent it from falling out. Cleveland Gazette, Jan. 7, 1905.

38 North, op. cit., 97, 110.

39 The proportion of Negro papers indicating a political affiliation was larger in the North than in the South.

40 L. M. Hershaw, in an article on Negro journalism published in 1905, said that most of the early Negro papers had been organs of county, district, or state committees and that politics continued to dominate the Negro press. “The Negro Press in America,” Charities, XV (Oct., 1905), 67.

41 Penn, Afro-American Press, 145, 157, 287–88; Ottley, Lonely Warrior, 96; Thornbrough, Negro in Indiana, 314, 384; Meier, Negro Thought in America, 30–31; Washington Colored American, Jan. 12, 1901; Chicago Broad Ax, Nov. 10, 1906; Indianapolis Freeman, Nov. 30, 1912; New York Age, March 27, 1913; Pittsburg Courier, Oct. 22, 1927; clippings on Jerome Peterson and Chris Perry, Schomberg Collection (New York Public Library). Frequently, the income from a political appointment was vital to the operation of a paper. For example, in 1913 when Fred R. Moore of the New York Age was dropped from the government payroll (after the Democratic victories of 1912), he found it necessary to raise the price of the Age and reduce its contents. Washington Bee, April 26, 1913.

42 Penn, Afro-American Press, 280–82; Meier, Negro Thought in America, 79–80, 230–31, 234; Indianapolis Freeman, Sept. 19, 1896; Cleveland Gazette, Jan. 7, 1905.

43 Some papers, including the Chicago Broad Ax and the Indianapolis World, carried biographical sketches of candidates and advertisements of both major parties.

44 Emmett Scott to Charles W. Anderson, Aug. 10, 1911.

45 New York Age, Nov. 19, 1892; Chicago Broad Ax, Oct 22, 1904. An undated memorandum in the Washington Papers which was prepared at Tuskegee for Mr. M. L. Ward of Republican national headquarters shows that during the campaign of 1908, sixteen Negro papers were to receive money form the Republican National Committee. The New York Age was to receive $200 a week, the Indianapolis Freeman $50, and the other papers lesser amounts.

46 See Meier, August, “Booker T. Washington and the Negro Press, with Special Reference to the Colored American Magazine,” Journal of Negro History, XXXVIII (Jan., 1953), 67–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thombrough, “More Light on Booker T. Washington and the New York Age,” 24–49; Meier, Negro Thought in America, 224–236, for Washington's influence on the Negro press.

47 Washington to Nathan Brascher, editor of the Cleveland Journal, Aug. 2, 1905; Washington to George W. Knox, May 29, 1911; Nick Chiles to Washington, Oct. 27, Nov. 8 and 28, 1905; Emmett Scott to Chris Perry, editor of the Philadelphia Tribune, Sept. 2, 1911; Scott to P. B. Young, editor of the Norfolk Journal and Guide, Sept. 5, 1911.

48 Washington to B. G. Davis, editor of the Atlanta Independent, Oct. 3, 1905; Washington to Editor, Colored Citizen, Memphis, Tenn., Oct. 6, 1905; Memphis Colored Citizen to Washington, Oct. 6, 1905; J. H. Murphy, editor of the Baltimore Afro-American Ledger, to Washington, Oct. 19, 1905.

49 Nathan Brascher to Washington, Oct. 9, 1905; Cleveland Gazette, Jan. 11, 1908; W. Allison Sweeney, editor of the Chicago Leader to Washington, July 25, Sept. 25, Oct. 8 and 9, 1905; Washington to S. B. Turner, editor of the Illinois Idea, Oct. 4, 1905; John Q. Adams, editor of the Chicago Appeal, to Washington, Oct. 26, 1905; Washington to Robert S. Abbott, editor of the Chicago Defender, Oct. 14, 1911; Abbott to Washington, Oct. 16, 1911.

50 Washington to Edward E. Cooper, editor of the Washington Colored American, April 28, 1904; Cooper to Washington, March 9 and 21, May 13, Sept. 8, Dec. 3, 1904; Emmett Scott to Cooper (telegram), Jan. 19, 1904.

51 Alexander to Washington, Feb. 17 and 24, April 2, May 26, 1904, Jan. 9, Feb. 19, 1905; Scott to Alexander, Feb. 28, 1904.

52 Thornbrough, “More Light on Booker T. Washington and the New York Age,” passim; Washington to Wilford Smith, Jan. 10, 1909; Washington to Fred R. Moore, May 11, July 5, 1909; Moore to Emmett Scott, Dec. 20, 1909.

53 Culp, D. W. (ed.), Twentieth Century Literature, etc. Relating to the American Negro (Napierville, Illinois, 1902), 333Google Scholar, quoted in Detweiler, Negro Press, 58.

54 Penn, Afro-American Press, 280, 317–18; Advertisements of Calvin Chase, attorney-at-law, in Washington Bee, passim; Chicago Broad Ax, Nov. 10, 1906; Indianapolis Freeman, Sept. 19, 1896; Adams, , “Timothy Thomas Fortune,” Colored American Magazine, IV (Jan.-Feb., 1902), 224–28Google Scholar; Meier, Negro Thought in America, 231.

55 The idea of a Negro daily was a subject of perennial discussion among Negro editors, and a few abortive attempts were made at the publication of dailies, but none of them survived.

56 Penn, Afro-American Press, 127; Washington Bee, Dec. 30, 1882, May 24, 1884; Meier, Negro Thought in America, 225; Indianapolis Freeman, Jan. 17, 1914. The arrangements with Western Union had little effect on newsgathering. In 1919 Claude A. Barnett of Chicago organized the Associated Negro Press, a press service which furnished news items and feature articles to many Negro papers, but most of the items were gathered and distributed by mail. Oak, The Negro Entrepreneur, 99–100.

57 Advertisement in Indianapolis World, 1888. When the Washington Bee inaugurated a women's column it announced that it would be devoted to the “upbuilding and advancement of women.” Washington Bee, Aug. 15, 1896. The column, like the women's columns in other Negro papers, contained little that was practical or that would appeal to feminine tastes.

58 New York Globe, July 5, 1884.

59 Writing in 1920 of early Negro papers, T. Thomas Fortune said that the “old journalism… refused to print anything that would damage the good name or morals of the race, and kept all scandals and personalities, however sensational the news might be, in the background.” Favorite Magazine, Autumn, 1920, quoted in Detweiler, Negro Press, 61. The lack of sensationalism of the pre-World War I newspapers is in sharp contrast to later journalism. Myrdal's study of American Negroes, published during World War II, said: “The Negro weekly is ordinarily a ‘sensational' paper.” This was attributed to the fact that the Negro community was predominantly lower class and that expanded circulation must be sought in the lower strata of the Negro community. “In this struggle to increase circulation, sensationalism is a rational policy.” Myrdal, Gunnar, An American Dilemma, The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New York, 1944), 9171.Google Scholar

60 Ottley, Lonely Warrior, 106.

61 Washington to Fortune, Sept. 30, 1905.

62 Penn, Afro-American Press, 160; Cleveland Gazette, Aug. 12, 1911; Washington Bee, Jan. 24, 1914.

63 Penn, Afro-American Press, 95.

64 During the great northward migration of Negroes which began during World War I, a few papers began to increase circulation substantially. The most conspicuous example was the Chicago Defender, which by 1920 claimed a circulation of 120,000. At that date the Pittsburg Courier had a sworn circulation of 11,459, while the Amsterdam News claimed 30,000 and the Baltimore Afro-American 11,500. Ayer, American Newspaper Annual, 1920, 1265–66.