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Wood Pulp and Newspapers, 1867–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

David C. Smith
David C. Smith
Affiliation:
Instructor of History, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
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Abstract

Rejecting the traditional explanation that the introduction of features and an increase in scandalmongering account for the growth of American newspapers following the Civil War, Professor Smith advances an interesting correlation between the introduction of wood-pulp paper and the lowered prices and increased circulation of the press.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1964 , pp. 328 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1964

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References

1 Schlesinger, Arthur M., The Rise of the City, 1878–1898 (New York, 1933), pp. 191–92Google Scholar; Bleyer, Willard G., Main Currents in the History of American Journalism (New York, 1927), p. 388.Google Scholar

2 North, S. N. D., “The Newspaper and Periodical Press,” Tenth Census of the United States, Reports (22 vols., Washington, 1883–1888), vol. VIII, pt. 1, p. 82Google Scholar, my emphasis.

3 He based his analysis in part on a speech and report given before the American Paper Makers Association, Saratoga, New York, July, 1881, by Howard Lockwood, editor of Paper Trade Journal.

4 Ellis, L. Ethan, Print Paper Pendulum (New Brunswick, 1948), p. 10Google Scholar; also available as an appendix to Ellis, , Newsprint (New Brunswick, 1960).Google Scholar

5 There is nothing in Payne, George H., History of Journalism in the United States (New York, 1920)Google Scholar, or Bleyer, Main Currents, and very little in Jones, Robert W., Journalism in the United States (New York, 1947).Google Scholar See Chapters 26 and 36 for the last's emphasis. Lee, Alfred McC., The Daily Newspaper in America (New York, 1937), pp. 98–106Google Scholar, does something with the development, as does Mott, Frank Luther, American Journalism (Rev. ed., New York, 1950), p. 498Google Scholar, but Mott follows Lee on this point, and Lee does not really make the association with the tremendous jump in circulation that I shall attempt in the following pages.

6 An editorial in the Industrial Journal (Bangor, Maine, 1880–1918), February 2, 1888, indicates what contemporaries thought of circulation figures: “A Missouri man says that he recently went into the woods, painted a black circle on the end of a log, and when he went back to the log an hour later he found 300 dead rabbits there, the animals having mistaken the circle for a hole in the log and dashed themselves to death against it. Since his story has appeared in print he has received letters from the publishers of several New York dailies offering him the position of affidavit clerk, his duties being to swear to the circulation. But he says that he cannot tell a lie.”

7 See North, “The Newspapers and Periodical Press,” passim, for comments on his own statistical compilation. See also, Myers, Kenneth H., “ABC and SRDS: The Evolution of Two Specialized Advertising Services,” Business History Review, vol. XXXIV (Autumn, 1960), pp. 302–326.Google Scholar

8 Weeks, Lyman H., A History of Paper-Manufacturing in the United States, 1690–1916 (New York, 1916), p. 57.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 71.

10 American State Papers: Finance, vol. II, pp. 666–706. The analysis is by Tench Coxe of the returns of the 1810 census. Thomas, Isaiah, “History of Printing in America,” Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. V (1874)Google Scholar, working from different figures comes up with much the same result and is cited in Weeks, History of Paper-Manufacturing. Thomas' figures are 17 cents a pound, or $3.50 a 20-pound ream, while using Coxe's figures I get a national average of $3.97 per ream. Some representative areas were New York $3.02 per ream, Maine $3.56, and Pennsylvania $3.84. For a discussion of the value of the census see Coxe's comments, American State Papers: Finance, vol. II, pp. 666–89. The figures on the paper trade appear primarily at p. 706.

11 Munsell, Joel, Chronology of the Origin and Progress of Paper and Paper-making (5th ed., Albany, 1876), p. 81.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 82.

13 Ibid., p. 135.

14 Ibid., p. 134.

15 Ibid., p. 136.

16 Weeks, History of Paper-Manufacturing, p. 226.

17 Munsell, Chronology, p. 140.

18 Ibid., p. 154.

19 Ibid., p. 155.

20 Weeks, History of Paper-Manufacturing, p. 220. He also gives a few figures on rag importations by value: in 1837, $439,229; 1851, $903,747; and 1854, $1,010,443.

21 Munsell, Chronology, p. 154. Total United States rag consumption in 1854 was 405,000,000 pounds, ibid., p. 134.

22 Ibid., p. 154.

23 Portland (Me.) Daily Eastern Argus, January 12, 1865.

24 Ibid., January 26, 1865.

25 Ibid., October 5, 1865.

26 Ibid., December 30, 1865.

27 Ibid., January 8, 1866.

28 Ibid., February 2, 1866, quoting the New York Citizen.

29 Portland Daily Eastern Argus, October 29, 1866, an editorial devoted to the Chicago Tribune's horror at the high prices.

30 Quoted in Portland Daily Eastern Argus, October 30, 1866, with approval. Without a doubt, paper makers were making high profits, but it was a case of a demand which could not be satisfied, forcing prices even higher than the normally high state of before the Civil War. It was pleasant to be a paper maker, no doubt, but if the same paper maker did not catch the pulp-paper revolution soon to come his high profits were not worth very much.

31 Munsell, Chronology, p. 199.

32 Ibid., p. 201.

33 Portland Daily Eastern Argus, February 25, 1870.

34 See note 39.

35 “Newsprint Paper Industry,” Senate Docs., 65 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 49, p. 23.

36 Portland Daily Eastern Argus, January 28, 1865.

37 Ibid., February 17, 1865.

38 See, on this point, the interesting article by the first president of the International Paper Company, Chisholm, Hugh J., “History of Papermaking in Maine, and the Future of the Industry,” Twentieth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine, 1906 (Augusta, 1907), pp. 161–69.Google Scholar

39 Relatively little has been written about these early mills as yet. On the Curtisville mill, see McAlpine, M. F., “Robert McAlpine, Pioneer,” in Snell, Ralph M. (comp.), The Story of Papermaking in the United States (Holyoke, n. d.), vol. III, no. 3.Google Scholar These volumes also appeared as Superior Facts (Easton, Pennsylvania, July, 1927-July, 1932). Also Chisholm, “History,” passim, for the mills at Norway, Maine (very slight) and Topsham, Maine (better). From time to time short comments, frequently inaccurate because of memory lapse, occur in the earlier issues of Paper Trade Journal (New York, 1872 ff).

40 Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State of Maine, 1903 (Augusta, 1904), p. 201; Mott, American Journalism, p. 402; Chis holm, “History,” pp. 163 ff; and Green, G. P., “The Production of Wood-Pulp,” in Rattray, John and Hall, Hugh Robert (eds.), Forestry and Forest Products (Edinburgh, 1885), p. 479.Google Scholar The prices differ somewhat according to the authority. My figures are a rough estimate.

41 Ellis, Newsprint, passim; Guthrie, John A., The Newsprint Paper Industry: An Economic Analysis (Cambridge, Mass., 1941)Google Scholar; and House Docs., 60 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 1502 (6 vols.).

42 Untreated mechanical pulp tended to be stringy and often discolored. The Manayunk mill used the soda ash, or Voelter, process.

43 For an account of his life and some assessment of his position see Phillips, Max, “Benjamin Chew Tilghman, and the Origin of the Sulphite Process for the Delignification of Wood,” Journal of Chemical Education, vol. XX (September, 1943), pp. 444–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For Tilghman's own account see Paper Trade Journal, vol. XXVI, no. 42 (October 16, 1897), p. 138.

44 Ninth Census of the United States, Reports (3 vols., Washington, 1872), vol. III, p. 396. These figures are not accurate, as they apparently only included mills then in operation at the time of investigation but they do indicate much about the industry.

45 Ibid., p. 398.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid., passim, Table IX (B).

48 Tenth Census of the United States, Reports (22 vols., Washington, 1883–1888), vol. II, p. 14.

49 Ibid., p. 86.

50 Hough, Franklin P., Report Upon Forestry, 1877 (Washington, 1878), p. 123.Google Scholar

51 Green, “Production,” p. 475. The Western Paper Trade, December 15, 1884, estimated 800,000 pounds per day. The Industrial Journal, June 16, 1882, estimated ground-wood-pulp at 200 tons per day.

52 Trustees of the Maine State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, Annual Report, 1872 (Augusta and Orono, 1873), p. 40.

53 Thurston, Robert H. (ed.), Report of the Commissioners of the United States to the International Exhibition held at Vienna, 1873 (4 vols., Washington, 1876), vol. I, p. 376Google Scholar; vol. II, pp. 20 ff.

54 Rattray and Hall (eds.), Forestry and Forest Products.

55 Munsell, Chronology, p. 216 quotes prices of straw paper in 1870 as 12½ cents per pound. E. M. Blanding, the editor and publisher of the Industrial Journal, said his rag paper used in the first year of publication was also 12½ cents per pound. Industrial Journal, January, 1907, p 10.

56 Industrial Journal, December 22, 1882. For those interested in what paper made with a high percentage of wood pulp (mostly poplar stock) looks like they are referred to Ulysses S. Grant, Memoirs, or any issue in the 1880's of Century Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, or the Youth's Companion. All these were made by the S. D. Warren Co., West-brook, Maine. James G. Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress is also an example. This paper was made by the Denison Paper Company, Mechanic Falls, Maine.

57 “The Progress of Paper with Particular Emphasis on the Remarkable Industrial Development of the Past 75 Years and the Part that Paper Trade Journal Has Been Privileged to Share in that Development” (New York, 1947), p. 327.

58 Munsell, Chronology pp. 209, 231. (I have not yet seen this newspaper.)

59 “When Did Newspapers Begin to Use Woodpulp Stock?,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations, vol. XXXIII (October, 1929), pp. 743 ff.

60 These dates, and those of many other newspapers, appear in a conveniently arranged table in ibid., p. 745. Microfilming has, of course, solved the problems faced by the library when this study was undertaken. Unfortunately, not all newspapers have been microfilmed as this researcher has found out.

61 Data on these later changes is also in ibid., p, 745.

62 Eleventh Census of the United States, Reports (25 vols., Washington, 1892–1897), vol. XI, p. 62.

63 Ibid., pp. 282–83.

64 Ibid., pp. 724–25.

65 Rantoul, Charles W. Jr, “The Pulp and Paper Industry,” Twelfth Census of the United States, Reports, 1900 (10 vols., Washington, 1901–1902), vol. IX, pp. 1015–35.Google Scholar

66 Ibid., p. 1015.

67 Ibid., p. 1016.

68 Cf. Tables II-III, p. 1017 in ibid.

69 Ibid., p. 1018.

70 Ibid., p. 1020. By 1900, the industry was concentrated in Maine, New Hampshire, and New York, with New England far outdistancing her earlier competitors in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Maryland. The census did not include the great mills then building in Glens Falls, New York, and Millinocket, Maine. The reason for the shift to these areas was that spruce as forest cover began to dominate the wood pulp field after 1890. Although some paper mills continued primarily to utilize poplar until the 1920's they were of relatively small consequence in the total picture. The author has in preparation a study of lumbering in Maine and New Hampshire which assesses the impact of this gigantic new industry.

71 Ibid., Table V, pp. 1020–21.

72 Ibid., Table VI, p. 1023.

73 Ibid., for the 1860 figures he cites Eighth Census, Manufactures of the United States in 1860 (Washington, 1865), p. cxxi.

74 North, “Newspaper and Periodical Press,” pp. 51–54. The careful reader will still refer to note 6, supra.

75 Ibid., p. 75.

76 Ibid., Table I, Appendix A, pp. 170–71. (Hubbard evidently made no real distinction among newspapers which published oftener than once a week.)

77 Ibid., Table II, pp. 172–73.

78 Ibid., pp. 74–75.

79 Ibid., Table VII, p. 182.

80 Ibid., Table XI, pp. 186–89.

81 Ibid.

82 “Newspapers and Periodicals,” Eleventh Census, Reports, vol. XIII, p. 651. Also, “Printing and Publishing,” Twelfth Census, Reports, vol. IX, pt. III, Table V, p. 1042 which discriminates better than the earlier accounts.

83 Eleventh Census, Reports, vol. XIII, p. 652.

84 Twelfth Census, Reports, vol. IX, pt. III, Table V, p. 1042.

85 Ibid., Table XI, p. 1045.

86 Ibid., Table XIII, p. 1045.

87 Ibid., p. 1045 and Table XII, p. 1045.

88 North, “Newspaper and Periodical Press,” p. 80.

89 Mott, American Journalism, chapters 24, 25, and 26, passim for an account of lowered prices. He attributes the decline to the growing competition which is true to a certain extent. The cost of the product was of equal or more importance.

90 The following table should indicate the relationship:

Source: Mott, American Journalism, chapters 24, 25, 26; “When Did Newspapers Begin …?” p. 745. By 1886 nearly every significant newspaper in the country sold for either 1 or 2 cents.

91 North, “Newspaper and Periodical Press,” p. 196.

92 Eleventh Census, Reports, vol. XIII, p. 656.

93 Twelfth Census, Reports, vol. IX, pt. III, Table XXV, p. 1049.