The History of American Journalism, Vol. 3, The Popular Press, 1833-1865

Abstract

The History of American Journalism, Vol. 3, The Popular Press, 18331865. By William E. Huntzicker. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 211. $65.00.) One of the most durable narratives in United States historiography concerns the rise of the so-called penny press. Before the 1830s, the story goes, the American press languished as the kept institution of the country's and economic (1). Filled with windy political essays, polite literature, price lists, and government documents fit only (it is argued) for politicians and businessmen, the established newspapers were supposedly too expensive for ordinary Americans to read regularly and too far removed from their tastes and interests to bother reading in any case. Then a few heroic entrepreneurs appeared, led by Benjamin Day of the New York Sun and especially James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald, who had the vision to give the masses what they really wanted. Slashing the prices of their journals to one cent per copy and depending on advertisements for their income (especially more popular forms of advertising such as classified ads and pitches for consumer products), Day and Bennett abandoned the dusty older forms of content in favor of reporting on life in the big city in language that the average workingman could understand, with healthy doses of crime reports, social gossip, and other forms of human interest and sensationalism. The new penny newspapers achieved huge circulations and unprecedented commercial success that (it is said) allowed them to become independent of the political and economic elites and set the American press on the road to modernity, up from partisan slavery toward its future as supplier and defender of the public's right to know. This narrative has been especially popular among scholars based in journalism schools, where it serves as an origin myth useful for training students to work happily in the modern communications industry. Cultural and social historians have deployed it frequently as well, finding in prurient journals like Bennett's Herald the beginnings of the urban mass culture that interests them. William E. Huntzicker's book rehearses this narrative one more time. The third in a series of books synthesizing the work of journalism historians, The Popular Press, 1833-1865 covers the expected topics more or less in the expected sequence. The first two chapters cover the rise of the penny press in New York City, along with the controversies it generated. These include the infamous Helen Jewett murder case, which James Gordon Bennett claimed to have cracked and with which most historians will be familiar from the analyses of Andie Tucher, Patricia Cline Cohen, and others. The rest of the book is arranged topically. One brief chapter deals with the partisan press, primarily in the form of a few major New York and Washington newspapers and editors. Another chapter surveys various types of Specialized Publications, including religious, agricultural, illustrated, scientific, and antislavery periodicals. Diverse Voices, Alternative Newspapers covers African-American, American Indian, and female journalists and publications. The final sections deal with press coverage of, and journalists' experiences in, the headline events of the mid-nineteenth century, including westward expansion, the war with Mexico, and (in two relatively less-compressed chapters), the Civil War. While historians needing an introduction to the history of newsgathering in this era may find the book useful, the most appropriate audience would seem to be journalists and journalism students interested in the prehistory of their profession-though few students or working reporters are likely to shell out sixty-five dollars on such a small, bare-bones volume. Throughout the book, Huntzicker focuses relentlessly on the aspects of his topics that can be construed as antecedents of modern practices: the rise of objectivity, the exploits of early reporters, the formation of the wire services, relations between journalists and the generals and statesmen they covered, and the origins of modern newswriting conventions. …