The New York Evening Star: A Different Perspective
on the Press of the 1830s
Thorin Tritter
Princeton University
The 1830s are often referred to as a revolutionary time in the history of American journalism. Dull merchant dailies were swept aside by the newly created penny press that catered to a broad audience. These new papers became the precursor of the modern American daily and, appropriately, have been the subject of much scholarship. However, the penny press did not take over the newspaper industry in a single instant and the study of penny papers obscures the fact that more expensive dailies continued to flourish alongside their new rivals. The study of these mercantile dailies is made difficult by a scarcity of archival sources, but some materials can be found. This paper relies on a set of materials that has been overlooked, and yet provides a detailed view of how a non-penny paper in New York City operated during the 1830s. It is based on account ledgers of the New York Evening Star, preserved in the New-York Historical Society, which offer a window into how one six-cent paper emerged on the New York newspaper scene in 1833, how it operated during the following seven years, and what made the paper disappear in 1840. Overall, this essay seeks to provide a more balanced view of the penny press revolution and greater insight into the financial operations of newspapers in the 19th century.