Victorian Newspapers: The Source for Inquiring Minds
In William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair, George Sedley Osborne exhibits a desire to have his name appear in the newspapers. Furthermore, he is not the only one in Vanity Fair who is concerned with the newspapers, considering the fact that the words "newspaper" and "newspapers" appear twenty-two times in Thackeray's novel. Still, there is much more to know about Victorian newspapers than Thackeray imparts to his readers. Although George is unsuccessful in getting his name in print, the following information will be successful in illustrating to its readers the when, where, and why of newspapers in the Victorian era. The Nineteenth century included a monumental step for the world of newspapers. In fact, the "first papers to resemble the daily newspaper of the mid-twentieth century were the penny papers of the 1830's" (Hartman 17). Though their origins began in the Victorian era, the newspapers read today barely resemble the sparse "penny papers" years ago (Hartman 17).
Reader Appeal
Victorian newspapers found their start as expensive publications that were essentially unattainable by the lower classes. The reason for this inaccessibility is accounted for by the additional tax placed on newspapers during this time. This tax "took the form of a stamp duty, paid and recorded on every copy" ("Images"). Nevertheless, the sales of newspapers continually climbed. In addition, the "early select papers appealed only to man, the political animal" (Sampson 855). Indeed, the majorities of topics found in an early Victorian newspaper were political, and also sought to be partisan, rather than non-partisan. Finally, towards the end of the century, papers appealing to the "whol...
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Throughout Chapter 5 of “Covering America” by Christopher Daly, there were a few newspapers that changed journalism. The St. Louis Dispatch, the World, and The Examiner played a major role in journalism and set themselves apart from other previous newspapers. Joseph Pulitzer started both the St. Louis Dispatch and the World. According to Daly, Pulitzer used his paper to, “crusade against
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Willoughby’s writing is that so much change has occurred in the past hundred years. His setting, though the very Everglades we travel through today, is an Everglades where saw grass was ten feet tall, and trails were no where to be found. His Florida, though located exactly where he left it, now has too many hotels, tourists, and residents to count. The change that has taken place in Florida was one that Willoughby foreshadowed, and one that we would not be able to fully comprehend without the writings of people like Willoughby. He captured the moment on paper for the future to see and gave us a means of comparison. He wrote about change in Florida over the course of a year since his previous visit. He mentioned that a big hotel and bustling tourists destroyed the picturesque and that Florida’s “wilderness has been rudely marred by the hand of civilization” (62). I wonder what he would say today. The mere two thousand individuals he wrote about was a number no where near to the number of people who have since marred Florida. Like Willoughby, I regret change. An...
As my conclusion of understanding this journey through the history journalism by Kuyperts is that one thing history of newspapers tells us while the structure of the news may change, or the market for the news continues and a formation of highly intelligent journalist will strive to insists that the community receives the type of news that they want to read about.
One reason for the outspread of muckraking was the explosion of journalism. From 1870-1909 the number of daily newspapers circulated boomed from 574 to 2,600 and the number of subscribers from 2,800,000 to 24,800,000. With this increase, newspaper owners and editors needed new bait to reel in its subscribers. The newspaper editors wanted to replace ordinary town gossip with gossip about the latest events of the city. Therefore, in newspapers they placed the most shocking events and kept the rural mind drooling for more. As newspaper circulation grew, the large newspaper depended much less on political parties and could now even challenge them. Newspapers played on the new human interest, the concern of the wealthy with the affairs of those below them, status-wise. This "story of the poor" became the basic outline for muckraking (Ho...
“The story is worth more than the paper it is printed on.” Frank Munsey’s words symbolized the history of the pulp magazine. Frank Munsey started the pulp magazine craze with his first magazine, the Argosy, in 1896. The Argosy was a revamping of his children’s magazine, the Golden Argosy, shifting its focus from children to adults. The Argosy offered large amounts of fiction for a low price, because these stories would be printed on cheap pulpwood scraps, thus gaining the name ‘pulp magazine’. The pulp magazine has been a part of American history for well over a hundred years. During the late 1890’s, there was a period of high immigration. These immigrants and other working poor had no source of inexpensive literature, and this led to the development of the pulp magazine. Pulp magazines held a collection of stories in every issue, serialized so that in the following issue the next chapter of the story would appear. Since the first pulp magazine’s success, the Argosy, other magazines spawned, such as All-Story and Weird Story, and sinc...
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Newspapers are great for people who are interested in what is happening in a community. They provide, “information about the who, what, when, where, and how events in the past” (59). In addition to the providing of information, newspapers also can be the cause of mood changes in a community. Even though they can not imform the public on a readers thoughts, “ they can tell us what information and opinion readers were being exposed to, and circulation figures can indicate the populatity of
One of the first connections Wattenberg makes is raising the issue of whether or not newspapers are a dying habit when looking, not only at the adolescents of America, but as the country as a whole. Overall, he states that the number of people who consistently read a newspaper on a daily basis has remained on a steady decline as the years go by. Wattenberg brings up the topic that earlier on in history the newspaper was the means of information for people all across America, and it was filled with political news to keep the citizens informed. However, in today 's society not only has technology taken over this old time habit, the new
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The Victorian Era in English history was a period of rapid change. One would be hard-pressed to find an aspect of English life in the 19th century that wasn’t subject to some turmoil. Industrialization was transforming the citizens into a working class population and as a result, it was creating new urban societies centered on the factories. Great Britain enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity at home and thus was extending its global reach in an era of New Imperialism. Even in the home, the long held beliefs were coming into conflict.
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