Illustrated Papers.

705

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE ILLUSTRATED PAPERS.

NEWS PICTORIALLY REPORTED AND DESCRIBED.-WOOD-ENGRAVING IN THE UNITED STATES. — HARPER'S FAMILY BIBLE. THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPERS.-FRANK LESLIE'S ILLUSTRATED News, HARPER'S WEEKLY, AND HARPER'S BAZAR.-SINCLAIR'S PHOTO-ZINCO.-THE NEW ART.-EXCHANGE OF ENGRAVINGS.-OUR NATIONAL GALLERY.

ILLUSTRATED papers have become a feature. Every newspaper stand is covered with them. Every railroad train is filled with them. They are "object-teaching" to the multitude. They make the battlefields, the coronations, the corruptions of politicians, the balls, the race-course, the yacht race, the military and naval heroes, Napoleon and William, Bismarck and Von Beust, Farragut and Porter, Grant and Sherman, familiar to every one. They are, in brief, the art gallery of the world. Single admission, ten cents.

When Avery, and Reid, and Horton, and Baker, and one or two others, engraved for the New York Herald, the art, for newspaper use and illustration, was but little known in the United States. There was some taste in drawing, but rather rough and slow work in cutting. It was a task to get the smallest and simplest diagram cut. News engravings have to be rapidly executed to be of value. In 1861-5, during the Rebellion, Waters made half-page maps in one day. Such a piece of work, indeed, to illustrate a brilliant victory, was accomplished on one occasion in one night. News of the battle came at tea-time; the map appeared in the next morning's Herald. But the block was in twenty pieces, and twenty engravers worked on it at the same time. Thirty-five years ago there were not as many engravers in the country as worked that night on that one map.

There was an excellent engraver living in New York about thirty or thirty-five years ago, named Adams. He was almost the first engraver-artist in the United States. He was a pleasant, quiet, thoughtful man. It appears that he read the Bible. He was our Doré. In going over the pages of that great book, some of the wonderful events narrated there suggested to him the idea of sketching them on wood. He did so, and cut them himself during his leisure hours. The work was an agreeable one, and he continued it till he had accumulated a large number of beautiful illustrations of the Holy Scriptures. They grew in value, and he purchased an iron safe for them. It had occurred to him during this work that the Bible, fully illustrated, would be a popular publication, and one

Y Y

that would compensate him for his labor of love. Applying to the Harpers, he found they would be delighted to undertake such a work. The interview between the artist and publishers resulted in Harper's Illustrated Family Bible, so well known a quarter of a century ago. When the incident was related to the writer, Mr. Adams's share of the profits of the work had reached the sum of $60,000. These illustrations showed great taste and were well executed, but the art has made such progress since then that they are excelled by some of the exquisite engravings of the present time.

Our illustrated newspapers live on wood-engravings. The two most important ones are Harper's and Frank Leslie's. Before either of these appeared, the Messrs. Beach, of the New York Sun, and Barnum, of the Museum, each contributed $20,000 for the establishment of an illustrated weekly in New York City; and Gleason and Ballou, of Boston, had made the attempt to introduce these publications in America. The two latter made fortunes, and Ballou built the St. James's Hotel. Among the artists engaged on Gleason's Pictorial was Frank Leslie. Boston, probably, was not large enough for him to swing in freely and safely; New York loomed up before his artistic vision. Ascertaining that Barnum intended to issue an illustrated paper, Leslie started for Iranistan, and arrived there on Thanksgiving day, in 1852, just before dinner. Introducing himself to Barnum, he stated his business. "Why, this is Thanksgiving day, and dinner is almost ready. Never mind; business is business," said Barnum. So he gave up turkey and family, and talked over the project. It ended in the departure of the artist for New York by the train of that evening, and Barnum satisfied himself with a wing of a chicken. In this way Frank Leslie became the managing foreman of the Illustrated News of New York, and made his debut in the metropolis. This paper appeared on the 1st of January, 1853, and its circulation. ran up to 70,000 copies. It lived one year.

After the suspension of this publication, or, rather, after it passed over to Gleason, Frank Leslie issued one which is now favorably known as Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. His establishment has grown so extensively that seventy wood-engravers are constantly and actively employed. Illustrated papers in German and Spanish, as well as in English, are issued therefrom. He publishes the Chimney-corner, Ladies' Journal, Pleasant Hours, Boys' and Girls' Weekly, and the Budget of Fun. The aggregate circulation of his weekly and monthly issues average half a million copies weekly. One hundred thousand copies of the Chimney-corner alone are issued. One of the former contributors to Frank Leslie's paper was John J. Ryan, now the redacteur en chef of the American Register in Paris. The present managing editor is E. G. Squier, so well known for his early researches in the Valley of the Mississippi, and as the author of sev

Harper's Illustrated Papers.

707

eral interesting works on Central America, where he resided for some time as the chargé d'affaires of the United States.

The first number of Harper's Weekly, a Journal of Civilization, was issued on the 3d of January, 1857. The intention of the publishers, as indicated by its second title, was to make a high-toned literary weekly paper, especially adapted for the family, and the few engravings that appeared in the earlier numbers were simply story illustrations; but before the expiration of the first year the events of the day began to be pictorially recorded in its pages, and Harper's Weekly had fairly taken the field as an illustrated newspaper. Its first editor was Theodore Sedgwick. Among his collaborateurs was Fitz James O'Brien, who contributed a brilliant series of weekly papers under the heading "The Man about Town." On Sedgwick's retirement from the editorial chair in 1858, he was succeeded by John Bonner, an experienced and accomplished journalist, who conducted the Weekly for several years with ability and tact. Bonner was followed, in 1864, by Henry M. Alden, the present editor of Harper's Magazine. Charles Nordhoff, for several years managing editor of the Evening Post, John G. Foster, and W. F. G. Shanks, were also at different times connected with the Weekly. The present executive editor is S. S. Conant, for some time managing editor of the New York Times under Henry J. Raymond. Since the 1st of January, 1864, the political columns of the Weekly have been intrusted to the management of George William Curtis, from whose pen a series of charming and brilliant papers, under the heading of "The Lounger," had been an attractive feature of the Weekly from the second year of its establishment. His editorials are distinguished by breadth of view, evident sincerity of opinion, force and clearness of style, and strict and unvarying attention to the amenities of journalism. Mr. Curtis is also the author of a series of papers in Harper's Bazar entitled "Manners upon the Road," commenced in the first number of that journal, and still continued weekly. In these papers, under the signature of "An old Bachelor," the author displays a fertility of invention, a grace and freedom of style, a happy facility in the treatment and illustration of every-day topics, the little as well as the great moralities of home and social life, which make these pleasant essays a unique feature of newspaper literature.

The pictorial department of the Weekly embraces a wide range of subjects-current events of interest and importance, art and story illustrations, portraiture, the humor and comedy of social life, and foreign and domestic politics. The battle-fields of our own great war, and those of recent European conflicts, were graphically reproduced in its pages. The political cartoons of Thomas Nast constitute one of its most popular features. Nast is a genius. He can not be compared with any other artist, living or dead. With a style

peculiarly his own, wide in range of subject, of inexhaustible fertility, and serious as well as playful imagination, he now reminds us of Hogarth, now of Leach. His political cartoons during the late presidential campaign were among the most effective weapons against the Democratic Party, and his masterly attacks on the Tammany Ring, in the pages of the Weekly, contributed largely to the overthrow of that corrupt clique.

Since the outbreak of the Rebellion, Harper's Weekly has been conducted in harmony with the Republican Party, but it has never assumed a partisan attitude, nor has it lost any of its distinctive features as a literary journal. Some of the best works of Bulwer, Charles Reade, Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, and other eminent English novelists, have been introduced to American readers through its pages, and among its constant contributors are numbered many of the leading authors of our own country. Among its latest features is an important Scientific Department, conducted by Professor Spencer F. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institute.

These illustrated papers are a power in the reform of public abuses. We have alluded to the effect of Nast's inimitable sketches in aiding so materially in the overthrow of the infamous Tammany Ring. Several years ago Frank Leslie undertook a very commendable public duty in exposing, by a series of illustrations, the deplorable condition of hundreds of "swill-fed" cows stalled in and around New York, and supplying the inhabitants of the metropolis with "pure Orange County milk." The effect produced by this pictorial crusade was of the first importance to the health of the community.

Harper's Bazar, a Repository of Fashion, Pleasure, and Instruction, was first issued on the 2d of November, 1867. Designed as a family paper, it was a success from the start. Politics are excluded from its columns. Its literary features comprise serial stories by leading English and American authors, short stories, poems, social and domestic essays, and the "Old Bachelor" papers already alluded to. Besides the fashion and pattern illustrations, giving, from authentic sources, the latest European styles, the Bazar contains many beautiful fine-art pictures. It has been from the first under the skillful management of Miss Mary L. Booth.

The Aldine, and Appleton's Journal, issued in New York, are illustrated, but they scarcely come under the class we have to speak of in our collection; they are literary papers, and their pictures are given to illustrate stories or biography. Every Saturday, published in Boston, was an illustrated paper of no mean pretensions till the close of 1871, when it abandoned pictures, by some arrangement made, it was said, with the Harpers of New York. Some of its engravings were very artistically executed. The Illustrated Christian Weekly was issued in March, 1871, by the American Tract Society.

Miscellaneous Illustrated Papers.

709

It is edited by Lyman Abbott and S. E. Warner, and may be considered the first illustrated paper of a purely religious character.

Wood-engraving has increased so rapidly, and improved so immeasurably beyond all expectations, that as nice work can be done in the United States as in any other country. When we compare Frank Leslie's Illustrated Paper and Harper's Weekly with the London Illustrated News, or L'Illustration of Paris, or the Illustrated News of Leipsic, we see no reason to find fault with our publications. The paper of the English and French papers is generally superior, which sets off the engravings to advantage. The pictures in the London paper are fine, but stiff; those in L'Illustration are more natural, but inferior as engravings. The illustrations in the United States partake of the best characteristics of the two; they are not so stiff as the English, and they are as finely executed as the French. Ours are the juste milieu of the art, as far as it has progressed in the world as an auxiliary to the news of the day.

There is a new mode of illustration just brought out in Philadelphia in a publication called Sinclair's Photo-Zinco, which gives reproductions of drawings and engravings. This mode could be made of value, we should think, in the interchange of engravings among the illustrated papers of the world. Now the proprietors of these publications sell and exchange electrotypes of the most popular pictures. The London Illustrated News sends quite a number of its engravings to Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. Some reach New York. The London Illustrated Times takes electrotypes of the engravings originating with La Monde and L'Illustration of Paris. The expense thus saved must be very great, but the practice, unless very limited, must prove more injurious than profitable to any paper relying much on its own artistic merit for popular favor.

Other papers publish pictures. There is the Child's Paper, the Child's World, and the Illustrated Police News. The Agriculturist represents the best breeds of animals, new implements of husbandry, architectural designs for farmers, premium pears, new species of apples and squashes, and bunches of grapes. The Scientific American contains finely-engraved models and diagrams of newly invented machinery, and elegantly and attractively done too. The publisher in the rural districts illustrates his paper with pictorial advertisements, which, with the quaint devices at the heads of the papers of a century ago, were the original and pioneer illustrations of the American newspaper. But all the superior work in our wood engravings is the growth of thirty years. Then there were twenty engravers in the United States; now, it is stated by Lossing to the New York Historical Society, there are no less than four hundred. Peter Cooper has done much for this art by having free classes for girls in his Institute, and they become expert and skillful engravers.