Journalism in the United States, from 1690-1872

The "Science" of Advertising.

hold, appeared almost wholly in the New York Herald.

735

That paper,

on Tuesday mornings, would contain an entire page of such advertisements. What was the cause of this change? The circulation of the Sun was even then larger than that of the Herald. It was readily explained by a pretty and bright servant-girl: "Why, don't you see that where we want to live the Herald is taken in? The Sun is a cent paper, and taken by poor people only, who do their own work. Our advertisements there would be of no use to us."

This young woman developed the philosophy of advertising in these three sentences. It is not so much the extent in numbers of the circulation of a newspaper as it is the character of that circulation. The London Telegraph circulates three times as many copies as the London Times, yet the latter retains its enormous advertising patronage.

This remunerative branch of journalism is now arranged on the most expansive scale by the different advertising agents scattered over the country. It is wonderful to see the perfect system of their arrangements. One agency in New York City has compiled an octavo volume of three hundred pages, giving the names of nearly all the newspapers published in the country, with the names of editors and publishers, and circulation. They receive advertisements for nearly one thousand papers in the United States. Another agent, in Boston, takes another step forward, for he promises editorial notices with the advertisements. We insert this attractive part of his notice:

OUR LOCAL LIST FOR BOSTON ADVERTISERS

COMPOSED of

22 PAPERS,

IN THE SUBURBAN TOWNS,
offers rates which defy competition.

Advertisements inserted in all the lists of other Agencies.
ADVERTISEMENTS WRITTEN.

Editorial Notices Obtained.

A first copy of paper furnished to advertisers.

Then the "Great Western Improved Newspaper Advertising Company" in St. Louis places its claims before the business community. They have "facilities for securing the insertion of advertisements on a new plan, at low rates, a portion of the space in over two hundred Western and Southern papers belonging to them by contract."

But "our plan" of the Milwaukee Wisconsin surpasses any thing that has yet been devised to accomplish the largest publicity of business notices at the lowest prices. If we insert this plan from the Wisconsin in full, it will be because of its novelty here, and because it develops the mode of publishing papers at the West and in

other parts of the country which is not practiced in New York City. It is an English plan, and is the way many of the provincial papers are published there.

The Nashville Union states that five of the journals published in that state get the outer pages of their papers printed in some city outside of Tennessee. These publishers get the paper they use, with one side printed, delivered at their respective offices at about what the white paper would cost them.

The Wisconsin programme is the following:

THE

Milwaukee Wisconsin.
NORTHWESTERN LIST

-OF

NEWSPAPERS.

OUR PLAN OF ADVERTISING.

We call the plan of printing country papers with advertising “OUR PLAN," because we originated and first put it in practice. At the breaking out of the war, when printers had largely gone to the front, we devised the plan of printing one side of the country papers, and using a certain space for advertising purposes, to pay us for the type-setting and press-work, our maximum price to the papers themselves being the cost of the white paper. We have increased our advertising to such an extent that the price to country papers for printed paper is considerably less than the cost of white paper at the mills, besides a saving of $500 to $1000 a year to each paper for type-setting and press-work.

Now if an advertisement should be sent direct to 200 newspapers, four squares in length, the publishers would set the type 200 times. As an advertisement of four squares is about 1000 ems of type-setting, it is evident somebody must pay for 200,000 ems of type-setting. This, at fifty cents per 1000, the usual rate, would amount to $100. Our price for such an advertisement is only $50, or one half the cost of type-setting, counting nothing for the insertion in the papers themselves.

Long before any other house in the world we invented and put in practice this system of co-operative printing and advertising, and are justly entitled to the distinction, if there be any, of calling it "OUR PLAN."

The New York Tribune claims to print 300,000 papers per week. The Tribune's charge-and a very reasonable one too-is $25 for ten lines one week in this circulation; that is, for $25 they print ten lines 300,000 times, and send it through the mails to the subscribers.

For $12 50-just half the sum-the EVENING WISCONSIN prints an advertisement of ten lines and sends it to 250,000 subscribers in a week.

Some of these agencies advertise their own business very extensively. We have seen, for example, an entire page of the New York Herald taken up, at a cost of $500 or $600 for a single insertion, with one advertisement of Rowell's Newspaper Directory. Those mild, persuasive, industrious agents of the old school, Hooper, Palmer, Pettingill, Oatman, looked upon these active, energetic innovators with a constituency of a thousand newspapers, these modern canvassers with lists of journals to be measured by the yard, with perfect amazement. No wonder they fell in with such a brilliant association. But is not this new mode, after all, the style of our journalism of to-day? Is it not all on a grand scale?

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CHAPTER LII.

THE MOTTOES OF THE PRESS.

ARE THEY THE EDITORS' PLATFORMS OF PRINCIPLES?-SPECIMEN MOTTOES. -THE POPE'S MOTTO FOR JOURNALISTS.

THESE are the curiosities of newspaper literature. They were the platforms of the editors in olden times. They endeavored to convey to the public the principles on which their journals should be conducted by these short sentences, sometimes in English, sometimes in French, but oftener in Latin-Multum in parvo. In the early days of American journalism these mottoes were accompanied with all sorts of curious pictorial devices, some of Minerva, some of the figure of Liberty, some with a clock representing the time, some with a printing-press, some with Mercury. Not only have the devices nearly disappeared, but the mottoes have gone and are going with them. Often the opinions of an editor and his adopted motto would present a perfect antithesis on his pages. Many of the mottoes are grand, some of them immensely so. Here are a few spec

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Providence Journal

1765. Join or die.

1766. Open to all parties, but influenced by none. 1771. Open to all parties, but influenced by none. - 1776. Appeal to heaven: Independence.

1778. All hands with one inflamed and enlight-
ened heart.

1784. Truth its guide, Liberty its object.
1793. Tout le monde.

1800.

"I, from the Orient to the drooping West, Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold The deeds commenced on this ball of earth." 1814. Justice, law, and liberty. Prodesse civibus. 1818. Where a government is founded on opinion, it is of the essence of its preservation that opinion be free.

1818. Surgo ut prosim.

1820. Encourage national industry.

The Yankee and Boston Lit. Gaz., 1828. The greatest happiness of the greatest

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