It Shines for All | |
![]() The November 26, 1834, front page ofThe Sun | |
Type | Dailynewspaper |
---|---|
Format | Tabloid[1] |
Owner(s) | Moses Yale (1835) Frank Munsey (1916) |
Editor | Benjamin Day (1833) |
Founded | 1833; 192 years ago (1833) |
Ceased publication | January 4, 1950 (1950-01-04) |
Relaunched | The New York Sun (2002) |
Headquarters | Sun Building, Park Row 150 Nassau Street The Sun Building |
The Sun was a New York newspaper published from 1833 until 1950. It was considered a serious paper,[2] like the city's two more successfulbroadsheets,The New York Times and theNew York Herald Tribune.The Sun was the first successfulpenny daily newspaper in theUnited States, and was for a time, the most successful newspaper in America.[3][4]
The paper had a central focus on crime news, in which it was a pioneer, and was the first journal to hire a policereporter.[5][6] Its audience was primarily working class readers.
The Sun is well-known for publishing theGreat Moon Hoax of 1835, as well asFrancis Pharcellus Church's 1897 editorial containing the line "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus".
It merged with theNew York World-Telegram in 1950.
The Sun began publication in New York on September 3, 1833, as a morningnewspaper edited byBenjamin Day (1810–1889), with the slogan "It Shines for All".[7] It cost only one penny (equivalent to 33¢ in 2024[8]), was easy to carry, and had illustrations and crime reporting popular with working-class readers.[9]
It inspired a new genre across the nation, known as thepenny press, which made the news more accessible to low-income readers at a time when most papers cost five cents.[1]The Sun was also the first newspaper to hirenewspaper hawkers to sell it on the street, developing the trade of newsboys shouting headlines.[10]
The Sun was the first newspaper to report crimes and personal events such as suicides, deaths, and divorces. The paper had a focus on police reports andhuman-interest stories for the masses, which consisted of short descriptions of arrests, thefts, and violence.[12][4] With their competitor theNew York Herald, founded byJames Gordon Bennett, they covered murder cases such asHelen Jewett's murder, the murder ofJohn C. Colt,Samuel Colt's brother, andMary Rogers's case nearSybil's Cave.[13][14]The Sun andThe Herald took sides in these cases, championing working class people over the traditional landed and mercantile elites which, during this era, held disproportionate power over the nation's politics and economy.[14]
Benjamin Day's brother-in-law,Moses Yale Beach, joined the venture in 1834, became co-owner in 1835, and a few years later, became sole proprietor, bringing a number of innovations to the industry.[15] It became the largest among theGotham papers for 20 years, sometimes eclipsed by theNew-York Tribune or theNew York Herald.[16][17]
The newspaper printed the first newspaper account of a suicide. This story was significant because it was the first about the death of an ordinary person. It changed journalism forever, making the newspaper an integral part of the community and the lives of the readers.[citation needed]
Day was the first to hire reporters to go out and collect stories. Prior to this, newspapers dealt almost exclusively in articles about politics or reviews of books or the theater and relied, in the days before the organization of syndicates such as theAssociated Press (AP) andUnited Press International (UPI), on items sent in by readers and unauthorized copies of stories from other newspapers.The Sun's focus on crime was the beginning of "the craft of reporting and storytelling".[18][19]
Crime news provided New Yorkers with information about how the city worked, dwelling on violations of justice, abuse of state power and corrupt schemes.[20]
The Sun was also the first newspaper to show that a newspaper could be substantially supported by advertisements rather than subscription fees, and could be sold on the street instead of delivered to each subscriber. Prior toThe Sun, printers produced newspapers, often at a loss, making their living selling printing services.[21] Day andThe Sun recognized that the masses were fast becoming literate, and demonstrated that a profit could be made selling to them.
The offices ofThe Sun were initially located onPrinting House Square, now calledPark Row, Manhattan, and was next toNew York City Hall andNew York City Police Department. It had apigeon house built on the roof of its New York office atNassau Street, receiving news fromNew York Harbor.[22] They also later used horses,steamships, trains, and thetelegraph, thePony Express andRoyal Mail Ships.
Moses Yale Beach's sons,Alfred Ely Beach andMoses S. Beach, took over the paper following his retirement. He celebrated the event at his house onChambers Street, along with the other editors ofGotham, with guests including CongressmenHorace Greeley andJames Brooks, and Abraham Lincoln's ChairmanHenry Jarvis Raymond.[23][24]
In 1868,Moses S. Beach sold the newspaper toCharles A. Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War ofAbraham Lincoln, and stayed a stockholder.[25][26][27] In 1872The Sun exposed theCrédit Mobilier Scandal, implicating a number of corrupt Congressmen and Vice PresidentSchuyler Colfax in a corrupt scheme involving the construction of theUnion Pacific Railroad, and in 1881 exposed theStar Route Scandal, implicating a number of high-profile politicians and businessmen in a scheme relating to theUS Postal Service, resulting in number of trials and increasing public support forcivil service reform.[28][29]
An evening edition, known asThe Evening Sun, was introduced in 1887. The newspaper magnateFrank Munsey bought both editions of the paper in 1916 and mergedThe Evening Sun with hisNew York Press. The morning edition ofThe Sun was merged for a time with Munsey'sNew York Herald asThe Sun and New York Herald, but in 1920, Munsey separated them again, killedThe Evening Sun, and switchedThe Sun to an evening publishing format.[7]
From 1914 to 1919,The Sun moved its offices to150 Nassau Street, one of the first skyscrapers made of steel, and one of the tallest in the city at the time. The tower was close to theNew York Times Building,Woolworth Tower, andNew York City Hall. In 1919,The Sun moved its offices to theA.T. Stewart Company Building, site of America's first department store, at280 Broadway between Reade and Chambers Streets.[30] 280 Broadway was renamed "The Sun Building" in 1928.[30][31] A clock featuringThe Sun's name and slogan was built at the corner with Broadway and Chambers Street.[32]
Munsey died in 1925 with a fortune of about 20 million dollars, and was ranked as one of the most powerful media moguls of his time, along withWilliam Randolph Hearst.[33] He left the bulk of his estate, includingThe Sun, to theMetropolitan Museum of Art. The next yearThe Sun was sold to William Dewart, a longtime associate of Munsey's. Dewart's son Thomas later ran the paper.[34]
In the 1940s, the newspaper was considered among the most conservative in New York City and was strongly opposed to theNew Deal and labor unions.The Sun won a Pulitzer Prize in 1949 for an exposé of labor racketeering; it also published the early work of sportswriterW.C. Heinz.
It continued until January 4, 1950, when it merged with theNew York World-Telegram to form a new paper called theNew York World-Telegram and Sun. That paper continued for 16 years; in 1966, it joined with theNew York Herald Tribune to briefly become part of theWorld Journal Tribune, preserving the names of three of the most historic city newspapers, which folded amid disputes with the unions representing its staff the following year.
The Sun first gained notice for its central role in theGreat Moon Hoax of 1835, a fabricated story of life and civilization on the Moon which the paper falsely attributed to British astronomerJohn Herschel and never retracted.[35] The hoax featured man-bat creatures named the "Vespertilio-homo" that inhabited the moon and built temples. AYale University delegation was sent to look after the article, and the whole story created much sensation at the time.[19]
On April 13, 1844,The Sun published a story byEdgar Allan Poe now known as "The Balloon-Hoax", retracted two days after publication. The story told of an imagined Atlantic crossing by hot-air balloon.[36]
Today the paper is best known for the 1897 editorial "Is There a Santa Claus?" (commonly referred to as "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus"), written byFrancis Pharcellus Church.[37]
John B. Bogart, city editor ofThe Sun between 1873 and 1890, made what is perhaps the most frequently quoted definition of thejournalistic endeavor: "When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news."[38] (The quotation is frequently attributed toCharles Dana,The Sun editor and part-owner between 1868 and his death in 1897.)
From 1912,Don Marquis wrote a regular column, 'The Sundial', for the Evening Sun. In 1916, he used this to introduce his charactersArchy and Mehitabel.[39]
In 1926,The Sun published a review byJohn Grierson ofRobert Flaherty's filmMoana, in which Grierson said the film had "documentary value". This is considered the origin of the term "documentary film".[40]
The newspaper's editorial cartoonist,Rube Goldberg, received the 1948Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for his cartoon,Peace Today. In 1949,The Sun won thePulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for a groundbreaking series of articles byMalcolm Johnson, "Crime on the Waterfront". The series served as the basis for the 1954 movieOn the Waterfront.
The Sun's first female reporter wasEmily Verdery Bettey, hired in 1868.Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd was hired as a reporter and fashion editor in the 1880s. Brainerd was one of the first women to become a professional editor, and perhaps the first full-time fashion editor in American newspaper history.
In 1881, the heroic legend of sheriff Bartholomew Masterson, known as "Bat Masterson", started from the coverage of aSun reporter whom he had duped.[41] He was a companion ofBuffalo Bill, and fought at the Battle ofDodge City War, and was later the subject of a book titledGunfighter in Gotham and the American TV seriesBat Masterson.[41]
The filmDeadline – U.S.A. (1952) is a story about the death of a New York newspaper calledThe Day, loosely based upon theSun, which closed in 1950. The originalSun newspaper was edited by Benjamin Day, making the film's newspaper name a play on words (not to be confused with the real-lifeNew London, Connecticut newspaper of the same name).
Themasthead of the originalSun is visible in a montage of newspaper clippings in a scene of the 1972 filmThe Godfather. The newspaper's offices were a converted department store at 280 Broadway, between Chambers and Reade streets in lower Manhattan, now known as "The Sun Building" and famous for the clocks that bear the newspaper's masthead and motto. They were recognized as a New York City landmark in 1986. The building now houses theNew York City Department of Buildings.
In the 1994 movieThe Paper, a fictional tabloid newspaper based in New York City bore the same name and motto ofThe Sun, with a slightly different masthead.
In 2002, a new broadsheet was launched, styledThe New York Sun, and bearing the old newspaper's masthead and motto. It was intended as a "conservative alternative" and local news-focused alternative to the more liberalThe New York Times and other New York newspapers. It was published by Ronald Weintraub and edited by Seth Lipsky, and ceased publication on September 30, 2008. In 2022, it was revived as an online newspaper, under the ownership of Dovid Efune, while Lipsky remained editor.[43]
The history of theNew York Sun is extensively covered in thePulitzer Prize-winning bookGotham: A History of New York City to 1898.[44] Past reporters of the paper have includedNYC Police Commissioner, Col.Arthur H. Woods, andNYC Fire CommissionerRobert Adamson.[45]