Read Online The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York by Matthew Goodman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Matthew Goodman
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my days will not be long on earth, and I hope this will shorten them.”
It was unusual enough that George Wisner recognized a slave’s capacity for full human emotion—but actually to print the slave’s words as he bewailed the injustice of his lot was, for a New York newspaperman, extraordinary. Wisner, though, did not end there. Having recounted the story of the sundered couple, he went on to challenge his readers directly: Suppose, reader, the scales were turned. Suppose a negro should seize a white woman, force her away from her husband, carry her to a city of – 40 – 0465002573-Goodman.qxd 8/25/08 9:57 AM Page 41
The News of the City
blacks, and sell her to some purse-proud, sooty African, as a slave—
perhaps a paramour—what would be your feeling, at thus beholding the tenderest and holiest ties of human nature trampled upon?
It was a highly daring stance for a newspaper to take in New York, perhaps the most pro-Southern of Northern cities, with an economy highly dependent on the cotton trade. Nor would the story endear the Sun to its readers, many of whom were Irish immigrants engaged in a fierce economic struggle with American-born blacks. But that didn’t seem to matter; week after week the Sun’ s readership continued to grow. By November 1833, an editorial proudly reported a daily circulation of more than two thousand. “Its success,” the Sun pronounced of itself, “is now beyond question.”
No longer did Benjamin Day have to copy advertisements or clip news stories from rival papers. Advertising was now coming in steadily, the police reports were a sensation, and Wisner had branched out into book reviews and other features. The paper had also begun running a serial on its front page, The Life of Davy Crockett; Day was sure that the frontiers-man’s already legendary exploits in hunting bears and wrestling wildcats would appeal to his readers. The Sun had even begun occasionally to print illustrations alongside its articles. The very first one, a large woodcut stretching across two columns, was captioned “Herschel’s Forty-Feet Telescope.” It depicted the large reflecting telescope that had belonged to the late British astronomer Sir William Herschel, the discoverer of Uranus and the father of Sir John Herschel, who that very year had set sail with his own telescopes for the Cape of Good Hope—where, the Sun would later report, he made the most remarkable lunar discoveries.
In December 1833, with circulation approaching four thousand, nearly as great as that of the mighty Courier and Enquirer, Benjamin Day bought a new double-cylinder printing press; it was able to produce about one thousand impressions an hour, five times the capacity of his earlier one.
With the new press turning out so many papers each day, Day realized that he needed help with production, and he hired the journeyman printers Willoughby Lynde and William J. Stanley to work for the Sun as compositors and pressmen.
Lynde and Stanley were old friends of Day’s from his time at the Daily Sentinel. They had likely agreed to take the jobs because they felt more
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comfortable working for a friend than for any of the aristocratic six-penny editors, but in fact the opposite turned out to be the case: they were still trying to survive on a printer’s salary of nine dollars a week, while their old friend Ben Day was earning profits that, in the early days of 1834, seemed potentially limitless. (By January, Wisner’s share of the Sun’ s profits had already purchased him a half ownership of the paper.) Before, Day had stood beside them in the composing room, just another itinerant printer with, as the saying went, itching feet and a parched throat, but now he was an editor himself, giving them orders in his gruff, no-nonsense manner, his attention largely taken up by the advertisers and subscribers who brought in the money. Lynde and Stanley
It was unusual enough that George Wisner recognized a slave’s capacity for full human emotion—but actually to print the slave’s words as he bewailed the injustice of his lot was, for a New York newspaperman, extraordinary. Wisner, though, did not end there. Having recounted the story of the sundered couple, he went on to challenge his readers directly: Suppose, reader, the scales were turned. Suppose a negro should seize a white woman, force her away from her husband, carry her to a city of – 40 – 0465002573-Goodman.qxd 8/25/08 9:57 AM Page 41
The News of the City
blacks, and sell her to some purse-proud, sooty African, as a slave—
perhaps a paramour—what would be your feeling, at thus beholding the tenderest and holiest ties of human nature trampled upon?
It was a highly daring stance for a newspaper to take in New York, perhaps the most pro-Southern of Northern cities, with an economy highly dependent on the cotton trade. Nor would the story endear the Sun to its readers, many of whom were Irish immigrants engaged in a fierce economic struggle with American-born blacks. But that didn’t seem to matter; week after week the Sun’ s readership continued to grow. By November 1833, an editorial proudly reported a daily circulation of more than two thousand. “Its success,” the Sun pronounced of itself, “is now beyond question.”
No longer did Benjamin Day have to copy advertisements or clip news stories from rival papers. Advertising was now coming in steadily, the police reports were a sensation, and Wisner had branched out into book reviews and other features. The paper had also begun running a serial on its front page, The Life of Davy Crockett; Day was sure that the frontiers-man’s already legendary exploits in hunting bears and wrestling wildcats would appeal to his readers. The Sun had even begun occasionally to print illustrations alongside its articles. The very first one, a large woodcut stretching across two columns, was captioned “Herschel’s Forty-Feet Telescope.” It depicted the large reflecting telescope that had belonged to the late British astronomer Sir William Herschel, the discoverer of Uranus and the father of Sir John Herschel, who that very year had set sail with his own telescopes for the Cape of Good Hope—where, the Sun would later report, he made the most remarkable lunar discoveries.
In December 1833, with circulation approaching four thousand, nearly as great as that of the mighty Courier and Enquirer, Benjamin Day bought a new double-cylinder printing press; it was able to produce about one thousand impressions an hour, five times the capacity of his earlier one.
With the new press turning out so many papers each day, Day realized that he needed help with production, and he hired the journeyman printers Willoughby Lynde and William J. Stanley to work for the Sun as compositors and pressmen.
Lynde and Stanley were old friends of Day’s from his time at the Daily Sentinel. They had likely agreed to take the jobs because they felt more
– 41 –
0465002573-Goodman.qxd 8/25/08 9:57 AM Page 42
the sun and the moon
comfortable working for a friend than for any of the aristocratic six-penny editors, but in fact the opposite turned out to be the case: they were still trying to survive on a printer’s salary of nine dollars a week, while their old friend Ben Day was earning profits that, in the early days of 1834, seemed potentially limitless. (By January, Wisner’s share of the Sun’ s profits had already purchased him a half ownership of the paper.) Before, Day had stood beside them in the composing room, just another itinerant printer with, as the saying went, itching feet and a parched throat, but now he was an editor himself, giving them orders in his gruff, no-nonsense manner, his attention largely taken up by the advertisers and subscribers who brought in the money. Lynde and Stanley
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