PROGRESSIVE ERA
The Progressive Era was the period roughly between 1880
and 1919, during which the United States experienced
unprecedented growth and development, which often led
to social, political, and economic turmoil. Despite such
turmoil, a positive and optimistic spirit infused segments
of the American intellectual, political, and social reform
communities and spread throughout the general culture and
society, including the press. General circulation newspapers
and magazines alternately praised the growth of science
and industry and conducted exposés and investigations of
political and corporate corruption. Reform publications—
advocating woman suffrage, civil rights, prohibition, labor
reform, and political reform—took up where they left off,
calling for sweeping social changes they believed would
make America a truly democratic and equitable society.
During this period, the press generally expressed an optimistic view of the future, professing its faith in the progress
of America, science, civilization, and mankind.
Growth of the Newspaper Industry
The Progressive period was an era in which the United
States experienced rapid growth and development—in its
population, its cities and towns, settlement of the West, commerce and industry, transportation, and technology. This
growth was reflected in the American newspaper industry,
which expanded exponentially between 1880 and 1917. In
that period, the number of English-language daily newspapers grew steadily from 850 in 1880 to 1,967 in 1900 to
2,200 in 1910. (An additional four hundred dailies of other
types, including foreign-language and socialist newspapers
were also published in that year.) National circulation also
increased, aided by faster printing presses, growing advertising revenue, and better transportation. Daily circulation
totals grew from 3.1 million in 1880 to 15.1 million in 1900
and 22.4 million in 1910. In addition to daily newspapers,
there was a thriving business in weeklies, bi-weeklies and
semi-weekly newspapers. The number of weeklies published increased from 12,000 in 1900 to about 14,000 in
1910. While the majority of these were published in English, there was also a boom in foreign-language publications, which reached their peak in 1917. Nearly half of the
1,325 foreign-language papers in that year were published in
German; the rest were published in Polish, Russian, Italian, and Yiddish. These newspapers played an important role in
allowing a voice to recent immigrants, many of whom did
not read or speak English.
The Progressive Era saw the emergence of giant metropolitan dailies, city newspapers such as the New York
World and the New York Journal, which during the SpanishAmerican War of 1898 occasionally reached daily circulations of more than one million. In an effort to appeal to all
segments of the population, these newspapers continued an
earlier trend of differentiating between news “types.” They
appealed to a range of readers by developing specialty pages
and sections devoted to sports, finance, women, entertainment, and society. In an effort to capitalize on the increased
leisure time available to the growing middle class and even
the working class, many daily newspapers began to publish
a Sunday edition. In 1890, about 250 dailies had Sunday editions and this number doubled by the turn of the century.
These years also saw the explosion of special-interest
newspapers, from those addressing foreign-language or ethnic audiences to those expressing specific political or social
views. These publications represented groups as widely different as the woman suffrage and the anti-suffrage movements, the prohibition movement, the Socialist and Populist
parties, African Americans, German-Americans, and the
Methodist, Congregational and Roman Catholic churches.
Some of these, like the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s Woman’s Journal and the Anti-Saloon
League’s American Issue, were established for the specific
purpose of promoting the group’s reform and ceased publication once that reform was accomplished. Others, like the
NAACP’s Crisis and the Catholic Church’s Boston Pilot,
continued publication into the twenty-first century.
The growth of newspapers was greatly fueled by a
simultaneous growth in the advertising industry. By 1890,
advertising was the chief means of promotion of national
brand-name products. Department stores bought entire
newspaper pages to promote storewide sales or specific
items. Advertising agencies, first established in the late
1860s, now began to do more than buy and re-sell bulk
newspaper space. They began to design and write ads for
customers, as well. During the 1880s, advertising slowly
began to replace sales and subscriptions as the chief source
of newspaper revenue so that by 1914, 66 percent of newspapers’ revenue came from advertising. Some newspaper
critics began to fear the influence of advertising on journalism and in 1911, journalist Will Irwin conducted an investigation of major newspapers across the country to discover
how often they curbed their reporting to mollify advertisers
and political allies. One proposed solution, which had little
success, was to create an “adless” newspaper supported by
subscribers. Another was to create a non-partisan, adless
newspaper funded by city government. Others designed
codes of ethics they hoped would erect a wall between the
advertising and news function of newspapers.
Developments in Technology
Developments in technology also aided the growth of
the newspaper industry. Advances in printing technology
brought the invention and adoption of steam-powered rotary
presses that in 1890 could print seventy-two thousand eightpage papers–the average size of many dailies at that time—
in an hour. Another innovation in printing was the invention
of color presses, which allowed newspapers to print color
supplements and color comics, a strategy initially used to
attract poor and immigrant readers, particularly by what
were labeled as “sensational” papers. The New York World
was one of the first newspapers to do this in 1893 in its use
of yellow on the dress of the main character (“The Yellow
Kid”) in the popular comic strip “Hogan’s Alley.” Other
technological developments introduced during the 1890s
included the use of half-tone photographs, which allowed
for realistic and sometimes lurid depictions of events, and
the linotype, which allowed an operator to rapidly set lines
of type at a keyboard similar to that of a typewriter. One
linotype operator could do the work of five men and this
sped up the process of setting pages significantly.
Major advances in communication technology revolutionized the way reporters collected information and wrote
stories. AT&T began to build telephone lines from New
York to other cities and states in 1885. As telephone service
became available, newspapers were quick to adapt the way
they collected news and by 1898 a leading trade publication,
The Fourth Estate, declared the telephone to be “absolutely
essential to the newspaper.” Reporters covering breaking
news on deadline (“legmen”) could now phone their stories into the newsroom where an editor would transcribe
their story and prepare it for printing. The wireless was
another technology that allowed for instant communication
across vast spaces. In 1903, a regular news service opened
between New York and London, and in 1909, newspapers
started using the wireless on a regular basis.
For those who still relied on footwork, however, advances
in transportation also made their jobs easier and more efficient. Elevated railways and underground streetcar services
in cities like New York and Boston eased street congestion
and made it easier and quicker for reporters to get from one
part of the city to another. Automobiles were another invention that eventually made getting from one place to another
easier and faster, especially for reporters working in rural
areas or traveling from town to town. Motorcars were first
introduced in the 1890s and, by 1908, Henry Ford had produced his “Model T,” billed as “a motorcar for the multitudes.” The development of gasoline-powered trucks also
affected the delivery of newspapers so that they could be
distributed throughout cities and rural areas to more readers more quickly.
These technological developments also played a role
in newspapers in that inventions and technological breakthroughs were often treated as stories and were frequently
referred to with awe as miracles, magical, and awe-inspiring. Science and technology were often news makers and
became the frequent subject of editorial comment. Automobiles (and later airplanes), which became ubiquitous by
the mid-1920s, were initially seen as an oddity, then a fad,
then a noisy, smoke-belching danger to all who used the road. Steamships, which by 1892 could carry more than
two thousand passengers and cross the Atlantic in five
and one-half days, seemed to pose at least two dangers.
First, because the larger passenger liners made cheaper
fares possible for steerage passengers, more and poorer
immigrants could now flood the country. Second, because
captains often raced to set a record for their steamship
line, ships on the North Atlantic route faced an increased
danger of running into icebergs. The sinking of the
“unsinkable” Titanic in 1912 provided newspapers with a
sensational chance to ponder the dangers of over-reliance
on technology while at the same time praising the miracle
of the wireless that allowed the sinking ship to call for
help and transmit information about the disaster to newspapers on the mainland.
Newspaper Consolidation and Competition
Another development of the period, the consolidation of
business interests in chains and monopolies, also affected
the newspaper industry. Successful publishers began to
acquire multiple newspapers, expanding their influence
and power from the regional to the national level. One of
the earliest of these, E.W. Scripps, established a chain of
afternoon dailies in middle-sized cities through the Midwest. This became the Scripps-McRae League of Newspapers in 1889 and included eighteen papers in states from
Ohio to Colorado by 1893. One of the most notorious of
chain owners was Californian William Randolph Hearst,
who started out in 1887 as the editor of his father’s San
Francisco Examiner. In 1895, Hearst purchased the New
York Journal and by 1920 owned eleven newspapers, at
least one magazine, and a press association, the International News Service. While chains made owners wealthy
and even encouraged the establishment of new newspapers
in some regions, more often they acted to put less powerful
newspaper owners or newspapers out of business. One such
publisher, Frank Munsey, was infamous for buying newspapers in cities where he already owned one and then either
combining them or shutting down his latest acquisition.
Despite consolidation, most cities had several daily newspapers. Chicago and Boston, for example, each had eight
dailies in 1900, while New York had nine. Competition for
the news, readers, and advertising was fierce and often led to
circulation wars. One method of gaining more readers and
increasing circulation was to lower prices from the average
two or three cents of the period to just a penny. This might
lure readers away from a competitor in the short run, but the
competitor often responded by lowering its cost as well, and
prices usually returned to normal within the year.
Newspapers in competition with each other also promoted stunts to attract readers. In these cases, reporters
and editors came up with a gimmick that would peak readers’ interest. Though it might not be newsworthy in itself,
a stunt might become newsworthy simply because of the
attention and publicity it attracted. In the winter of 1889–
1890, the World created such a media event when it sent its
reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) on a fabled trip
around the world in 72 days. In addition to publishing regular logs of her adventures, the World published Nellie Bly
songs and illustrated board games, sponsored lotteries (to
be won by whoever guessed the exact time of her arrival
at a specific location), and organized welcome committees
when she arrived in major cities along the route. Women
reporters often featured in such stunts, playing on societal
expectations that women were incapable of physical danger
or exertion.
Newspapers also launched crusades or investigations to
attract readers. Though publishers’ true motivation might
be to increase readership and promote themselves as champions of the people, these crusades often had the added benefit of actually bringing about positive change. In 1897, for
example, Hearst’s New York Evening Journal launched a
crusade in support of striking miners in Pennsylvania. The
Journal published more than forty articles, editorials, and
cartoons in support of the strike and calling for the punishment of local police who fired on miners, killing twenty.
Although the police were acquitted, Hearst did arouse sympathy for the plight of the miners, which might have contributed to later improvements in their working conditions. In
another crusade, the New York World in 1905 launched an
investigation of fraud in the powerful Equitable Life Assurance Society that led to strict regulatory legislation of the
insurance industry. Other crusades focused on political corruption. In San Francisco, Fremont Older’s San Francisco
Chronicle campaigned for civic reform, specifically targeting city machine politics and the corrupt party bosses.
Many crusades, however, were based on flimsy evidence
and promoted through lurid headlines, overimaginative
illustrations, and sensational claims. Competition among
newspapers sometimes led to poorly considered campaigns
that backfired for specific publishers or the newspaper
industry in general. In 1898, for example, Pulitzer’s New
York World and Hearst’s New York Journal exploited the
situation in Cuba and the explosion of the U.S. battleship,
the Maine, to promote war with Spain. After the SpanishAmerican War was over and the bodies were counted, critics blamed the newspapers for jingoism and war mongering.
In another instance, Hearst’s Journal ran a bitter campaign
against President William McKinley’s successful bid for reelection in 1900. When McKinley was assassinated in 1901
by an anarchist reportedly carrying a copy of the Journal in
his pocket, many held Hearst responsible.
Press Criticism and Improvement
Examples like these led critics to attack any newspapers
that used these promotional tactics—reduced prices, stunts,
crusades, imaginative headlines, illustrations, cartoons,
and color—as sensational or yellow journals. The newspaper industry responded to curb such criticism. Bowing
to critics and public pressure, newspapers began to publish
corrections of inaccurate information and address readers’ complaints on their editorial pages. Press associations,
established during the second half of the 1800s mostly by
men working in the news industry, sought ways to improve the industry and developed codes of ethics that, unfortunately, were unenforceable. In his last years, Joseph Pulitzer, who had never received a college education himself,
began to promote the idea of college training for journalists and at his death in 1911, left an endowment to establish
the Columbia University School of Journalism. His endowment also established the Pulitzer Prize, which eventually
rewarded journalists for good writing, accurate reporting,
courage, and integrity.
Contributions of the Progressive Era Press
Newspapers reached their heyday during the Progressive
Era, reaching peak circulations and enjoying a level of
competition not seen since in the newspaper industry. They
investigated, reported, and interpreted events as well as
the important issues of the period. They played an important role in how Americans viewed the world. Immigrants
turned to newspapers as a way of learning about this new
land. The middle-class looked to newspapers for a reinforcement of lifestyles and values they cherished and clung
to in a changing world. Business leaders used newspapers
to promote their speculations and business interests and
to carry advertisements for their products and promote a
spirit of consumerism across the land. Political leaders carried out their campaigns in newspapers and sought their
endorsement.
These groups and individuals also found themselves the
subject of newspaper stories, sometimes to their detriment.
Stories about the “immigration flood” that related immigration to increases in crime provided fuel for the nativist
movement that sought to regulate or restrict immigration.
Middle-class conservatives felt threatened by stories reporting advances made by the woman’s movement and hardened
their resistance to such change. Members of the industrial and
commercial elite often found themselves at the wrong end of
the pen in stories investigating the exploitation of workers,
fraud, and corporate corruption. Likewise, public officials
found themselves under increased scrutiny in the press.
Newspapers and magazines of the era also served as critics of the status quo and promoted many of the important
political and economic reforms of the period. Paradoxically, many mainstream newspapers tended to be conservative in the face of social reform and lagged far behind
the more radical reform papers such as those of the woman
suffrage and labor movements. Regardless of their position
on specific issues, however, newspapers of the Progressive
Era were active in the national discussion of controversial
issues. They brought these issues to the public’s attention,
promoted debate by publishing the positions of opposing
sides, acted both as a moderator and participant in many of
these debates, and generally served as a facilitator of public
discussion.
Further Reading
Boyer, Paul et al., eds. The Enduring Vision. Lexington, MA:
D.C. Heath, 1990.
Burt, Elizabeth V. The Progressive Era: Primary Documents on
Events from 1890 to 1914. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
2004.
Campbell, W. Joseph. Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths,
Defi ning the Legacies. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers,
2001.
Douglas, George H. The Golden Age of the Newspaper. Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press, 1999.
Gould, Lewis L.. America in the Progressive Era, 1890–1914.
Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2001.
Irwin, Will. The American Newspaper: A Series Appearing in
Collier’s Magazine, January-July1911, edited by Clifford F.
Weigle. and David C. Clark. Ames: Iowa State University,
1969.
Kessler, Lauren. The Dissident Press: Alternative Journalism in
American History. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications,
1984.
Marzolf, Marion Tuttle. Civilizing Voices: American Press Criticism, 1880–1950. New York: Hastings House, 1991.
Mott, Frank Luther. American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States Through 260 Years: 1690 to 1950,
rev. ed. New York: MacMillan, 1950.
Sloan, Wm. David, ed. The Media in America: A History, 5th ed..
Northport, AL: Vision Press, 2002.
Smythe, Ted Curtis. The Gilded Age Press, 1865–1900. Westport, CT: Praeger Press, 2003.
——. “The Reporter, 1880–1900: Working Conditions and Their
Influence on News.” Journalism History 7 (1980): 1–10.
Elizabeth V. Burt