1893 - Communications, Media

Communications, Media

The Financial Times that began publication 5 years ago appears beginning January 3 in a distinctive salmon pink paper that distinguishes it from its 9-year-old rival Financial News.

The Sketch begins publication at London February 1 and will continue daily until mid-June 1959.

A letter sent from England February 2 circles the globe and returns April 15.

U.S. Rural Free Delivery begins with five test postal routes in hilly West Virginia.

Rural U.S. telephone companies begin to proliferate as the Bell patents of 1876 expire.

Dun's Review begins publication at New York August 5 under the direction of Mercantile Agency founder R. G. Dun, who turns 67 August 7. His weekly report of business conditions will continue into the 21st century.

McClure's magazine begins publication at New York under the direction of Irish-born publisher S. S. (Samuel Sidney) McClure, 36, who created the first U.S. newspaper syndicate in 1884. His partner is Iowa-born editor John Sanborn Phillips, 32, and their 15¢ monthly will be one of the first mass-circulation magazines (most magazines sell for 25¢ or 35¢). Higher circulation will lead to higher advertising revenue, enabling publishers to sell magazines for less than their production costs.

The American Newspaper Publishers Association (ANPA) founded in 1886 adopts a resolution agreeing to pay commission in the form of discounts to recognized independent advertising agencies and to give no discounts on space sold directly to advertisers. The resolution establishes the modern advertising agency system (see Batten, 1891; Curtis, 1901).

Former Chicago Daily News editor Melville E. Stone takes over as general manager of the Associated Press that was started at New York in 1848. Now 45, Stone was named president of Chicago's Globe National Bank last year and will remain in that position until it merges with Continental Bank in 1898 while running the AP, whose affairs he will continue to manage until his retirement in 1921.

Joseph Pulitzer installs a four-color rotary press in hopes of reproducing great works of art in the Sunday supplement of his New York World (see 1883). Designed by New York's Hoe Company of 1875 folding apparatus fame, the new press will be used to produce the first colored cartoon (see 1894).

The Mongol pencil introduced by the Eberhard Faber Company contains high-quality Siberian graphite and is painted yellow, a color introduced by an Austro-Hungarian company at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago (see 1861). A fire destroyed Faber's East River Manhattan factory in 1872; Faber acquired three brick buildings in Brooklyn, and his son took over upon Faber's death in 1879.