1913 - Communications, Media

Communications, Media

U.S. Parcel Post service begins January 1 (see Britain, 1880). The U.S. Postal Service has inaugurated the service after more than two decades of agitation by Populist politicians and farmers who hope to ship produce to market via Parcel Post. American Express, Adams Express, United States Express, and Wells Fargo have opposed the service. But by year's end packages are being mailed at the rate of 300 million per year; mail-order firms such as Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck receive up to five times as many orders as last year; and sales of rural merchants are depressed.

Texas-born Postmaster General Albert (Sidney) Burleson, 49, proposes nationalization of telephone and telegraph communications, noting that the Constitution provided for federal control of the postal system and would have provided for federal control of other means of communication had they existed (see Britain, 1912). AT&T president Theodore N. Vail tells stockholders, "We are opposed to government ownership because we know that no government-owned system in the world is giving as cheap and efficient service as the American public is getting from all its telephone companies," but while U.S. long-distance rates are indeed lower than in Europe, local calls generally cost more. AT&T president Vail has his vice president Nathan C. Kingsbury meet with Attorney General George Wickersham; the company divests itself of its Western Union holdings to avoid antitrust action, losing $7.5 million by the divestiture; it halts plans to take over some midwestern telephone companies but retains its valuable Western Electric acquisition (see 1910; nationalization, 1918; dial telephone, 1919).

Engineer Peter Laurits Jensen patents an application of a moving coil to the reproduction of high-fidelity sound (see 1906). Backed by California industrialist Richard O'Connor, Jensen and electrical engineer Edwin Pridham have established a research firm under the name Commercial Wireless and Development Co., work out of a bungalow on the outskirts of Napa, and pursue efforts to create a dynamic loudspeaker (see 1915).

New York public relations pioneer Ivy (Ledbetter) Lee, 36, persuades John D. Rockefeller Jr. to travel to Colorado and speak personally to the miners, an act that improves relations between the Rockefeller family and the outraged strikers. A Georgia-born advocate of frank and open dealing with the public, Lee will help make the Rockefellers famous for their philanthropies—partly by having John D. Sr. hand out dimes to schoolchildren.

Illinois-born editor-author Floyd (James) Dell, 26, quits the Chicago Evening Post in September, moves to New York in November, settles in Greenwich Village, and joins the Masses as managing editor, adopting a Bohemian life. The Associated Press brings charges of criminal libel against the Masses, whose editor Max Eastman and cartoonist Art Young are indicted in November (see 1911). Young's cartoon "Poisoned at the Source" has shown a man personifying the AP pouring the contents of bottles labeled "Lies," "Suppressed Facts," "Prejudice," "Slander," and "Hatred of Labor Organizations" into a reservoir labeled "The News." The AP will drop its suit late next year (but see 1917).

The Dixon Ticonderoga pencil introduced by the 86-year-old Joseph Dixon Co. employs graphite from the company's mine near the historic fort in upstate New York. Its No. 2 model has enough "lead" to draw a continuous line 35 miles long, its hexagonal outer case is made of incensed cedar from California and Oregon (the hexagonal shape permits the company to get more pencils from the same piece of wood and prevents the pencils from rolling off desks), four coats of yellow paint have been applied to the case, and green-striped metal ferrules on each pencil hold a rubber eraser.

W. A. Schaeffer Pen Co. is founded at Fort Madison, Iowa, by jeweler Walter A. Schaeffer, 46, whose fountain pens will compete with those made by Waterman and Parker.

"Bringing Up Father" by St. Louis-born New York American cartoonist George McManus, 29, introduces readers to comic-strip characters Maggie and Jiggs. Publisher William Randolph Hearst last year lured McManus away from the New York World, where he had been producing "The Newlyweds and Their Baby."

William Randolph Hearst acquires Harper's Bazar (he will change its name to Harper's Bazaar in 1929). The magazine for women has been published since 1867 by Harper Bros.

Condé Nast launches Dress & Vanity Fair, a new fashion magazine whose name is shortened after four issues simply to Vanity Fair; edited by Frank Crowninshield, it will be merged with Vogue in 1936 and not re-emerge under its own name until the 1980s.

The first modern crossword puzzle appears December 21 in Fun, the weekend supplement of the New York World. Having seen similar puzzles in 19th-century English periodicals for children and in the London Graphic, English-born journalist Arthur Wynne has arranged squares in a diamond pattern with 31 clues, for the most part simple word definitions: "What bargain hunters enjoy," five letters; "A boy," three letters; "An animal of prey," four letters (sales, lad, lion). The puzzle is just one of several mental exercises published in the World, but within 10 years most U.S. newspapers will be carrying crossword puzzles (see London's Sunday Express, 1924).