Nineteenth Century Newspaper Publishing
From Woman Lawyer: The Trials of Clara Foltz -- Online Notes For The Book
Revision as of 22:11, 4 June 2010
The two basic works I relied most on are: FRANK LUTHER MOTT, AMERICAN JOURNALISM: A HISTORY OF NEWSPAPERS IN THE UNITED STATES THROUGH 260 YEARS, 1690 TO 1950 495-511 (1950); ROBERT F. KAROLEVITZ, NEWSPAPERING IN THE OLD WEST, (1965), (San Diego Bee building pictured at 56). A good account of the economics of publishing a paper is found in BARBARA CLOUD, THE BUSINESS OF NEWSPAPERS ON THE WESTERN FRONTIER (1992) and JOHN TEBBEL, THE COMPACT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER (1963). Popular treatment of the wide-open journalism of the west is in JOHN BRUCE, GAUDY CENTURY 1848-1948: SAN FRANCISCO’S ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF ROBUST JOURNALISM (1948); FRANKLIN WALKER, SAN FRANCISCO’S LITERARY FRONTIER (1939) (dealing mainly with magazines, but offers a good picture of the newspaper scene as well in 1860’s-1880’s). EDWIN EMERY & MICHAEL EMERY, THE PRESS AND AMERICA: AN INTERPRETIVE HISTORY OF THE MASS MEDIA 291 (4th ed., 1954).
Biographies and autobiographies: EVELYN WELLS, FREMONT OLDER (1936); FREMONT OLDER, MY OWN STORY (1919); WELLS DRURY, AN EDITOR ON THE COMSTOCK LODE (1936) (published posthumously) (Drury knew Clara Foltz from Oregon days and recommended her for a Notaryship in 1891 as detailed in Chapter Three of WOMAN LAWYER). FRANK ALEAMON LEACH RECOLLECTIONS OF A NEWSPAPERMAN A RECORD OF LIFE AND EVENTS IN CALIFORNIA (1917). He published the Vallejo Evening Chronicle, 1867-1886; and the Oakland Enquirer, 1886-1898. He retired from journalism to become superintendent of the San Francisco Mint, 1897-1907 and performed heroic service saving the building in the 1906 earthquake and fire. Leach paints an excellent picture of California politics in this period. JAMES J. AYERS, GOLD AND SUNSHINE (1922) (published posthumously) is interesting not only on the newspaper business in California (he published the L.A.Express in Los Angeles) but also on the events of 1878-79. In the preface, he wrote that “Each life helps to make up the sum of all history, and there is none so obscure or isolated but that it would, if properly written, throw a ray of light upon some latent event of interest to historians, at iv. See chapter one, and Babcock, Constitution-Maker for more on Ayers and his role in the passage of the employment clause at nn 19, 23-24, 98-99, 158-165.
On women in Western journalism and publishing SHERILYN COX BENNION, EQUAL TO THE OCCASION: WOMEN EDITORS OF THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY WEST (1990). In Women Editors of California 1854-1900, 28 Pac.Hist. 31 (1984) Bennion found a total of 110 women “known to have been active as editors before 1900” id at 32. She described Laura Gordon’s journalistic career, at 36-37 but missed Foltz’s brief editorship of the San Diego Bee. ROGER LEVENSON, WOMEN IN PRINTING: NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, 1857-1890 (1994) Appendix A, pp. 179-238 introduces many extraordinary women involved in both printing, publishing and editing. Ann M. Breedlove, Inspired and Possessed, CALIF. HIST. (Spring, 2001) describes the women editors and their papers,. See also Anne M. Breedlove, “Inspired and Possessed:” San Francisco Women Newspaper Publishers, 80 CAL. HIST., (2001). noting that between 1854 and 1893, ten newspapers in Northern California had fourteen different women publishers or editors, though only four stayed in business longer than two years. On the history of women in journalism more generally, see PATRICIA BRADLEY, WOMEN AND THE PRESS: THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY (2005). RUTH MONYNIHAN, REBEL FOR RIGHTS: ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY (1985) has many good passages on the effort involved in putting out a weekly newspaper.
Clara Foltz knew many people in publishing, including her brother Charles, with whom she was close, and who was in the newspaper business in Northern California for most of his career. As discussed in chapter 2, Foltz knew Duniway in Oregon and was a correspondent for the New Northwest for a few years after she moved to California. Laura Gordon was publishing the Oakland Daily Democrat when Foltz first met her. Later, her friend, Marietta Stow, (see chapter two) published a monthly, The Women’s Herald of Industry. Many women’s publications were devoted to causes, such as temperance and suffrage. A VOICE OF THEIR OWN: THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE PRESS, 1840-1910 (1991). Martha M. Solomon, ed. See especially, the chapter by E. Claire Jerry, Clara Bewick Colby and the Woman’s Tribune 1883-1909: The Free Lance Editor as Movement Leader at 110. Colby was editor of the Tribune from 1883-1909. For more on Colby, see On-Line Bibliographic Note: Friends and Allies WLH Website.
On lawyers and publishing, GORDON MORRIS BAKKEN, PRACTICING LAW IN FRONTIER CALIFORNIA (1991) relates that many attorneys doubled as journalists to meet the overhead on their practice. Lawyers also supplemented their income with stock-brokering and other business as well as holding public office.
