Frederic Hudson, for many years the managing director of The New York Herald, issued in 1873 his Journalism in the United States. This book, which aimed to cover the period from 1690 to 1872, contains many interesting sketches of editors and their papers, but is so full of errors, and is so biased in its point of view, that it cannot be accepted as an authority even for the period with which Mr. Hudson was most familiar.
The United States Government in 1880 issued, in connection with its publications of the census for that year, a History and Present Conditions of the Newspaper and Periodical Press of the United States. For the historical part, the book was based upon the works already mentioned and perpetuated their errors. Its statistical matter, being compiled from data furnished to the census, makes it a valuable contribution to journalism history.
In 1881 Charles Dudley Warner, a member of the editorial staff of The Courant, of Hartford, Connecticut, published an essay, The American Newspaper, which he had read before the Social Science Association at Saratoga Springs, New York, on September 6 of that year. Brief as was this booklet, it was a most comprehensive summary of journalism as it then existed. Nothing else of general scope, except scattering magazine articles and biographies of individual editors, has appeared to record the developments of American journalism.
The author of this book, while acknowledging his indebtedness to the works already enumerated, has sought in every instance to verify facts as original sources: in his attempt to do so he has been greatly assisted by secretaries of state historical societies to whom acknowledgment for courtesies rendered must first be made.
To acknowledge in print others who have helped in the preparation of the manuscript is obviously impossible, except in a few cases. For information and data about papers of the Colonial Period the author is indebted to Albert Matthews, of Boston, Massachusetts, who has always been ready to answer questions about the early papers of New England, and to Clarence R. Brigham, of Worcester, Massachusetts, who, as secretary of the American Antiquarian Society, has furnished many dates as to the beginnings of early papers in several
