The American Historical Review/Volume 23/Reviews of Books/History of American Journalism
Until yesterday the best book on this subject was S. N. D. North's essay, published in 1884 as one of the by-products of the census of 1880. That essay presented a fairly continuous story down to about 1835, and then the narrative was soon lost in statistics and chapters on the mechanical side of newspaper publication.
Professor Lee's book, which begins with the records of the Roman Senate in 449 B.C. and ends with Creel's Committee on Public Information in 1917, will now replace Mr. North's volume as a history of growth, though it will not entirely supersede the latter as an authority for reference.
Statistical information of historical importance is better arranged in Mr. North's work and is more complete. It is unfortunate that Professor Lee did not follow his predecessor's example in arranging lists of names and dates in compact tables, separate from the text. The policy, which he has adopted, of strewing statistics thickly over thin surfaces of story, does not always produce readable paragraphs, and throws a heavy burden of responsibility upon the index. This burden the index is inadequate to support. The student will turn to it in vain for scores of names mentioned in the story, and for some that ought to be mentioned but are not.
Professor Lee ascribes to the World the honor of reviving in 1884 the cartoon as a political weapon. A dozen years earlier, Thomas Nast had made Tweed and Harper's Weekly famous at the same time, but Professor Lee's index alludes neither to the Weekly nor to its distinguished editor, George William Curtis, nor to Nast himself, although the careful reader will discover that both the journal and the great cartoonist are merely mentioned on page 329.
It is inevitable that the New York city newspapers should loom large in a work of this kind. Nevertheless the historical student will be disappointed if he turns to this volume for an explanation of the fact that, for years in the first half of the last century, Albany newspapers were more influential in New York state politics than the metropolitan journals.
Perhaps too, in view of the pretentious title that Professor Lee chose, it would have been profitable for him to consider the fact that the most comprehensively developed institutional American newspaper is not to be found in New York or Chicago, but in Buenos Aires.
To the various fields of special journalism Professor Lee has given less attention than did Mr. North. He chronicles the efforts to issue a daily newspaper with a religious motive but makes no study of denominational or religious journalism. Neither does he consider the literary and critical weeklies, or professional and occupational journals, or the Socialist press, or sporting and juvenile periodicals.
The great field of journalism representing the later immigrant races in America is left untouched. Professor Lee has not overlooked the early French papers at New Orleans, but there is no evidence that he has consulted such works as Belisle's Histoire de la Presse Franco-Américaine, or even Garland Penn's curious book on The Afro-American Press.
This volume is evidently the outgrowth of the author's work with his class. It is hoped that he will reshape it to meet a larger need, and to represent more adequately the vast subject. With such an expansion and with a real index it would become for a long time a final authority. A few errors, mostly typographical, are noted:
Page ix, Lathan; page x, Palsits for Paltsits; page 131, inauguration for administration; page 169, Selba for Seba (Smith); page 301, Neosh; page 348, S. N. B. North for S. N. D. North. Professor Lee gives the date of the first issue of the Kentucke Gazette at Lexington as April 11, 1787. The Filson Club celebrated the centennial of that event in 1887 on August 11.