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29-629: The Public Record was a newspaper first published in Philadelphia on May 14, 1870; it was founded by William J. Swain, son of William Moseley Swain , who had founded the Public Ledger . At the time it was published at Clark's Hall at 3rd and Chestnut Streets. In 1877, William M. Singerly acquired the small-circulation paper and renamed it the Record , and lowered its price to one-cent. By 1894, The New York Times praised it as "one of

58-481: A "duel of keep-the-lights-on", in which their employees attempted to log longer workdays than their competitors. Both newspapers during this time accused the other of attempts to steal stories. In the 1930s, as the competition stiffened between the Record and its primary morning competitor, the Inquirer , both increased their daily price to 3 cents (about $ 0.66 in inflation-adjusted terms). From July 1936 to 1938,

87-664: A building designed by Willis G. Hale . After Singerly died in 1898, the paper was acquired by the Wanamakers. It was the first newspaper in Philadelphia to use the Linotype machine . After Rodman Wanamaker died in 1928, the paper was bought by J. David Stern , owner of the Courier-Post in nearby Camden, New Jersey ; he also moved the headquarters of the Record in November of that year from 917-919 Chestnut Street to

116-636: A drawn-out strike . William Moseley Swain William Moseley Swain (May 12, 1809 – February 16, 1868) was an American newspaper owner, journalist, publisher, editor, and businessman. William Moseley Swain was born in Manlius, New York in 1809. In 1936, along with Arunah Shepherdson Abell and Azariah H. Simmons, he established a daily newspaper in Philadelphia , The Public Ledger . He also served as its editor. The paper

145-547: A guest, telling the news rather than shouting it." As Time magazine later noted: "In its news columns, the Bulletin was solid if unspectacular. Local affairs were covered extensively, but politely. Muckraking was frowned upon." The Bulletin was first published by Alexander Cummings on April 17, 1847, as Cummings’ Evening Telegraphic Bulletin . When Cummings sold the business in 1860, James S. Chambers succeeded him as publisher. His inaugural edition published

174-768: A resumption of trade with the West. As readers and advertisers moved from the city to the suburbs, the Bulletin attempted to follow. It introduced regional editions for four suburban counties and leased a plant in southern New Jersey to print a state edition. Reporters attended school and county meetings, but their efforts could not match the combined resources of the smaller suburban dailies. The Bulletin also faced difficulties that plagued all big-city evening newspapers: Late afternoon traffic made distribution more costly than for morning papers. The Bulletin faced even greater competition from television evening newscasts. The Bulletin ' s biggest problem, however, may have been

203-484: A “Save Our Bulletin” campaign. On January 18, 1982, 300 loyal supporters sporting S.O.B. buttons held a candlelight vigil in front of the paper's offices in subfreezing weather. Philadelphia Mayor William Green offered tax breaks and low-interest loans to help finance a purchase. With no prospective buyers, Charter attempted to give the newspaper away. No publisher, however, would assume the paper's $ 29.5 million in promissory notes and $ 12 million in severance costs to

232-487: The New York Times , was a sportswriter for the Record from 1936 to 1945. The Record had a reputation for social activism. It ran stories that broke up bogus medical colleges, stopped the sale of dead bodies, campaigned against Sunday blue laws, and recommended going off the gold standard. Once, outraged at the high price of coal, the newspaper bought the output of a coal mine and sold it at discounted prices to

261-441: The Record had a weekday circulation of 328,322 and Sunday circulation of 369,525. By comparison, it led the Inquirer during the week, when the competitor sold 280,093 copies, but trailed on Sundays, when the Inquirer sold 669,152 copies. That year, Moses Annenberg bought the Inquirer , and the rivalry between the publications significantly increased. The two papers, whose buildings were within sight of each other, engaged in

290-406: The Record 's circulation fell by 40%. In the latter year, the Record' s weekday circulation had fallen to 204,000 and its Sunday edition to 362,783. During the late 1930s, the Record , a Democratic Party -aligned publication led by publisher J. David Stern , was seen as a voice for the executives in both the federal and state governments . Red Smith , who would later win a Pulitzer Prize with

319-491: The Record , it also acquired the rights to buy Philadelphia's third-oldest radio station, WCAU . In a complex deal, the Bulletin sold off WPEN and WCAU's FM sister, changed WPEN-FM's call letters to WCAU-FM , and the calls for its under-construction television station to WCAU-TV . The WCAU stations were sold to CBS in 1957. The Bulletin ' s understated brand of journalism won Pulitzer Prizes in 1964 and 1965. James V. Magee, Albert V. Gaudiosi and Frederick Meyer won

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348-605: The Temple University Libraries. Thousands of Bulletin photographs have been scanned and have been made available by the Temple Libraries for online study. A limited sampling of clippings are also available online. In 2004 Philadelphia investment banker Thomas G. Rice bought the Bulletin naming rights from the McLean family. Rice's new newspaper, which began circulating on November 22, 2004,

377-449: The 1930s, the paper bought WPEN , one of Philadelphia's early radio stations. In 1946, it acquired a construction permit for Philadelphia's third television station. In 1947 the Bulletin bought out a morning competitor, The Philadelphia Record , and incorporated features of the Record ' s Sunday edition into the new Sunday Bulletin . By 1947 the Bulletin was the nation's biggest evening daily, with 761,000 readers. Along with

406-514: The 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Local Investigative Specialized Reporting for their expose of numbers racket operations with police collusion in South Philadelphia , which resulted in arrests and a cleanup of the police department. J.A. Livingston won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his reports on the growth of economic independence among Russia 's Eastern European satellites and his analysis of their desire for

435-569: The best and most widely circulated newspapers in the United States." Despite the dire economic state at the time, the Record "held its own", and sold 57,000,000 copies in 1893. At that time, it was the most widely read newspaper in the city and equaled the combined circulation of any two of its Philadelphian competitors. Its printing facilities were lauded as modern and both its foreign and domestic reporting as accurate and prompt. The Record' s headquarters were at 917-919 Chestnut Street, in

464-501: The final edition read "Goodbye: After 134 years, a Philadelphia voice is silent" and the paper’s slogan was changed to "Nearly Everybody Read The Bulletin" (emphasis added). A front-page message to readers appeared " below the fold " in which Publisher N.S. (“Buddy”) Hayden stated: "It’s over. And there’s very little left to say, except goodbye." The Bulletin ' s internal newsclipping files (approximately 500,000 pieces), card indexes, and photographs ( ca. 3 million) are now held in

493-489: The first telegraph report in a U.S. newspaper, a dispatch from the Mexican War. Cummings lost control of the Bulletin to stockholders in the 1850s. From 1859 until 1895, the paper was edited by Gibson Peacock. The Bulletin was last in circulation of Philadelphia's 13 daily newspapers for the remainder of the 19th century. When Peacock died in 1895, the newspaper was purchased by businessman William L. McLean . At

522-499: The former Packard Motor Corporation Building at 317-319 N. Broad Street. Though the circulation of the Record was only 123,000 when he bought it, Stern was able to raise it to 315,000 within a few years. During the Great Depression , the Record became one of only two morning newspapers in the city after the Public Ledger morning and Sunday editions were merged with The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1933. In 1936,

551-430: The morning Philadelphia Inquirer . The Inquirer was on the verge of extinction until Eugene L. Roberts Jr. became executive editor in 1972 and William Boyd Dickinson retired as executive editor of The Bulletin in 1973. Under Roberts, The Inquirer won six consecutive Pulitzer Prizes and gained national reputation for quality journalism. The Inquirer grabbed the circulation lead in 1980. By 1982, The Inquirer

580-754: The new revolutionary quick communications system to transmit news of the events and battles of the Mexican–American War (1847–1848), thousands of miles southwest as hostilities extended into the capital of Mexico City . In 1847, the Philadelphia Public Ledger was printed on the first rotary press ever built. Swain, who had become one of the incorporators of the pioneering Magnetic Telegraph Company in 1845, served as its president beginning in 1850. He married Sarah James on November 19, 1837, and they had five children. Swain died at his home in Philadelphia on February 16, 1868, and

609-481: The paper's 1,943 employees. Four groups of buyers did come forward, but each found the newspaper's prospects too discouraging. After losing $ 21.5 million in 1981, The Bulletin was dropping nearly $ 3 million per month when it published its final edition on January 29, 1982. Said Charter Company President J.P. Smith Jr.: "In the final analysis, the paper was unable to generate the circulation and additional advertising revenues ... it needed to survive." The headline of

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638-482: The public. The Record made history in the early 1930s by hiring Orrin C. Evans as "the first black writer to cover general assignments for a mainstream white newspaper in the United States;" as a staff writer, Evans covered many topics including segregation in the armed services during World War II . In 1947, the Record went out of business and sold its assets to the Philadelphia Bulletin after

667-467: The same time of the construction of the Western Union telegraph line, coast to coast. The Ledger and its younger sister paper, The Sun of Baltimore , which was established a year later by both Abell and Swain, were two of the first publications to use the new electric telegraph that was invented by their friend, former artist/painter Samuel F. B. Morse (1791–1872). Using Morse code ,

696-592: The system was first tested in 1844 on a line between Baltimore and Washington . That transmission was sent from a telegraph set that was located in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 's old first main terminal station on Pratt Street in Baltimore's waterfront district to the Supreme Court chambers on Capitol Hill , forty miles southwest. Three years later, both The Sun and The Ledger made extensive use of

725-595: The time, the last-place Bulletin sold for 2 cents an issue, equal to $ 0.73 today. McLean cut the price in half and increased coverage of local news. By 1905, the paper was the city's largest. In 1912, the Bulletin was one of a cooperative of four newspapers, including the Chicago Daily News , The Boston Globe , and The New York Globe , that formed the Associated Newspapers syndicate. McLean's son Robert took over in 1931. Later in

754-600: Was buried in The Woodlands Cemetery . His son William J. Swain founded a newspaper titled The Public Record in 1870, which later became The Philadelphia Record . Philadelphia Bulletin The Philadelphia Bulletin (or The Bulletin as it was commonly known) was a daily evening newspaper published from 1847 to 1982 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania . It was the largest circulation newspaper in Philadelphia for 76 years and

783-462: Was once the largest evening newspaper in the United States . Its widely known slogan was: "In Philadelphia, nearly everybody reads The Bulletin ." Describing the Bulletin ' s style, publisher William L. McLean once said: "I think the Bulletin operates on a principle which in the long run is unbeatable. This is that it enters the reader's home as a guest. Therefore, it should behave as

812-604: Was receiving 60 percent of the city’s newspaper advertising revenue, compared to The Bulletin 's 24-percent share. The Bulletin launched a morning edition in 1978, but by then the momentum had shifted decisively. In 1980, the Bulletin was acquired by the Charter Company of Jacksonville, Florida a conglomerate which would spend most of the 1980s in various financial troubles. In December 1981, Charter put it up for sale. The Bulletin continued publishing while speaking with prospective buyers. City residents organized

841-591: Was the first daily to establish a pony-express -style delivery service during the late 1830s and through the next few decades for routing its reporter/correspondent dispatches from throughout the eastern states. The system was made famous twenty-five years later, in 1861, by the United States Post Office Department , with a series of riders and horses across the Western United States from Missouri to California, at

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