News of the Day
    

The American Press

1860s newsprint

Daily Gazette & Comet [Baton Rouge, LA], July 21, 1860

There is said to be about three hundred daily papers at this time in the United States. Five hundred and seventy thousand is estimated as the regular circulation of the daily press, or 184,080,000 per annum. There are also about two thousand five hundred tri-weeklies, semi-weeklies, and weeklies, which would probable make the aggregate number of newspapers annually distributed throughout the United States 412,800,000.

A first-class daily paper in such a city as New York has generally twelve editors and reporters, forty printers, two proof-readers, thirteen pressmen, engineers and other employees in the press-room, half a dozen correspondents in Europe, two or three regular correspondents in Washington, thirty-five persons in the clerk, wrapping and mailing departments, and about as many more engaged as carriers.

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