Good Times, Eh? : Minnesota's Territorial Newspapers
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MN History special 56/4 8/22/07 1:48 PM Page 222 GOOD TIMES, EH? “ hirty Hours From St. Paul to Chicago! Snake Ejected From T a Man’s Stomach. New Liquor Law in Maine. More Indians Killed. Grand Celebration: Mississippi River Wire Suspension Bridge. The Secret of Matrimonial Happiness. A Simple Yet Certain Cure For Piles. To Make Tomato Figs. Civil War in Kansas/Lawrence Destroyed: Free State Blood Spilt. A Nobleman of Sense. Look at This! No Murder!” These news and advertis- ing headlines from the columns of Minnesota’s earliest newspapers illustrate frontier journalism’s curious and diffuse MH 56-4 Winter 98-99.pdf 76 8/22/07 1:58:00 PM MN History special 56/4 8/22/07 1:48 PM Page 223 JANE LAMM CARROLL content. The territorial press conveyed information, provided entertainment, offered advice to lovers and prescriptions for the good life, titillated with stories of the sensational and macabre, advertised local businesses and the latest patent medicines, sung Minnesota’s praises to encourage immigration, and voiced fierce- ly partisan views on local and national political issues. Territorial printing tools: hand press made by Cincinnati Typefoundry about 1836, reputed to be the one James M. Goodhue used to print the Minnesota Pioneer; and Goodhue’s type arrayed on an early issue of his newspaper. MH 56-4 Winter 98-99.pdf 77 8/22/07 1:58:00 PM MN History special 56/4 8/22/07 1:48 PM Page 224 Like other midnineteenth-century American news- At first, all of Minnesota’s newspapers were weeklies; papers, Minnesota’s territorial papers differed from many later developed into dailies as the population modern ones in important ways. First, there was little expanded. St. Paul was home to 21 papers during the attempt at “objective” reporting; readers expected and territorial period, including the German publications got news conveyed with a heavy dose of editorial com- Minnesota Deutsche Zeitung and Minnesota National Demo- ment. Second, papers were ferociously partisan, rou- krat, and the Norwegian Folkets Röst. The capital saw tinely attacking political opponents in a manner that four daily publications established in 1854 alone. readers today might find shocking and inappropriately St. Anthony produced four newspapers and Minnea- personal. Finally, “news” 150 years ago was often based polis, two. Newspapers did not appear outside of these on nothing more than conjecture or hearsay; much of three locations until 1854, then multiplied rapidly as it would not meet current journalism standards. the territory’s population increased dramatically and While today the most significant news appears on settlement spread up and down Minnesota’s rivers. the paper’s first page, that is not the way Minnesota’s Between 1854 and 1860, almost 100 English and several early editors organized their publications. Indeed, they foreign-language weeklies were established. Red Wing gave a relatively meager amount of space to the news, had five newspapers, including the Swedish-language often burying the most important stories on the second Minnesota Posten. Stillwater, Winona, Shakopee, and page amidst advertising, legal notices, sentimental fic- Carimona (Fillmore County) each had three, and tion, recipes, and trivial items. But in the 1850s Minne- Rochester, St. Peter, Faribault, Hastings, St. Cloud, sota newspapers were not primarily interested in report- Monticello, Cannon Falls, Read’s Landing/Wabasha, ing news. Rather, they aimed to promote the territory and Chatfield had two apiece. Towns with one newspa- and act as a partisan voice in an era when newspapers per included Sauk Rapids, Brownsville, Nininger, Lake were the only mass medium through which political City, Albert Lea, Preston, Traverse des Sioux, Wasioja, parties could influence people.1 Oronoco, Owatonna, Bancroft, Belle Plaine, Glencoe, Between 1849, when James. M Goodhue started the Hokah, Henderson, Watab/Little Falls, Mankato, and Minnesota Pioneer, the territory’s first newspaper, and Mantorville. Chaska produced a German-language 1857, the last full year of the territory, settlers established newspaper, the Minnesota Thalboten. This proliferation 82 newspapers in Minnesota. Of these, about 70 were indicates a relatively high literacy rate among settlers. published weekly, six daily, and the rest biweekly, tri- As John P. Owens, editor of the Weekly Minnesotian weekly, monthly, or irregularly. Unlike today’s corporate- (St. Paul), observed, “The people of Minnesota are owned conglomerates, these were generally independent remarkable for the liberality with which they support enterprises, owned and operated by one or two persons.2 their local newspapers.” Minnesota’s first German-language newspaper, begun in St. Paul in 1855 224 MINNESOTA HISTORY MH 56-4 Winter 98-99.pdf 78 8/22/07 1:58:00 PM MN History special 56/4 8/22/07 1:48 PM Page 225 St. Cloud Democrat office and home of its founder, the fiery Jane Grey Swisshelm, about 1858. An abolitionist and suffrag- ist, Swisshelm was the territory’s first newspaperwoman. Local as these papers were, they relied heavily on Early editors depended on outside sources for more national and international news, as well as other items than their news. Printing presses, type, paper, and ink all clipped from eastern and downriver publications. came from distant cities such as Cincinnati and Boston. Indeed, these clippings provided the bulk of the frontier The equipment could be transported only during navi- newspaper’s contents. Until linked to the telegraph in gation season, due to the high cost of shipping overland 1860, Minnesota editors relied on the mail to bring them in the winter. No local newsprint was available locally other papers. This meant that there was a lag in the news until 1859, when a paper mill on Hennepin Island be- of a few days during the navigation season and a week, at gan production. Sometimes editors had to make their minimum, during winter. Mail traveled to the farthest own ink until a new supply could be obtained.4 point west via railroad, thence overland and upriver to Although markedly partisan in tone, Minnesota’s ter- Minnesota. The first railroad to reach the Mississippi ritorial newspapers were otherwise very similar. They River arrived at Rock Island, Illinois, in 1854. By 1857 the were generally two or four pages long; page dimensions railroad had reached Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, but of weeklies measured 20-by-25 inches, and dailies were the mail still had to travel more than 200 miles by steam- generally 15-by-21—both larger than today’s standard boat up the Mississippi or overland via sleigh. Dubuque, newspaper. Each page held six or seven columns broken Iowa, and LaCrosse, Wisconsin, were the closest tele- sporadically into separate items usually identified by a graph termini in the 1850s, and the Dubuque Daily Express brief title. Rarely was there enough on any one subject and Herald was the closest “big city” newspaper.3 to fill an entire column, advertisements excepted. No WINTER 1998–99 225 MH 56-4 Winter 98-99.pdf 79 8/22/07 1:58:00 PM MN History special 56/4 8/22/07 1:48 PM Page 226 large headlines adorned the front region’s natural beauty, abundant page as in today’s papers. Instead, resources, fertile soil, and healthy first pages were devoted to clipped climate. Goodhue of the Minnesota national and international news Pioneer was the most frequent and stories, as well as fiction and poet- enthusiastic booster. He explored ry. The second page contained the region by horseback, steam- national and local news, editorials, boat, and canoe, returning to advertisements, legal notices, St. Paul to report to the world what recipes, more fiction and poetry, he had seen. Ever aware of an east- proscriptive literature, and sensa- ern audience that included poten- tional items. Third and fourth pages tial immigrants, Goodhue tended to generally consisted entirely of adver- embellish his descriptions. In August tisements.5 1849 he ended a long and comprehen- sive recital of Minnesota’s virtues by ex- Throughout the territorial era, tolling its climate and many waterways: editors promoted Minnesota as a desir- Farmers, especially of New England, if able place to settle, filling their col- they could but once see our lands, would umns with detailed descriptions of the The outspoken never think of settling on the bilious bot- James M. Goodhue, about 1850 toms and the enervating prairies south of us. What is fertility, what is wealth, without vigorous health and activity of body and mind? These are considerations that will weigh more in the future with the immigrants, than they hitherto have: a clear, bracing air, an invigorating winter to give elas- ticity to the system—and water as pure and soft as the dews of heaven, gushing from hill and valley.6 Editorial opinion did not stop with boosterism. Any and all news was subject to comment. Reporting on a ball held at St. Paul’s Central House, Goodhue opined: “Dancing, properly conducted, with chaste, correct music, has a tendency, not only to improve the man- ners, but to elevate, to etherialize the mind.”7 Reports on the weather, conditions about town, and local events also reflected the editor’s personality. Earle S. Good- rich, editor of St. Paul’s Daily Pioneer and Democrat, of- fered the following observations on life in St. Paul on May 30, 1857: “Third Street was kept yesterday in pass- able and comfortable condition, by the sprinkling wagon, thanks to somebody,” and “The sun shone out brightly and warm, but the gentle wind abstracted the caloric, and made street walking pleasant.” Minnesotian editor Owens declared his indignation after reporting the death of a man stabbed in a saloon brawl: “If no man present at the drunken row on Tues- day night had carried about his person a concealed and deadly weapon, in all human probability no one would Minnesota Pioneer, September 6, 1849, with columns of small, dense type typical of the era’s newspapers 226 MINNESOTA HISTORY MH 56-4 Winter 98-99.pdf 80 8/22/07 1:58:00 PM MN History special 56/4 8/22/07 1:48 PM Page 227 Earle S.