A full issue of a newspaper for one cent?
By Megan McKinney
The Chicago Daily News—an afternoon paper—was established in 1875 by a journalistic trio that included editor Melville Stone. The goal of Daily News founders was to appeal to a mass audience in addition to those attracted to the elitist Chicago Tribune. The Daily News was the city’s first penny paper; however, owners wished to span all portions of their potential readership by offering a five-cent paper for the price of one-cent. It worked. And the Daily News became the city’s most widely read paper of the late nineteenth century.
The Chicago Tribune during the late 1860’s
By 1896 the corner newsboy’s brag would switch from penny-a-copy to “largest circulation. . . in the West.”
Victor Lawson
Enter Victor Lawson, whose family had established itself with financial success in real estate. Although the Chicago Daily News was initially struggling, Mr. Lawson invested in the paper after its first year and became manager. Melville Stone remained involved as an editor and later bought back a major stake, but Victor Lawson took over full ownership again in 1888.
By the end of the century, circulation was two hundred thousand, with equally impressive financial figures from Mr. Lawson’s success in attracting advertisers. When Victor Lawson died in August 1925, he left no instructions in his will regarding the disposition of the Daily News.
1500 North Lake Shore Drive was once the address of a single house.
He also left his “million dollar, built-to-last mansion” which we see above. The house was razed almost immediately to make space for what many Chicagoans consider the city’s finest condominium, 1500 North Lake Shore Drive. Among 1500’s many notable features is that it is the only Chicago co-op in whose design Rosario Candela, New York’s master architect of the glorious nineteen–twenties, participated.
1500 North Lake Shore Drive today
As Neil Harris noted in his marvelous 2004 book, Chicago Apartments: A Century of Lakefront Luxury, “Portions of the house were, in fact, inserted into some apartments of the new building.”
Field Enterprises, Inc. was a private holding company founded by Marshall Field III, who–like Victor Lawson–was involved in a series of impressive projects, including PM, a left-leaning newspaper published in New York City, and the Chicago Sun-Times, which–during the second half of the twentieth century–was the Chicago Tribune‘s primary rival.
en.wikipedia.org
Marshall Field III
By the 1950’s, when it was led by Marshall Field IV, Field Enterprises added the World Book Encyclopedia and book publisher Simon & Schuster, as well as radio stations scattered about the country to become a major media company.
Then, in 1959, Field Enterprises bought the Chicago Daily News, which became established as one of the city’s leading newspapers.
Page One, Chicago Daily News, May 1961
James Hoge
By November 1976, when the future of the Daily News was looking a lttle bumpy, Chicago Sun-Times Editor-in-Chief James Hoge was put in charge of both Field papers under Publisher Marshall Field V.
Marshall Field V
Two years later the Daily News was “folded into” the Sun- Times.
Author photo: Robert F. Carl
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