To save this week being entirely trade cards, here we have a very early tobacco card, from a set which, rather amazingly, shows the editors of the leading newspapers of America.
This card shows Michael Henry de Young, who, along with his brother, Charles, set up their own newspaper, "The Daily Dramatic Chronicle", in 1865. Most thrilling of all, it was funded by a $20 gold piece, which someone had loaned them.
It seems rather strange that or man was on the card, for he was a shadowy figure, preferring to keep out of the limelight, so much so that his name was absent from the printed pages, replaced by another brother`s, Gustavus. However in later life this seems to have altered, so much so that he stood for the Senate in 1895, but lost.
But I am moving too fast....
They moved fast too, though, and less than ten years after its founding, their paper was read by more people than any other, at least on the west side of the Country - for obviously, there were larger towns on the Eastern side, including New York, and Washington. This success was enough to see them moving into ever bigger premises - eventually, in 1889, they would be the owners of San Francisco's first ever skyscraper, which, though damaged in the 1906 earthquake, was rebuilt, and well, for it still stands - though it is no longer connected with newspapers, it is the HQ of the Ritz-Carlton hotel group.
We took a fair time to tie this loose end, for we featured a card from the small sized version of this set as our Card of the Day for the 7th of September 2023 - a set which has the honour of being catalogued by Jefferson Burdick as USA/1.
However, though it is clear that the large and small are allied, he chooses to split them up, so our card for today is actually listed further down the page in a section for the large version. That reads :
Large Cards
Measure 3 x 3 1/4 inches. All show the corresponding small card design with other pictorial matter added.
- American Editors (50). 1st series, numbered.
Just like the smaller version, the reverse of these cards all say "First Series", but there never was a Second Series.
Mr. Burdick rates this larger version highly too, valuing them at 50 cents a card, the only large set, out of the ten listed, to be valued so.
Though his listing was used for our World Tobacco Issues Indexes, we chose to combine the large and small sets together under section one, which covers all the coloured cards issued before the founding of the American Tobacco company in 1890. So our listing reads :
- AMERICAN EDITORS. Nd. (50) ... A36-1
A. Small. Ref. USA/1
B. Large. Ref USA/35
And this text also appears in our updated version of the World Tobacco Issues Index, just with a new card code, of A400-010.
And this set was also produced as a printed album, which you can read more about with our Card of the Day for the 7th of September 2023
Now if we return to our card, there is something else to add - for, thanks to the reader who supplied it. we also have something else interesting, and that is a complete list of all the editors, their newspapers, and also the scene which has been added to the surroundings on the larger cards, but is absent on the small ones. These are :
- Geo. Abel - "The Baltimore Sun" - Washington Monument, Baltimore
- Felix Agnus - "The Baltimore American" - Fort Mc Henry, Chesapeake Bay
- John Arkins - "Denver Rocky Mountain News" - The Foot Hills
- Lewis Baker - "St Paul Daily Globe" - Falls of Minnehaha
- A.H. Belo - "The Galveston Daily News" - A Texas Ranch, Lassoing Cattle
- Jas. Gordon Bennett - "The New York Herald" - The Obelisk, Central Park. N.Y.
- George Bleistein - "Buffalo Courier"- Delaware Avenue, Buffalo
- Alden J. Blethen - "The Minneapolis Tribune" - A Group of Mills as seen from the River
- Saml. Bowles - "Springfield Republican" - Armory Ground, Springfield
- J.M. Bundy - "New York Mail and Express" - Broadway, New York
- W.D. Bickham - "Dayton Daily Journal" - Miami Canal, Dayton, Ohio
- Geo. W. Childs - "Philadelphia Public Ledger" - Public Ledger Building, Philadelphia
- W.W. Clapp - "Boston Morning Jouirnal" - Brewer Fountain, Boston Common
- A.S. Colyar - "The Daily American" - Steamer on the Tennessee warped through the "Suck"
- Edwin Cowles - "The Cleveland Leader" - Euclid Avenue, Cleveland
- Charles A. Dana - "The New York Sun" - N.Y. Post Office
- F.W. Dawson - "The Charleston News and Courier" - View of City of Charleston
- M.H. de Young - San Francisco Chronicle - Vine Growing, California
- S. J. Flickinger - The Columbus Daily Ohio State Journal" - The Capital, Columbus
- Allan Forman - "The Journalist" - East River Bridge, New York
- G.C. Goodwin - "The Salt Lake Daily Tribune" - Salt Lake City
- Henry W. Grady - "The Atlanta Constitution" - Court House, Atlanta
- Murat Halstead - "The Cincinnatti Commercial Gazette" - 4th Street Cincinnatti
- Jos. R. Hawley - "The Hartford Courant" - Main Street Bridge, Hartford
- Charles H. Jones - "Jacksonville Times Union" - On the Coast of Florida
- George R. Jones - "The New York Times" - Statue of Liberty, N.Y.
- Albert R. Lamar - "The Macon Telegraph" - Picking, Ginning Pressing / The Plant, the Bloom
- Page McCarty - "The Richmond Daily Times" - Washington Monument, Richmond
- J.B. McCullagh - "St. Louis Globe Democrat" - Shaw`s Garden, St. Louis
- John R. McLean - "The Cincinnatti Enquirer" - Art School & Museum, Cincinnatti
- Joseph Medill - "The Chicago Tribune" - Tribune Building
- Jno. C. New - "The Indianapolis Journal" - State Capital, Indianapolis
- Mrs. E.J. Nicholson - "The New Orleans Daily Picayune" - The St. John`s Hotel, New Orleans
- William Penn Nixon - "The Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean" - On Wabash Avenue, Chicago
- Crosby S. Noyes - "The Evening Star" - West Front, Capitol, Washington D.C.
- Frank R. O`Neil - "The St. Louis Missouri Republican" - St. Louis Bridge
- Oswald Ottendorfer "New Yorker Staats-Zeitung" - Staats-Zeitung Building - New York
- Joseph Pulitzer - "The New York World" - Central Park, N.Y.
- William Purcell - "The Rochester Union and Advertiser" - Agriculture
- William E. Quinby - "Detroit Free Press"- The Depot at Night, Detroit
- Whitelaw Reid - "New York Tribune"- "The Tribune Building - New York"
- O.H. Rothaker - "The Omaha Republican" - Valley of the Platte
- Richard H. Silvester - "The Washington Post" - East Front, Capitol, Washington D.C.
- William M. Singerly - "The Philadelphia Record" - The Record Building, Philadelphia
- John A. Sleicher - Albany Evening Journal" - Albany, from East Albany
- Charles Emory Smith - "The Philadelphia Press" - New City Hall, Philadelphia
- Melville E Stone - "The Chicago Daily News" - Chicago
- Charles H. Taylor - "The Boston Daily Globe" - Bunker Hill Monument, Boston
- R.T. Van Horn - "Kansas City Daily Journal" - Stock Ranch, N. Kansas
- Henry Watterson - "The Louisville Courier Journal" - In the Mammoth Cave