Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1883 — ORIGIN OF JOURN ALISM. [ARTICLE]

ORIGIN OF JOURN ALISM.

At a very early period daily news letters were circulated, concerning public and official acts, in Borne, Venice and China. The first printed newspaper was the Gazette, published in Nuremberg in 1457, and'the oldest paper extant is the Neue Zeitung due Hispanien und Italien , printed in the same city in 1534. Other countries followed Germany in issuing printed newspapers in the following order: England in 1622; France, 1631; Sweden, 1644; Holland, 1656; Russia, 1708; Turkey, 1827. The progress of journalism has been most rapid in America. The first American newspaper, consisting of three pages of two columns each and a blank page, was published in Boston, Sept. 25, 1690, under the name of “Publick Occurences, both Foreign and Domestic,” but it was immediately suppressed. In 1704 tjie Boston News Letter appeared, printed oh one sheet of foolscap paper. It flourished for seventy-two years. The following data will show the advancement in the United States: First printing office in 1639. First newspaper in 1690. First political newspaper in 1733. First daily paper in 1784. First penny paper in 1833. First illustrated paper in 1853. In 1880 there were published in America (United States and Canada) 10,131 newspapers and periodicals—--899 dailies, 8,428 weeklies, tri-weeklies and semi-weeklies, and 804 monthlies and semi-monthlies. More than 6,000 of this number belong to the United States, and the annual circulation is about 1,500,000,000.