NEWSPAPERS in Michigan • New Exhibition Opens at The Castle Museum

It’s been said journalism is the first draft of history. Political activist Eugene Debs also described journalism as literature written in a hurry, but  regardless of one’s perspective, newspapers are the original history books.

With our state’s first newspaper published a remarkable 218 years ago, The Castle Museum of Saginaw County History will be showcasing a fascinating exhibition titled Newspapers in Michigan’, curated by the  Clarke Library of Central Michigan University that will be opening in January and running through March of this year.

On August 31, 1809 The Michigan Essay: or otherwise known as the Impartial Observer, appeared on the streets of Detroit. It was a small paper of only four pages - much like the REVIEW when it first hit the streets 47 years ago - only one of them was also printed in French and was a very short-lived enterprise. But those few pages opened one of the most important windows on Michigan and its people. Americans, then and now, learned about their world, exercised their democratic rights, discovered what was happening in their community, and planned their weekly shopping trips all from the same source at the same time.  And when the rush of daily life passed by yesterday’s paper, it was taken up by historians, who continue to this day to use it for their own research purposes.


Michigan’s First Newspapers

In 1835 that most perceptive observer of American society, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote that Americans settled the wilderness with three things: their axe, their Bible and their newspaper. De Tocqueville’s view of newspapers on the frontier was hardly unique. Sandor Farkas, a Hungarian traveler who published his views about the United States in 1831 noted that: “The magic at work in America is the printing of newspapers.  No matter how remote from civilization or poor the settler may be, he reads the newspaper.”   Looking back on those days, settlers didn’t require electricity or computers to gain access to their information either, which in retrospect was also a miracle.

In 1836 Harriett Martineau, a British traveler who visited the United States and whose published account of her journey was generally critical of America, wrote specifically of Michigan newspapers: “At Ypsilanti, I picked up an Ann Arbor newspaper. It was badly printed; but its content was pretty good; and it could happen nowhere out of America, that so raw a settlement as Ann Arbor, where there is difficulty in procuring decent accommodations, should have a newspaper.”   It is clear from all these examples that nineteenth century America could do without many things, but one of them was not a newspaper.

It took 8 years before Michigan’s second newspaper was printed. In 1817 the Detroit Gazette appeared. Unlike the Essay the Gazette would have a much longer life, although like its predecessor it was partly printed in French.   As the list below indicates, Michigan’s earliest newspapers followed Michigan’s first settlers. Thus, most of the state’s first papers appeared in the lower peninsula’s southern tier of counties. Prior to Michigan’s admission into the Union in 1837 newspapers were established in the following communities: Detroit (1809). Monroe (1825). Ann Arbor (1829). Pontiac (1830). White Pigeon (1833) Adrian(1834) Tecumseh (1834) St. Clair (1834) Kalamazoo (1835) Niles (1835) Mount Clemens (1835).

In 1840 Michigan boasted thirty-two newspapers, and by 1850 the number had grown to fifty-eight.  Most of these were “shoestring” operations. A young printer with little capital but considerable determination could usually purchase an old hand press for a low price and often with little cash and a promise to pay the balance later.

Newspapers before the Civil war and in throughout the nineteenth century tended to be a mixture of boosterism about the community and a tool to advocate for a political party. As the century progressed, newspapers became more and more a vehicle for news, both national and local, as well as a tool through which advertisers could inform and persuade the community about the quality of their products and services.

In the years before the Civil War, Michigan’s newspapers - like most throughout the United States - were intensely political. They often filled their pages with speeches made by favored politicians or political essays penned by the editor. This partisanship, far from being considered an evil, was instead worn as a badge of honor and integrity.  Newspapers proudly proclaimed the political principles that guided their publications. Editors distrusted newspapers which claimed to be “independent” on the theory that such a paper almost certainly had an agenda, but it was being concealed likely for some nefarious reason. Reflecting this trend, the 1850 census listed only 5% of the nation’s newspapers as “neutral” or “independent.”

Editors not only supported candidates in their paper during election years, but particularly during presidential elections they often printed separate campaign newspapers that lasted only for the length of the campaign. For example in 1840 the Michigan State Journal (Ann Arbor) also published the Old Hero, in support of Harrison and Tyler. Elsewhere in Ann Arbor the Democratic Herald briefly revived the Michigan Times in support of Martin Van Buren.

Principle, however, was linked to the subsidies paid to editors by politicians. This practice, which in one way or another remained fairly common late into the nineteenth century, was not viewed as “buying influence” but rather as a way to ensure the political voice of a particular party or party faction was heard. Editors were not bought by an explicit or implicit bribe but rather hired with the clear understanding that they would support the party or faction which made possible the paper’s publication. It was simply part of the job.

In this environment the role of the editor was that of partisan representative. In the hands of a lesser man, this could often simply mean serving as a party hack as well as a refusal to acknowledge unpleasant realities. For example, in 1832 the Detroit Free Press, faced with reporting the unpleasant fact that the Democratic candidate for Congress had been defeated by an overwhelming majority, delayed printing the news for three weeks. Eventually, when forced to concede that the opposition had won, the Free Press put the best possible partisan spin on the news.

Michigan newspapers also promoted Michigan settlement generally and extolled the virtue of their community. Land speculators, often created a newspaper for the purpose of encouraging investment or settlement. The Oakland Chronicle was founded in Pontiac in 1830 to “boom” the area. The first newspaper in Saginaw, was published in 1836 at the behest of a group of investors who had purchased “the city of Saginaw.”

The Upper Peninsula’s first paper, the Lake Superior News and Miners’ Journal, established in July of 1846, had a similar theme. In an editorial published in its first issue, the editor spoke of the region’s mineral wealth, and established as the paper’s goal: “To foster its developments – to point out its advantages – to represent the interests of those who may invest their capital and energies within our district, and give to the public broad correct and faithful medium of mining intelligence.” The editor went on to write that paper the paper’s news would be of a character “studiously eschewing everything of a political character.”   

Government and other legal printing was also an important source of income, and in some cases seems to have been the sole reason for a newspaper. The North Star, also printed in Saginaw, made money by printing lists of “paps,” land that had been repossessed by the government and was available for resale.

Prior to the Civil War most newspaper editors were trained as printers.  With no journalistic training, these editors published whatever was at hand, including items taken from other newspapers and partisan political material. Some looked back at this training sentimentally. John W. Fitzgerald would reminisce in the early years of the twentieth century regarding how:  “It was customary in those early days for the country weekly to reprint the speeches of senators and congressmen.”  Using a phrase common at the time, Fitzgerald referred to serving as a printer’s apprentice as “The Poor Boy’s College.”

Latter Half of the 20th Century

As big city dailies struggled to survive many smaller daily newspapers and weeklies continued to enjoy financial health. The smaller papers that prospered usually built their success around the “solemn truth” of George Booth that a large, metropolitan paper could not cover a local community better than a small, community-based newspaper.

As major metropolitan newspapers grew and began competing with broadcast media like television and radio, smaller publications started to serve the needs of specific groups and were designed to serve needs not defined by geography but rather through some shared interest, characteristic, or concern.

Niche publications such as The Metro Times in Detroit, The Northern Express in Traverse City, and this publication thrived in the 1980s by embracing the values of the ‘New Journalism’ that sought to reveal not simply the facts behind a story, but also the personalities and agendas of the subjects within the story.

With the advent of the Internet and Online Publishing in the 1990s and early 2000s, newspapers shifted over to establishing a vital online presence amidst the proliferation digital news sources. While today much of the newspaper industry again faces hard times, in many ways today’s newspapers have returned to the entrepreneurial roots of the nineteenth century, with owners and editors requiring both a sense of what the public wants to read coupled with a savvy business sense. 

After two hundred years of continual adaption and change to meet uncounted challenges, it seems likely that today’s newspapers will continue to evolve, survive, and change because Alexis De Tocqueville had it right – Americans cannot do without their newspapers.

The Castle Museum is located at 500 Federal Ave. in Downtown Saginaw. Hours are Sunday: 1 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.; Monday - Wednesday: 10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.; Thursday: 10 a.m. - 7 p.m.; Friday - Saturday: 10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m