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Newspaper The Evening Telegraph (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918 Daily evening telegraph

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About The Evening Telegraph (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918

The Philadelphia Evening Telegraph was a daily afternoon newspaper started on January 4, 1864, by brothers-in-law Charles Edward Warburton and James Barclay Harding to compete with the Philadelphia Daily Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia’s only afternoon newspaper at the time.  They speculated, correctly, that the rapid growth in population and wealth in the area would support a second afternoon paper, and by the end of its first year the Telegraph went from four to eight pages; it ran daily except for Sundays.  The Telegraph was an independent paper, Republican in political slant and supportive of the federal government.   Harding died in October 1865, leaving a firmly established paper with Warburton as sole proprietor.  Harding had been an active politician, but Warburton and his staff kept out of politics. Former Telegraph reporter and city editor, Watson Armbruster, served as managing editor. 

The Telegraph was noted for its innovations. In August 1866, Warburton connected its offices with the Philadelphia headquarters of a political convention to found a party to support President Andrew Johnson, using the telegraph to transmit the proceedings to the public.  One of the paper’s major innovations was to present editorials from the leading newspapers from New York and other cities in a feature called “Spirit of the Press.” By the 1870s, the Telegraph was running six columns of editorials from other U.S. and European newspapers.

Warburton died on September 1, 1896, leaving the ownership to his son, Barclay Harding Warburton. According to American Journalism (1897) by Charles Austen Bates, the younger Warburton spent $175,000 to modernize the Telegraph with new equipment including presses and typesetting machines.  From 1895 to 1897, the running expenses increased 33%, the advertising revenue 60% and the circulation 300%.  At this time, the average daily circulation was 32,000 and on Saturday about 38,000.  Warburton also added a woman’s page, an art page, and a society page to the previously established literary, amateur sporting, and theatrical pages. The Telegraph appealed to both the “classes and the masses,” as Bates put it.  In addition to covering national and international affairs, the paper gave a fair share of editorial attention to items of local interest and ran from 14 to 16 pages. 

On February 2, 1911, Warburton sold the paper to his brother-in-law, Rodman Wanamaker, the son of department store magnate John Wanamaker.  John T. Windrim, an architect who had done work for the Wanamakers, succeeded Warburton as president, and George A. Waite, the assistant editor, became managing editor.  The daily average net circulation had increased to 110,721.  In addition to several pages devoted to women’s interests and comic strips including “Mutt and Jeff,” the paper now sported a daily “Evening Telegraph Page of Wanamaker News.”

The Telegraph ceased publication on June 28, 1918, after being bought out by Cyrus Curtis, president of the Public Ledger company (and founder of Curtis Publications), who merged it into his own paper,  the Evening Public Ledger.  Curtis explained that by acquiring the Evening Telegraph, he was able to add the Associated Press to his membership in the other news association services.  The name of the merged papers was changed to the Evening Public Ledger and The Evening Telegraph from July 1, 1918 until the end of the year when the Telegraph’s name was dropped.

 

Provided By: Penn State University Libraries; University Park, PA

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Evening Telegraph (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918

Other Title

  • Daily evening telegraph

Dates of Publication

  • 1864-1918

Created / Published

  • Philadelphia [Pa.] : J. Barclay Harding

Headings

  • -  Philadelphia (Pa.)--Newspapers
  • -  Philadelphia County (Pa.)--Newspapers
  • -  Pennsylvania--Philadelphia
  • -  Pennsylvania--Philadelphia County
  • -  United States--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Philadelphia

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Daily (except Sun.)
  • -  Issue for: (Jan. 4, 1864)-
  • -  Ceased in 1918?
  • -  Publishers: C.E. Warburton, 1865-1896; John Windrim, 1912-1914; Evening Telegraph Pub. Co., 1914-1918.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Evening public ledger 2151-3945 (DLC)sn 83045211 (OCoLC)9355469

Medium

  • volumes

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn83025925

OCLC Number

  • 10059475

ISSN Number

  • 2166-1774

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The Evening Telegraph Philadelphia Pa. -1918. (Philadelphia, PA), Jan. 1 1864. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83025925/.

APA citation style:

(1864, January 1) The Evening Telegraph Philadelphia Pa. -1918. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83025925/.

MLA citation style:

The Evening Telegraph Philadelphia Pa. -1918. (Philadelphia, PA) 1 Jan. 1864. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn83025925/.