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Newspaper The San Francisco Call (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913 Sometimes published as: Call / Sunday issues published as: Sunday call / Joint issue published as: Call-chronicle-examiner

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About The San Francisco Call (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

The San Francisco Call began life on December 1, 1856, as the Daily Morning Call. Staunchly Republican in political outlook, the Call was popular with the working classes, and it was the city’s leading morning newspaper for several decades. By the summer of 1864, the Call was boasting the highest daily circulation in the city, and its readership continued to rise, going from 10,750 in 1865 to 41,066 in 1880. In 1884 it boasted a circulation double that of any other daily. Originally a four page daily, the Call also put out a weekly, published on Tuesdays, and a Sunday edition. One of the paper’s early writers was Mark Twain, who served as Nevada correspondent in 1863 and as reporter after he moved to San Francisco the following year. In just over four months as full time beat reporter, Twain produced some 200 articles on crime and the courts, theater and the opera, and politics.

Among the original owners of the Call were James Joseph Ayers, Charles F. Jobson, and Llewellyn Zublin. Peter B. Forster soon joined the group, and, by May 1866, he became the paper’s publisher of record. In 1869, George K. Fitch, Loring Pickering, and James W. Simonton, owners of the rival San Francisco Bulletin, purchased the Call and ran it for over two decades. By the 1890s, the paper’s staff had grown to over 40, including editorial writers, sports reporters, and drama and art critics. In January 1895, after the deaths of Pickering and Simonton, the Call was sold in probate court to Charles M. Shortridge, publisher of the San Jose Daily Mercury.

Two years later, Shortridge relinquished control of the paper to John D. Spreckels, a noted industrialist and philanthropist, who increased the paper’s size to 14 pages. The Call reached the peak of its significance, coverage, and quality during this period. Novels were serialized in the 40 page Sunday issue and comic pages began to appear in 1903. Five years later, the Junior Call, an eight page tabloid supplement, began to appear on Saturdays. In the competition with the other morning papers, however, the Call was losing ground. At the time of the great earthquake and fire in 1906 the reported circulation of the Examiner was 98,000 as opposed to 80,000 for the Chronicle and 62,000 for the Call. William Randolph Hearst purchased the Call in 1913, merging it with the Evening Post, converted it to an evening newspaper, and renamed it as the San Francisco Call and Post. In July 1918, Hearst lured Fremont Older, who had begun his newspaper career some two decades earlier as a beat reporter at the Call, from the rival Bulletin and installed him as managing editor. Soon thereafter Hearst made John Francis Neylan, once a cub reporter on the Bulletin and later a protege of the Progressive Hiram Johnson, as publisher. The conversion of the Call from a conservative morning newspaper to a progressive evening newspaper was complete.

Note: Two indexes for the San Francisco Call are available on microfiche from the California State Library: one for the years 1893-1904; a second one for the period 1904-1913, combined with indexes for the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner for the years from 1914 to the mid-century.

See also: Morning Call, December 21, 1878-March 4, 1895; San Francisco Call, March 5, 1895-December 8, 1913; and Call-Chronicle-Examiner, April 19, 1906.

Provided By: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The San Francisco Call (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

Other Title

  • Sometimes published as: Call
  • Sunday issues published as: Sunday call
  • Joint issue published as: Call-chronicle-examiner

Dates of Publication

  • 1895-1913

Created / Published

  • San Francisco [Calif.] : Charles M. Shortridge, 1895-1913.

Headings

  • -  San Francisco (Calif.)--Newspapers
  • -  San Francisco Bay Area (Calif.)--Newspapers
  • -  California--San Francisco
  • -  California--San Francisco Bay Area
  • -  United States--California--San Francisco--San Francisco

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Daily
  • -  Vol. 77, no. 85 (Mar. 5, 1895)-v. 115, no. 7 (Dec. 8, 1913).
  • -  "San Francisco" appears above, and later across, masthead ornament.
  • -  Publishers: Charles M. Shortridge, <1896>; John D. Spreckles, <1899>.
  • -  Also issued online.
  • -  Master negatives are available for duplication from: California Newspaper Microfilm Archive; for further information consult the CNMA at: http://cbsr.ucr.edu. External
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Issued with a joint ed. of the San Francisco chronicle and the San Francisco examiner on the day after the San Francisco earthquake, Apr. 19, 1906.
  • -  San Francisco evening post (DLC)sn 94052992 (OCoLC)31898483
  • -  San Francisco call and post (DLC)sn 86064451 (OCoLC)13146198

Medium

  • volumes : illustrations ; 58 cm

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn85066387

OCLC Number

  • 13146227

ISSN Number

  • 1941-0719

Preceding Titles

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.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://www.loc.gov/ndnp/listawardees.html.

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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 San Francisco Call San Francisco Calif. -1913. (San Francisco, CA), Jan. 1 1895. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn85066387/.

APA citation style:

(1895, January 1) The San Francisco Call San Francisco Calif. -1913. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn85066387/.

MLA citation style:

The San Francisco Call San Francisco Calif. -1913. (San Francisco, CA) 1 Jan. 1895. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn85066387/.