The Origin and End of New York City’s “Daily Graphic” – on stone (1873-89)

         

1873-89 [1] The Daily Graphic — a rare bird. A unique New York paper with all pictures done in stone lithography. ‘The Glorious 4th’ centerpiece of a Hopkins full front-page comic for the Daily Graphic of the 3d of July.

   

“The illustrations (…) can be made by the artist, he being his own engraver, as quickly as a reporter can write up an account of any notable occurrence (…) the first edition of the Graphic this afternoon would contain pictorial as well as written descriptions of [today’s] scenes, thus anticipating the illustrated weeklies, and revolutionizing, as it is claimed, the whole business.” — The Chicago Tribune, New York Letter, 13 Feb, 1873

by Huib van Opstal
by Huib van Opstal
by Huib van Opstal

Subtitled ‘An Illustrated Evening Newspaper’ the Daily Graphic was a rare and early picture paper. Launched in 1873 in New York City — as an eight-page, five-cent quadruple sheet, half of it text, the other half picture — it was an instant joy, six days a week, for non-readers too, with serious news and serious laughs. Most days with a full-page picture on page one. And every day with large art inside, drawn by professional artists. Still, every other New York daily or weekly either feared or hated ‘the coming revolution in typography and photography’ as a sour critic worded it at in January 1873.

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“Many requests have been made at various times that I should tell something of the first pictorial daily paper in the world — the New York Daily Graphic, but not until now has the opportunity been given to comply with these solicitations.” — Stephen H. Horgan in 1906, about his 10 years at The Daily Graphic
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SATIRE. On top of the daily news, the Daily Graphic surprised the New York public with graphic humor and satire in large visuals. Thanks to its clever Canadian printer-publisher founders, from 1873 to 1889 it was the only daily in the world to do so. Other dailies featured no pictures, or next to none, and humor only sparsely, never visual. By tradition — by technical restriction — by stubborn refusal. Since decades, the general news weeklies covered the market for pictures, although without satirical or humorous art. 
   

1873 [2] Graphic Statue No. 3. General Albert J. Myer (1828-80), founder of the Signal Corps and the Weather Service, standing in ancient Greek tunic under the twelve zodiacal signs, with a barometer, a watering can, a bag with the sun and a frog. ‘Graphic Statue No. 3 — Old Probabilities,’ a take on the Victorian cult of the statuette, full front-page art by Theo. Wust, in The Daily Graphic No. 7, Tuesday 11 March.

1873 [3] ‘Panic, as a Health Officer.’ Front-page detail by Bellew.

   
Launched the 4th of March 1873 in New York, in contrast with its refreshing new and large pictures, the text pages of the Daily Graphic were styled far from refreshing and identical to those in any other newspaper of the day. News composed in traditional ‘tombstoning’ style — grey, unbroken columns of tiny text with tiny headers — in endless repetition.
   

1875 [4] Prof. T. On his way to Lake Ngmnaggsdgsprwhang de Doodle Yikski (Hopkins picture story detail in a Frank Leslie’s weekly), 11 Dec.

1876 [5] The editor’s happy break. A scene in the Springfield Republican’s Editors Room. Titled: ‘Graphic Statue No. 61 — “At Last! At Last!” Singular effect produced on Sam Bowles by the nomination of Charles Francis Adams,’ a portrait of publisher-editor Samuel Bowles III (1826-78). Full front-page art by Theo. Wust, The Daily Graphic No. 1091, Tuesday 12 Sep. The paper’s series of Graphic Statues with satirical portraits of American vips and celebrities does continue for years, with portraits drawn by Wust and others.

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STONE AND METAL. As Stephen H. Horgan wrote it down in a short 1906 memoir, the never mentioned ‘secret’ of The Daily Graphic’s sharp look and rapid production since 1873 was that half of it was printed from metal and half of it from stone. Stone lithographs for all pictures. Metal letterpress for all text. All done in black line and black ink only. All pictures pen-drawn and photomechanically transferred to stone. No longer translated by human hand but by photography. No longer in parts but in one shot. With all reproduction matters taken care of by a specialized reproduction staff. With all lithographed pictures in the end product printed directly from stone on what was called quadruple sheets of paper, sheets with four pages on each side.

Whenever the Daily Graphic included an old-fashioned woodcut picture from elsewhere, it was simply photomechanically transferred to stone. Reprinted cartoons from British weeklies like Fun, Punch and Judy for example, duly bylined and titled ‘Recent English cartoons.’

NO PHOTO. Photographs in print could’t be comfortably done yet in the 1800s. Papers used hand-drawn pictures, most in pen, in line, in black and white, with tones or shadings either drawn in, hatched in, laid in — or ruled in by machine, with the aid of photomechanical methods.

Lithography or stone print arrived late, first done to perfection in the 1790s in Germany from thick slabs of limestone, stones laid flat, and placed face up in the bed of a printing press. The Daily Graphic never went larger than the size of its quadruple sheet. (Man-sized stones were available too). The lithographic stone with the Daily Graphic’s four picture pages grouped on it had a size close to 112 by 89 cm, or 44 by 35 inch, to fit four pages.

Photographic transfer of artwork to blocks of boxwood was already standard procedure since the 1870s. But wood engravers still had to cut out all their images by hand, painstakingly precise. And for various reasons, printing high press runs directly from wood wasn’t feasible. Solved by making duplicate printing plates (‘electrotypes’). All the same, wood required too much time for a daily.
   

1877 [6] ‘Terrors of the Telephone.’ Front-page detail by Wms, 15 March. 

1875 [7] Strip-like page. Looking for the source of the river Nile, Prof. T. travels by alligator, full-page picture story ‘Professor Tigwissel’s Trip Up The Nile.’ Text and pictures by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LH.’ Eight captioned pictures, placed over three columns to fill the page, handled like regular insets in a three-columned page and to be read vertically, following the columns. With some remaining spaces in the middle column filled up with textual jokes that have nothing to do with Hopkins’ picture story. Page 114 in Frank Leslie’s Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly, 11 Dec.

1870s [8] Granulated photographs. Portrait of Quebec print and publishing technician William Leggo (1830-1915). With his business partner George Desbarats (1838-93) founder of The Daily Graphic (1873), a paper they based in New York. In Canada in December 1864 — as ‘engravers, lithographers, and electrotypists’ — they applied for a patent on his ‘Leggotype,’ a photoelectrotyping process. In the following years, Leggo was one of the earliest to break up photographs by way of a screen to produce printable dots for halftone pictures in publishing, what he called ‘granulated photographs’ and patented under that name in June 1869, in Canada. William Leggo also was Horgan’s tutor.

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“The great steps taken by The Daily Graphic in the 70s and 80s (…) created a new field in journalism.” — William A. Murrell, in A History of American Graphic Humor, Vol. 2, 1938 
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OF CANADIAN ORIGIN. The Daily Graphic was the brainchild of two Quebeckers seen as foreign invaders, two multitalented print and publishing entrepreneurs from British North America (Canada), George Desbarats and William Leggo — in full: George-Édouard-Amable Desbarats and William Augustus Leggo, Jr. — who tried their luck in New York City. Preparing the launch of it, they set up their new Graphic Company at 39 & 41 Park Place in Manhattan, in a ‘leased (…) large marble and iron building’ nearby most of the city’s other papers around Park Row. Incorporated on 5 October 1872, the starting capital was substantial: half a million dollars in Canadian gold, soon raised to $750,000. Funded by venture capitalists, most from Montreal, Canada. Sir Francis Hincks, of Montreal, acted as president.
   

1870 [9] Canadian Illustrated News. ‘A Pantomime Party.’ Vol. I, No. 18, ‘Single copies, ten cents. $4 per year in advance.’ Illustrated front page for the issue of Saturday, 5 March. The Canadian Illustrated News was published weekly in Montreal, Canada, 1869-83, by George Desbarats with William Leggo as his engraver. Its French-language counterpart was the weekly L’Opinion publique (1870-83).

   
THE DAILY GRAPHIC. Ahead of its time, by bringing pictorial art and design to the fore in the 70s on a daily basis in New York — the country’s busiest newspaper city — the Daily Graphic did what no other daily dared to do until decades later. Each issue had sharply drawn pictures in larger sizes. As sketches or cartoons, with a satiric sting, or as straightforward news items. Single or in clusters. Sometimes as infographic or as comic strip.
   

1906 [10] The Inland Printer. (Subtitle: ‘The leading trade journal of the world in the printing and allied industries.’) The issue with Stephen H. Horgan’s first memoir of his days at The Daily Graphic, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 3, Dec 1906, pp. 359-368. This is an example of the magazine’s usual title design variations used as issue openers.

1895 [11] First-hand experience. Photo of Stephen Henry Horgan, who introduces himself as ‘one who gave ten years of his life to the preparation of the illustrations for The Daily Graphic’ — which ‘was a marvel of its time.’ In 1924 Horgan was awarded a medal for his exceptional achievements by AIGA, the American Institute of Graphic Arts.

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“The Daily Graphic’s method of getting pictures to press was simple, quick and cheap, the cost being but 1/4 cent a square inch. A process negative was made, as at present, and a print made from it on a bichromatized gelatin paper. This paper was coated with lithographic ink and developed, just as a zinc plate is now, by the albumen method. When dried the gelatin sheet with the picture in lithographic ink became a transfer ready for laying down on stone.” — Stephen H. Horgan, in The Inland Printer, Dec 1906
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1906 [12] The Inland Printer. Horgan’s article ‘The Origin and End of New York City’s “Daily Graphic.”’ Page 360, text page 1 of 3, illustrated with old front-page art by A.B. Frost and Clarence Grey-Parker.

1906 [13] The Inland Printer. Page 361, text page 2 of 3, illustrated with old front-page art by Charles D. Weldon and Fernando Miranda.

1906 [14] The Inland Printer. Page 362, text page 3 of 3.

   
VIVE LA FRANCE. The foundation and inspiration for the Daily Graphic’s main formula was laid four decades earlier in Paris, France, by the weekly satirical La Caricature (1830-35) and the daily satirical Le Charivari (1832-93). These papers used two different presses each — presses simultaneous in operation — and were partly printed from stone, as the future Daily Graphic in New York would be too. But the Paris papers were restricted to satire and did not cover all daily news, initially used no photography, had no full-page picture on their front, and could hardly be called pictorial papers.

La Caricature was no daily but a weekly: it used pictorial inserts only and came with one or more pictures folded in. Satirical lithographic prints with art by Daumier and others, directly hand-drawn on stone.

Le Charivari was a daily, used woodcut for its title design, and had just one pictorial page inside with a full-page satirical drawing printed in from lithographic stone. Still, it managed to publish such a large drawing printed from stone on a daily basis for sixty years on end, seven days a week — ‘Publiant Chaque Jour un Nouveau Dessin’ — as a prospectus worded it. All in black ink only. Printed copies colored in by hand were sporadically produced.
   

1906 [15] The Inland Printer. Page 364, with old front-page art by A.B. Frost and Charles D. Weldon.

   
OVER 5,100 ISSUES. In New York City, some forty years later in 1873, The Daily Graphic with a page height of 56 cm (22 inch) was seriously larger in size, featured poster-like full front-page art and more large pictures inside, all done in a single black — and supplied the daily news with it in letterpress. Technically half of it originated from stone, half of it originated from metal. Something it kept up for over sixteen years in 5,129 daily issues. A truly daily myriorama. Over the sixteen years of its existence — a respectable number of years which at least points to some success — nothing is known about circulation numbers, or the volume of the paper’s printing plant. At the very beginning, the month before it started, The Chicago Tribune, in its New York Letter of 13 Feb, 1873, reported: ‘they can make their journal pay with a daily circulation of ten thousand, though they expect one much larger.’ 

A press run of up to 10,000 copies per day in the early 1870s for a New York newspaper was modest. (The number may have been mentioned by outsiders to belittle the enterprise.) A drop in the ocean compared to the daily circulation numbers papers would have towards the end of the century — when the printers and presses of editor-publishers like Pulitzer and Hearst managed to produce hundreds of thousands of sensational newspapers a day, tons of it — and sensationally illustrated too. Thanks to the latest modern presses, and thanks to the Daily Graphic’s inspiration.

The Daily Graphic’s printing from stone for the visuals could be impeccable, but the printing from metal type for the text on the reverse side of the pages often produced a strike-through in relief, especially the closing points could force themselves through the page.
   

1906 [16] The Inland Printer. Page 365, with old front-page art by Walter Shirlaw and Charles D. Weldon.

   
The lavishly illustrated Daily Graphic of the 70s and 80s was an expensive daily at five cents a copy — most other New York dailies sold for less. On its front it said: ‘All the News. Four Editions Daily. $12 Per Year in Advance. Single Copies, Five Cents.’ 

Fairly high-priced, but a speciality product, often a visual treat. From early 1873 on a New York public able to spend six pennies per week on it was delighted and surprised by extra-large and new graphic art and a good laugh in its daily newspaper. Most components of the later American Sunday supplement with cartoons and comic strips of the late 1890s are already present. The size. The surprise. The satire. The news. The pictures. The strips. The mix. The fun. The sheer abundance. The sixteen years since 1873 would never look old-fashioned again. 

In the visual category the Daily Graphic ruled for ages — among the smaller papers probably, but no doubt closely guarded and studied by every competitor — and was consequently ostracized, nary ever given its proper place in American press history. 

Some comic strips were included over the years, almost casual. Livingston Hopkins realized a daily comic strip series in 1874-75 in which he put talk in balloons. And he did full-page strips with the same lead character, Professor Tigwissel, who was also featured as ‘Prof. T.’ and as Professor Simple. But a single name or form for such stories was still in the future. 
   

1906 [17] The Inland Printer. Page 365, with old front-page art by Livingston Hopkins and Fernando Miranda.

   
Its local competitors retarded the introduction of pictures in their dailies while the technical means to do it on a daily basis were still lacking, and hated the intruders. Stephen Henry Horgan (at 79), the printing expert who in his youth worked ten years for the Graphic Company in 1875-85 — of which about three years as pupil of co-founder and engraver Leggo — even told the British Penrose Annual in 1933 that the Daily Graphic was: ‘…ignored by its contemporaries because it was a mystery to them and they were fearful that its success might cultivate a taste for pictures among newspaper readers, which came a generation later.’ 
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“OUR CUTS TALK — The Picture Tells Its Own Story.” — 1906 advertising slogan of The Williamson-Haffner Company & The United States Colortype Company in Denver, Colorado. ‘Designers, engravers, and general printers, ‘All Under One Management.’
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Technically, Horgan also saw the Daily Graphic with its early use of photographic reproduction processes via stone as very modern, which it certainly was: the overlooked prototype of offset printing that would grow into a worldwide standard in the twentieth century. 

Dramatic, cultural, political, comical or satirical, a variety of eager now sometimes forgotten artists worked for the Daily Graphic in a diversity of styles. Lots of spirited work was produced by the best of them, no doubt inspired and on a high by the sharp and large perfection that lithographic stone printing offered. Apart from humor and satire and news it also featured sharp social commentary on its front pages, including racial issues. And cross-Atlantic influences certainly played a role. In style and concept the Daily Graphic was obviously inspired by earlier French and English papers in smaller sizes, especially those satirical. Papers partly printed from lithographic stone included — but all such earlier ones were published weekly, with only the rare exception of Charles Philipon’s unique series of weeklies in Paris in the 1830s.
   

1880s [18] Reproduction room. Interior with repro men transferring artwork for the Daily Graphic. (A later photo maybe.)

   
HENRY CARTER aka FRANK LESLIE. Further inspiration came from a well-known illustrated weekly like The Illustrated London News (1842) where Englishman Henry Carter learned his craft overseeing the engraving department, before he settled in New York City in 1848 and under the name Frank Leslie launched a wide range of successful weeklies such as Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (1855), Frank Leslie’s Budget of Fun (1859) and Frank Leslie’s Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly (1866). Followed by the weekly Harper’s Bazar (1867, subtitled: ‘Repository of Fashion, Pleasure, and Instruction’). All had woodcut or wood-engraved pictures only, as did the latest English weekly newspaper, newcomer The Graphic (1869), a weekly which had a slightly larger page height of 40 cm (15 3/4 inch). Frank Leslie’s papers visually came closest to what the Daily Graphic did in the 70s. Pages of comic strips looted from foreign sources appeared in Frank Leslie’s Budget of Fun and Frank Leslie’s Boys’ and Girls’ Weekly. But none of these papers could ever do it daily like the Daily Graphic in New York did.

1873 [19] Monster of Centralizations. ‘The Cephalopod or Terrestrial Devil Fish.’ Front-page art by Frank Bellew, The Daily Graphic, March. Corporate greed in US businesses of the 1800s is often illustrated with sinister octopuses.

   
Much in all those weeklies was serious or stiff, but master engravers on occasion managed to realize some realism and liveliness. Pictures nor headlines in larger sizes didn’t enter US newspapers until the 1890s, and once it did slowly start, not on a large scale for years.

In newspaper production of the 1870s the Daily Graphic in New York was a rare bird with its relief printing from metal type for text, and its lithographic stone printing for line-drawn pictures — a cumbersome process. But minute detail in incredibly fine lines could be reproduced that way: do take a closer look at the hair-lined flourishes of its title design on top of the earliest front pages — a.o. in our picture [2]. 

The Daily Graphic’s USP’s were many: 1/ the extra-large size, 2/ the daily newspaper finally with illustrations, 3/ the full front-page art, what we would now call a magazine-like or poster-like cover, 4/ all illustrations hand-drawn, and photomechanically transferred to large thick slabs of lithographic stone which in continued daily — and probably nightly — print shifts were used to print directly from. 

The hair-lined flourishes of its title design on top of the earlier front pages were soon removed, probably to speed up production. 
   

1880s [20] LHop and Bricktop. Photo of George Small and Livingston Hopkins. Red hair — associated with Irish, carroty, red stone bricks — in the case of Wild Oats editor George C. Small (1835-86) led to the pen names ‘That Brick’ and ‘Bricktop.’

   
BIGHEAD STYLE. Full front-page drawings graced most Daily Graphic issues, many funny or satirical. Since the 1800s comically drawn bighead vips were already traditional shown in satirical papers in Europe with big heads, which turned into a genre. It was very present in America too as a staple style, in political satire for example. Jimmy Swinnerton had fun with it in the 1890s, David Levine excelled in it in the New York Review of Books in the 1960s. It also led to the word ‘bighead’ for a conceited or arrogant person.
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“I was a budding cartoonist on the Daily Graphic in 1881 when that paper was the only illustrated daily in New York. Newspapers had not begun to publish pictures, and Thomas Nast reigned supreme as the master cartoonist of the country. 
     Harper’s Weekly turned up its dignified nose at this little upstart of a paper, and Leslie’s Weekly sneered at its impudence. The idea of an illustrated daily! At all events, it did very nicely for a spell, but when the daily newspapers began to use pictures it gave a few convulsive gasps and died.” — E.W. Kemble, opening his personal memoir ‘Illustrating Huckleberry Finn’ (Mark Twain’s book, 1884-85), in The Colophon, Feb 1930
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PICTURE CLUSTERS. The Daily Graphic’s large pictorial front pages — especially those with clusters of pictures, cartoons, comic scenes, pictorial observations — set the model for the later gush of large Sunday and many other illustrated supplements of the New York dailies, decades later, in the 1890s, when it all became technically possible. (An extra boost in the 90s was the spectacular color explosion in newspaper supplements of several dailies on the East coast, but that was still a long way off in the 1870s.) 

The Daily Graphic was America’s first daily newspaper for readers with a like for pictures, maybe even for readers with a preference for the image over the word. Although no contributor himself, sharp-witted writer Mark Twain immediately liked it in 1873.
   

1872 [21] Plot Thickens. ‘A Romance As Is A Romance; Or A Story Without Words.’ Full-page comic strip on page 13 of the weekly Wild Oats No. 26 by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘L Y Hopkins,’ 14 March.

   
The Daily Graphic featured real comic stories on its front page, like those by writer-artist Livingston Yourtu Hopkins (b. 1846). Almost a century later, in the 1960s, historian Clark Kinnaird with research associate Ralph Hollenbeck was glad to point to Hopkins’ series starring the thin-legged Professor Tigwissel, in a brief historic overview in Kinnaird’s 1968 book — Rube Goldberg vs. The Machine Age. Illustrated with a reprint of Hopkins’ strip ‘Professor Tigwissel’s Burglar Alarm,’ originally published on page one of the Daily Graphic, 11 Sep 1875 — see it in the size in which it was originally published in picture [44]. 

All that was needed to produce the paper’s pictures was prominently displayed in the Daily Graphic’s title design: a printing press on the left (pictured is the one to print text, a ‘Lightning’ press), and a camera in front of two telegraph poles on the right (symbols for photographic reproduction and the future possibilities of news by wire, a specific interest of Desbarats and Leggo).
   

1873 [22] Graphic Statue No. 17. ‘The Woman Who Dared,’ a portrait of feminist and presidential candidate Susan B. Anthony, with in the background a glimpse of the early feminist movement — or a spoof of it — with young women marching and protesting with self-lettered soapboxes elevated on sticks, and one of their banners lettered: ‘I may do all that to become a man’, full front-page art by Theo. Wust, The Daily Graphic No. 81, Thursday 5 June.

PUCK’S PICTURE PARTS. The Daily Graphic predated Keppler and Schwarzmann’s later New York Puck weekly by three and a half to four years. (Shortly after Adolph Schwarzmann started his printing company in 1875, a first issue of the German-language Puck appeared in Sep 1876, the English-language Puck followed in March 1877.) But they went for a much smaller, more compact magazine size, and for crayon, for more grained and less polished limestone — and from 1879 on, even for weekly color — which took years to organize and prettify. Main contributor, cartoonist and art director Jos. Keppler, had a personal preference for handwork with his nose and crayon to the stone, a method he never left. Puck took a full week to produce its picture parts from the start, eventually Keppler insisted on full color — for which color separations on four or more stones per picture had to be rendered by hand. 

[The following two sentences are corrected with new information historian Richard Samuel West sent us early March 2018. Thanks!] 

Puck weekly seems to have updated or modernized its production process late. It is fairly certain Puck in New York abandoned stone lithography in 1906, when Ottmann Lithographing Company moved out of the Puck Building and severed its connection with the magazine.
   

1873 [23] March of the Cholera. Telegraphic Dispatches signal the spread of cholera in the US, In Memphis 59 deaths… Nashville… Cincinnati… Pittsburgh… Washington… Philadelphia… Full front-page art by Theo. Wust, The Daily Graphic No. 90. Wednesday 18 June.

   
NO TIME. Out of necessity the Daily Graphic kept the crayon and grainy effects to a minimum and skipped any handwork or coloring — there simply was no time for it on a daily basis. The paper used the smoothest type of grained and polished lithographic stone for the clearest reproduction, exactly what the offset plate in the next century would offer. Leggo had already tackled translations into halftones which took away the need for very grainy stone or drawing directly on stone, photographically reproduced crayoned effects on Bristol board did the trick. As if it was offset printing, the smooth stone printed the look of the grainy stone. Even more dazzling: in the Daily Graphic way an existing stone litho print could also be reproduced in perfect facsimile. 

Keppler’s weekly steadily grew into a vast factory — and his Puck in the end stole the limelight with color for a while — but the Daily Graphic was more modern (more willing to be modern), larger, and daily, and was there first, years earlier, printed from stone. 
   

1873 [24] ‘Humors of…’ This full front-page written and designed as a picture cluster by Clarence Grey-Parker can easily be seen as a comic strip of genius, The Daily Graphic No. 101, Saturday 28 June (cropped art).

But Jos. Keppler couldn't stand to take second place and conveniently remained vague about the Daily Graphic as every other New York paper did. On Keppler’s first cover for his English-language Puck of 14 March 1877, still in black and white, he pictured the other New York publishers and editors as chickens. With his Puck cherub joining them as the only human. And with David Croly, editor of his greatest example and largest competitor The Daily Graphic, drawn as a chicken. Seen from the back. With the ‘Daily’ in the Graphic’s title left out. 

In stark contrast with the camera and printing press which the Daily Graphic showed since 1873, Joseph Keppler, in his own 1877 title design prominently pictured his half-naked Puck cherub holding his oversized old-fashioned pencil-holder or porte-crayon as a knight holds his lance. Puck’s title design further showed a lithographic stone, drawing tools, books, an ink bottle, a quill pen, and four dwarf cherubs dressed in the words ‘Thought,’ ‘Wit,’ ‘Fancy,’ and ‘Mirth.’ It also left out any reference to ‘weekly.’ 
   

1873 [25] Resolutions of ’93. ‘A Scene in Dame Columbia’s Kitchen.’ Full front-page art by Bellew, The Daily Graphic No. 132, Tuesday 5 Aug.

   
SECRET PROCESS. The Daily Graphic pictures of 1873-89 were still called ‘cuts’ or ‘engravings’ but nothing was cut or engraved in wood or metal. By means of a so-called secret photolithographic process — a red herring for competitors, skipping wood and electrotype was the main secret — all line-drawn artwork was captured by reproduction camera only, transferred to, and directly printed from lithographic stone. Gone were the interference of the woodcutter, the cutting around lines, the translated line, the mirrored image, the writing in reverse, the ever-lurking stiff look, and the tiled segments for large-sized artwork. Stones could even be reused. 

In the jungle of printing terms Horgan personally defined it as: ‘photolithography = Producing printing images on stone by photography. Making lithographic transfers by photography.’ At the Daily Graphic’s printing plant fat slabs of polished and grained limestone were used for it. Identical to lithography as it was first done in the late 1790s. The photolithography of the 1870s was realized with a large glass-plate camera, water, paper, ink, some chemicals and a printing press. Printing could be done by hand press, by horse-driven press, or by steam-driven press — and in the future with a press powered by electricity — but for the Daily Graphic it was still steam. The use of stone made for rather slow printing though. Twentieth century ‘offset printing’ — with the inked image first transferred from a zinc printing plate to a rubber sheet around a cylinder, and then offset onto the paper — became the faster and cheaper alternative. In printing terms, especially a label like ‘lithography’ is confusing. While the term lithography became used for practically everything.
   

1873 [26] All The News and Full of Pictures. On 10 september the Graphic Balloon will be launched. A curtain-raiser ad read: ‘The Daily Graphic — The Great Illustrated Daily Newspaper. All The News and Full of Pictures. Published Every Evening. For Sale Everywhere. To Europe in Sixty Hours. The Great Trans-Atlantic Balloon Expedition. Fitted Out by The Daily Graphic.’ A stunt sponsored by the Daily Graphic. As it turned out a dramatically failed attempt, worsened by the financial panic of 1873. Page-wide illustration by S. Fox.

1873 [27] Professor Simple. ‘The Baseless Fabric of a Vision,’ page-wide comic strip by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHop,’ The Daily Graphic No. 133, Wednesday 6 Aug. In the first picture the Professor has been reading the special balloon issue.

1873 [28] Balloon text. Front page of The Balloon Graphic No. 1. (subtitled: ‘An Extra Number of The Daily Graphic’). ‘The Great Transatlantic Balloon Expedition of “The Daily Graphic,” Fully Described, with Illustrations from the Plans of the Aeronauts. / The balloon in which Professor John Wise and Mr. W.H. Donaldson intend to cross the Atlantic Ocean.’ The title design already showed the Graphic Balloon above the Atlantic but it never got there, neither took Mr. Wise part. This issue is a one-off, since the balloon project failed within four hours — a Connecticut crash — while still above the American continent. The financial losses were huge. With full front-page picture. Saturday 9 Aug. 

   
The paper was printed on two different presses on an all-rag paper (a better quality than the modern wood-pulp paper that became available in the 1870s). Once the picture side of the sheet was printed from stone on a flatbed press, after the paper was dry enough, the text side of the sheet was printed from metal type on another press. 

LIGHTNING PRESS. In the words of Stephen H. Horgan — ‘the four-page news side was printed from type direct on a Hoe “Lightning” press, one of the marvels of the time.’ He referred to the ‘type revolving’ machine popular with Canadian newspapers since the 1860s, a rotary press that printed from flat type formes on hand-fed sheets of paper. A machine like the one shown in The Daily Graphic’s title design. A four-feeder that required four men to operate it. Men or boys acted as layers-on, while, simultaneously and like clockwork, others took off the sheets. 

The ‘secret’ lithographic press for the Daily Graphic’s pictures was kept behind closed doors.
   

1873 [29] The Coal Monopoly. Full front-page art by Frank Bellew, ‘The Railroad Combination Monster Guarding the Mouth of the Coal Mine,’ The Daily Graphic No. 158, Thursday 4 Sep. The ‘iron horse’ is a common nickname for steam locomotives at the time.

   
COMICS BY LHOP. When the world of the American strip was still an undefined no-man’s land, Livingston Hopkins made a series of spirited comic strips for The Daily Graphic, see below for samples from the 1873-82 years. Hopkins also worked for the weekly Wild Oats in 1871-76 (the ‘wild oats’ of the title referred to the follies and faux pas of youth, a paper subtitled: ‘Weekly Journal of Fun, Satire and Burlesque,’ and advertised as ‘The Champion Comic Paper’). His repertoire was limited and he was clearly inspired by comics in Central European periodicals, in particular by the London comic character of ‘Ally Sloper’ (1867, by Charles Ross, and later by Marie Duval, issued as books too). For some years Hopkins drew in similar styles, probably copied some of it. Redrawn swipes were common at the time. Up to 1883 — when Hopkins emigrated with wife and children to Australia or ‘New Holland’ — LHop work appeared in the weeklies The Button Burster, Wild Oats and Judge, and in The Daily Graphic. In New York also in translation in the German-language weekly Schnedderedengg (advertised as ‘The Best and Only Humorous German Illustrated Paper’ and issued by the Wild Oats publishers).

One of LHop’s full-pagers was set in the offices of the Daily Graphic, where on a hot day a bunch of artists was hard at work. In another comic LHop pictured a college student with a stack of books at his feet that showed a copy of one of Rodolphe Töpffer’s books published in Switzerland and France in 1836-44, written and illustrated in comical style — his ‘accounts of hiking in mountain ranges across central Europe, his “zigzags”’ (in Töpffer’s artwork also spelled ‘ZIG-ZAG’ and ‘ZIG ZAG’).
   

1873 [30] ‘Happy New Year To All — Spirit of ’76.’ A strip-like picture cluster, half of it done in silhouettes, that definitely shows the influence in the mixture of text, type and visual common to the British comic hero ‘Ally Sloper,’ as drawn by C.H. Ross and later on by his wife Marie Duval. Full front-page feature written and drawn by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHopkins,’ The Daily Graphic No. 259, Friday 31 Dec.

   
CAMERA-READY PASTE-UPS. For Daily Graphic comics in the 1870s, the text in letterpress placed inside the page usually consisted of just some brief lines or paragraphs. When not penned in by hand, the writer-artists had such typeset text — most of it in the form of captions, rhymes, etc. — proofed on paper first. With scissors their texts could then be cut out scrapbook-like and pasted onto the original artwork — in any angle the designer or artist preferred. (But a repro from a repro, which, when done too careless or too speedy, caused some of it to be fuzzy now and then while not every Daily Graphic was printed perfect.) Which at the time was revolutionary. The finished camera-ready art could then be photographed in one take. Such pasted-in blocks of letterpress text could show up too vague or too fat, and in places could also blot out parts of the drawing. Picture [34] with LHop’s comic ‘Tales of the Comet’ (1874) is a good one to clearly see proof that in New York in the 1870s the original comic art for stories in words and pictures was already prepared as a modern camera-ready paste-up. The same goes for picture [51] in which Professor T.’s text-quote table is another clear example. Camera-ready paste-ups on board, done in the exact same method as when I started as a designer about a century later.

Typeset lines or columns of text in regular letterpress — produced as movable type in segmental chases with rounded backs which earned them the printer’s name ‘turtles’ — were later printed in. 
   

1873 [31] For Young Ladies. ‘Grass Hopper Twisting In All Its Forms’ — a page-wide picture cluster that reads like a comic strip, text and art by Clarence Grey-Parker, The Daily Graphic. Exact issue to be retrieved.

   
The paper called itself an ‘evening’ paper. The first copies of the three to four editions a day hit the New York streets in the course of the afternoon. In the final daily press runs, the paper could have a different front-page caption. It also issued a weekly edition but we haven’t seen any of those yet. 
   

1873 [32] Wall Street shuffle. ‘Panic, as a Health Officer, Sweeping the Garbage Out of Wall Street,’ full front-page art by Bellew, The Daily Graphic No.179, Monday 29 Sep. Zoom in to see the page in full, in the actual size it was published in.

   
The Daily Graphic was a large-sized paper, initially issued as 8 daily pages, printed on a single sheet, with four pages of 56 cm high on each side, initially produced as a picture side and a news-text side, six days per week, never on Sunday. Half as picture-pages with some text and often extra-large drawings, and half of them as grey text-pages with tiny headers. 

To puff their own paper, size and large front-page picture, the front pages of Daily Graphic issues were often featured in its own front-page art, as a picture-in-a-picture. As held up, piled up, or trampled upon issues. A common way of product placement in printed advertising of the 1800s.
   

1874 [33] Female Dress Reform. ‘Our Artist’s Sketches at the Dress Reform Convention at Vineland, N.J.,’ a full front-page written and designed as a satirical picture cluster by Clarence Grey-Parker, The Daily Graphic No. 279, Saturday 24 Jan (cropped art).

   
NO INDEX, NO COLLECTION. In the sixteen-and-a-half years of its existence, with several changes in ownership, a total of 5,129 issues was published. (Vol. 1, no. 1, March 4, 1873, to Vol. 50, no. 5129, September 23, 1889.) But librarians and historians still mislabel them (‘wood engraving … unverified, old data’), nobody ever indexed them, and no substantial collection of them is available, plus, reproducing such large pages continues to be a major stumbling block. A mixed blessing is that original pages, tear sheets from cut-up bound volumes, are widely on offer. 

Several artists continued to make pen-drawn imitations in old woodcut styles. Alexander Zenope from Armenia for example, ‘developed a pen handling that was midway between the contemporary woodcut and free pen drawing which artist usually use,’ in Horgan’s words. Canadian author Palmer Cox — before his ‘Brownies’ took off in 1883 — saw his earliest work reproduced in The Daily Graphic, work he sent in by mail. 
   

1874 [34] Looking for the Comet. ‘Professor Simple reads up about Comets, and resolves to startle the world with his own discoveries.’ Full front-page comic strip ‘Tales of the Comet’ by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHop,’ The Daily Graphic No. 417, Wednesday 8 July. The closing picture shows an overexcited publisher James Gordon Bennett Jr. on the roof of his New York Herald building (cropped art).

   
STAFF AND PAY. In 1873-78 The Daily Graphic’s initial editor was David Croly, who learned his trade at New York’s famed daily newspaper The World — long before Joseph Pulitzer acquired it. The Graphic’s managing directors were Charles Goodsell and James Goodsell. A later editor in 1882-85 was Isaac M. Gregory, who went on to work for Judge magazine. 

A pre-1876 prospectus for investors in the Graphic Company listed some salaries, without further details who and when earned them:
—
Chief editor’s salary, $5,000
Assistant editor, $3,000
Art editor, $4,000
Reporting editor, $3,000 — TOTAL $15,000

Chief artist’s salary, $6,000
Assistant artist, $5,000
Two artists, $6,000 — TOTAL $17,000
—

1874 [35] Belated Birthday Greetings. ‘A Medley About Washington’s Birthday,’ about the Spirit of ’76 and the spirit of a century later, (George Washington, born 22 Feb 1732, first US President 1789-97): ‘I Did It With My Little Hatchet.’ A full front-page picture cluster by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHop,’ The Daily Graphic No. 302, Monday 23 Feb (cropped art).

1875 [36] Shape and size of the cranium. ‘Our artist (…) took off his wig and had his head examined — phrenologically.’ Detail of comic strip, pseudo self-portrait by Livingston Hopkins. The Daily Graphic No. 608, Monday 22 Feb.

—
“Hopkins’ style was a chameleon, changing from year-to-year according to whomever he was being influenced by at that moment.” — Doug Wheeler, comic maker and historian, 2003
—
COURTING DISASTER. The two Canadian entrepreneurs around 1870, ‘planned to publish newspapers simultaneously in different cities, using leggotype facsimiles and telegraphic retransmission,’ New York City they chose in 1872-73 because, it is said, Desbarats thought they could easily sell a print run of 50,000 in that city. But once they went for the big one there, due to various miscalculations, they soon split. Desbarats stayed only until the summer of 1873, went back home desperate, and on 31 May 1875 was personally declared bankrupt. 

Leggo is said to have continued his work and experiments at the Daily Graphic, but was back in Montreal by 1879 and then faded away. Court cases and some bad press had plagued the paper. But still, the pioneering pictorial daily paper the two Canadians started so early continued for well over sixteen years. Do read Stephen H. Horgan’s personal memoir in facsimile in our present pictures [10], [11] and [12].

Or the headline above a report from a correspondent of competing newspaper The Sun, 29 Dec 1876: ‘A Disastrous Experiment in Illustrated Journalism — Great Expectations, But half a Million of Loss the Result.’ With in a brief report, ‘…Desbarais is a tonguey, enthusiastic fellow, and by his energy and eloquence the capital was soon raised … stocks now worthless…’
   

1875 [37] Boyton’s achievements. The Professor, ‘having read of Paul Boyton’s achievements in the life-saving apparatus line — is fired with a lofty ambition to outdo him if possible,’ full front-page comic strip ‘Professor Tigwissel’s Life-Saving Apparatus,’ by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHopkins,’ The Daily Graphic No. 692, Friday 28 May (cropped art).

LIFE-SAVING APPARATUS. Paul Boynton (1848-1924) who made a career in swimming adventures, in 1873-75 was captain of the first life-saving service in Atlantic City, New Jersey, a period in which he ‘was personally responsible for saving seventy-one people’ and ‘not a single person drowned.’ He also experimented with new life-saving equipment.
   

1875 [38] “The Day We Celebrate.” For tomorrow’s Independence Day, ‘The Glorious 4th’ of July. Full front-page comic designed as a picture cluster by Livingston Hopkins who turns it into a tribute by signing it with ‘John Hancock — per LHop,’ The Daily Graphic No. 723, Saturday July 3. American statesman John Hancock (1737-93) was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

   
LEGGO LET GO. Two Canadians ahead of their time, Desbarats and Leggo, gave the final push to the modern American newspaper supplement. New York City’s Daily Graphic was the largest stepping stone to the future Sunday and other supplements of the American dailies. For example, future editor-publisher William Randolph Hearst was an early Daily Graphic follower since his Harvard University years in 1882-86. And in the 90s, as the editor-publisher of his own daily papers — in San Francisco The Examiner (since March 1887) and in New York The Journal (since Nov 1895, and a little later as New York Journal from Sep 1896 on) — dares to break the mold of the standard grey-columned front pages with sometimes page-high art. For example with wild work by Homer Davenport and Jimmy Swinnerton.

Young Hearst was given his first paper by his millionaire father after years of begging and in the mid 80s made up his mind about what illustrations could do in papers. He considered the Examiner a poorly made paper run by editors he asked his father to dismiss, wording it — while still a Harvard University student — in a late 1885 letter home as: ‘our miserable little sheet’ (with) ‘imbecility so detestable’ (especially in) ‘the illustrations, if you may call them such, which have lately disfigured the paper, (...) pictures of repulsive deformity.’ 

So, somebody tried out some crude picture cuts in the Examiner, and young Hearst — not yet in charge — shot them off as early as 1885, two years before he was given the paper.
—

1870s [39] The four-page news side. A view of half of The Daily Graphic’s quadruple sheet, its text side. This is how most daily newspapers looked in style and layout for most of the 1800s, with headers nor pictures and no white. For the often superbly illustrated Daily Graphic in New York City a style still adopted in the 70s and 80s for its four-page text side with the latest news.

1873 [40] Quadruple sheet. The New York Herald had WHOLE NO. and QUADRUPLE SHEET proudly bannered on its front page, while 8 pages of daily news was a massive number then. Issued as a single, very large sheet of paper, printed in two separate press runs, one side of four pages at a time, it was given the name ‘quadruple sheet.’ A size and style that led to the printers’ nickname ‘blankets.’ Readers often had to cut open the top themselves. It gave the public a massive number of words to read per day and wasted no space on headers or pictures. In this specific issue, by lack of larger type for larger headlines, advertisers built them up themselves in patterns of smaller type — needlepoint embroidery-style in diagonal stitch — and were even allowed to crowd the front page with them. Uncut sheet of the Sunday 9 Nov issue of The New York Herald, a ‘blanket.’

— 
“We must be alarmingly enterprising, and we must be startlingly original. (...) There are some things that I intend to do, new and striking, which will constitute a revolution in the sleepy journalism of the Pacific slope.” — William R. Hearst, in his first week as a newspaper owner, in an 1887 letter home to Papa Hearst
—
Last October, John Adcock’s find, of at least an eyewitness account from 1906 about the Daily Graphic’s stone printing technique, ignited the present article. 

FIRST PICTURES. Enjoy this first selection of pictures — some go back 144 years. Sometimes as cropped art which is all we have at present. Most pictures are NOT facsimiles — do always check and compare with the original printed product. We have only seen a fraction of the 5,129 daily issues once published. This is just a first reconnaissance. Obviously, over the sixteen years of its existence, in style as well as production the Daily Graphic had its ups and downs. And some pictures shown here are too fuzzy or too small. But in the larger scans presented here do zoom up to the size and detail they had when published in the 1870s and 80s. Check by clicking.
   

1875 [41] North pole discovered. While experimenting in his ice-box, ‘One hot day it occurred to Professor Tigwissel to discover the North Pole,’ full front-page comic strip ‘Professor Tigwissel’s Arctic Experience,’ by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHopkins,’ The Daily Graphic No. 743, Wednesday 28 July.

1875 [42] Love’s Young Dream. ‘Midsummer Musings. By Our Cynical Artist,’ page-wide picture cluster by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHopkins,’ The Daily Graphic No. 752, Saturday 7 Aug.

—
THE DAILY GRAPHIC (New York 1873-89)

LIST OF ARTIST-AUTHOR NAMES & SIGNATURES

b
Bellew / F.B. / Frank Bellew
H.J. Botthof
Walter F. Brown (or Walter W. Brown)

c 
G.E. Ciani / GCiani (?) [from Italy]
Coultaus / Henry C. Coultaus / H.C. Coultaus
Palmer Cox [from British Canada]
Cusachs / Ph. G. Cusachs [‘…lightning sketch artist,’ from New Orleans, Louisiana] 

d 
L. Dalrymple / Louis Dalrymple
F.O.C. Darley
Frank V. Dumond [‘…painter…’]
   

1875 [43] Queer people. This year’s ‘Dress Reform Convention at Vineland, N.J.’ inspires Clarence Grey-Parker to another cluster of satirical sketches of males and females and their ideas about outfits, The Daily Graphic No. 758, Saturday 14 Aug (cropped art).

1875 [44] The Tigwissel apparatus. Alarmed by Daily Graphic reports, the Professor ‘resolves to protect his own household at all hazards,’ full front-page comic strip ‘Professor Tigwissel’s Burglar Alarm,’ by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHop,’ The Daily Graphic No. 782, Saturday 11 Sep.

   
f
Feggin
S. Fox
A.B. Frost / Arthur Burdett Frost / f / F. / ABF. / A.B. FROST [from Philadelphia]

g
Bernhard Gillam
Grey-Parker / Clarence Grey-Parker / C.G. PARKER / occasionally signed in American spelling as ‘Gray-Parker’ [from London, England]

h
Grant Hamilton / C.H. [from Ohio]
G. Hartt (?)
Hooper [possibly: Will Hooper]
LHop / Livingston York Yourtee Hopkins (another shorter version is given as Livingston Yourtu Hopkins) / L.Y. Hopkins / LH / LHopkins [from Ohio]

k 
E.W. Kemble / E.W.K. / Edward Winsor Kemble
Kendrick/Charles Kendrick / Chas. Kendrick]
   

1875 [45] The Tigwissel Stone. ‘Burglar Alarm’ is mentioned again on what looks like a mysterious litho stone, was it used in a New York art project? Posted online on 12 September 2014 by My Poetry on a site called My Student Style. Lithographic stone can be used more than once. Erased, cleaned and repolished, virgin stone can be used again and again. All Hopkins comics in the Daily Graphic of the 1870s were directly printed from stone, an aspect the creator of these scribblings plays with.

1875 [46] Voting advice. ‘The Graphic’s Advice to the Intelligent Voter,’ a full front-page feature, this time written and designed as a poster satire by A.B. Frost, The Daily Graphic No. 826, Tuesday 2 Nov.

   
l
Arthur Lumley

m 
Fernando Miranda / MIRANDA [‘sculptor, confrère of the illustrious Vierge, of Spain’]

o
F. Opper / Frederick Burr Opper / F.B. Opper / F.O. 

p 
Piquet / R. Piquet [from Paris, France]
H.V. Poland [or H.M. Poland] / HVP 

r 
C.S. Rigby / Clarence S. Rigby
W.A. Rogers / William Allen Rogers

s 
Henry Sandham [from British Canada] 
A.B. Shults / Albert B. Shults / occasionally signed ‘Shultz’
Walter Shirlaw
Sylvester
   

1875 [47] City Treasury Dream. ‘And Not a Censor? — Father Knickerbocker’s Dream of Cato,’ with his desk invaded by little people, full front-page art, The Daily Graphic No. 831, Monday 8 Nov. 

1875 [48] Newspaper war. ‘What The World Said About The Times,’ page-wide comic strip by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHop,’ The Daily Graphic No. 839, Wednesday 17 Nov.

   
t
Charles Jay Taylor / C.J. Taylor
Thure de Thulstrup / T. de Thulstrup

w 
Wm. Walter
Weldon / Charles D. Weldon
Wms [possibly: True Williams ]
M.A. Woolf / Michael Angelo Woolf [from London, England]
Theodore Wust / Theo. Wust / Th Wust / ThW / Th W. / TW / Wust [from Paris, France]

z
Alexander Zenope [from Armenia, who ‘developed a pen handling that was midway between the contemporary woodcut and free pen drawing which artist usually use’]

&c
Plus, as S.H. Horgan worded it in 1933, ‘an equally large group of peripatetic artists.’
—
“The Examiner. It abounds in Graphic Illustrations of Every Striking Event of the Day.” — Harvard University student William R. Hearst, as copywriter for an 1886 ad for his father’s paper 
—

1875 [49] Jailbreak by balloon. ‘Official Report of the Escape of Tweed,’ front page with half-page comic strip by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHopkins,’ The Daily Graphic No. 860, Saturday 11 Dec.

1875 [50] Tweed-Tweed, Here we are again. ‘Tribulations and Triumphs of the Tammany Ring’ and the notorious ultra-corrupt local politician ‘Boss Tweed,’ full front-page art by A.B. Frost, The Daily Graphic No. 864, New York, Thursday 16 Dec.

HERE WE ARE AGAIN. ‘Here we are again!’ was the famous entering cry for Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837), a brilliantly inventive clown in English pantomime, known to the trade as Joey Grimaldi.

1876 [51] Condition improving. ‘Professor Tigwissel’s Experiences with New Forces in Nature,’ page-wide comic strip by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHop,’ The Daily Graphic No. 881, Monday 10 Jan. To create the Professor’s text-quote table in the second picture, Hopkins just pasted a newspaper clipping on its side. 

1876 [52] The Professor starts a paper. ‘Which is to be in the interests of everybody in general and nobody in particular, yclept the Centennial Clasher’ (in the text) and the ‘Centennial Crasher’ (in the pictures). Full front-page comic strip ‘Professor Tigwissel’s Journalistic Venture,’ by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHop,’ The Daily Graphic No. 886, Saturday 15 Jan (cropped art).

IMAGINARY PAPERS. Some newspaper names in the 4th picture: Daily Greasy, Nutmeg, Alligator, Agitator, Tripod. The text under the picture before last: ‘And then the paper man got impatient, the printing-ink man defiant, the type-founder personal, and everybody more or less threatening…’

   

1876 [53] ‘Uncle Sam’s Centennial Gift.’ An impression of the litter and pollution caused by the International Exhibition of 1876 held in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, to commemorate the United States Centennial. Full front-page art by C.D. Weldon, The Daily Graphic No. 893, Monday 24 Jan.

1876 [54] ‘The Sphinx Has Spoken.’ Full front-page art by A.B. Frost, The Daily Graphic No. 905, Monday 7 Feb.

1876 [55] A severe meateoric shower. ‘That Kentucky Meat Shower. Professor Tigwissel’s Investigation.’ Short strip by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHop,’ The Daily Graphic No. 940, Saturday 18 Mar.

—
“Livingston Hopkins. artist of the comic (…) was lost to this country too soon by going to Australia, where he is rich and famous.” — The Inland Printer, Dec 1906
—

1876 [56] Governor Samuel J. Tilden. The governor of New York and presidential nominee in this year’s elections, in a ‘New Combination Costume. Adapted to suit all supporters of a many-sided candidate.’ Full front-page art by H.V. Poland, The Daily Graphic No. 1054, Monday 31 July.

1876 [57] Seymour for President. A seated Horatio Seymour ponders being a Governor or a President. ‘An old politician mad at last. That, indeed, was terrible, but this is — ghastly!’ Elderly politician Horatio Seymour (1810-86) along the 1870s turned down a number of offers to be nominated for prestigious elections. Full front-page art by Theo. Wust, The Daily Graphic No. 1084, Monday 4 Sep.

1876 [58] A theatre of ideas. ‘Opening of the Amusement Season’ — it’s show biz time again. ‘Now hurrah, the season’s open! / Come the showmen to the town…’ A glorious pageant with announcements of Lord Byron’s play Sardanapalus, plus plays by Stuart Robson, plays by Bret Harte in Union Square Theatre, shows by the San Francisco Minstrels and the Theatre Comique, freak show and circus exhibitions by P.T. Barnum, and so much other rich entertainments. Full front-page art by C.D. Weldon with caption in rhyme, The Daily Graphic No. 1101, Saturday 23 Sep.

1876 [59] The Press Dogs. Named Shark, Liar, Claptrap, Bombast, Backbiter, Gammon, Hate — pictured in full front-page art ‘Ye Candidate His Dismal Fate,’ The Daily Graphic No. 1108, Monday 2 Oct.

1876 [60] The Late Elections. ‘The Moral of the Late Elections,’ full front-page art by A.B. Frost, The Daily Graphic No. 1117, Thursday 12 Oct.

1876 [61] Ruined by Elections. ‘Doleful Distress of the Democratic Donkeys,’ ‘The Lucky and the Unlucky Better,’ ‘Uncle Tammy’s Soliloquy,’ ‘The Ruined Political Sport,’ quadruple front-page art by H.V. Poland, A.B. Frost, and Theo. Wust, The Daily Graphic No. 1118, Friday 13 Oct.

1876 [62] Hard or soft Indiana fat. ‘Hewitt’s Ride to Indiana,’ ‘An Indiana Ballot-box after a Democratic Victory,’ ‘A Flat Thing for the Inflationist,’ triple front-page art by H.V. Poland, The Daily Graphic No. 1121, Tuesday 17 Oct.

1876 [63] Gambling casino men. ‘The Gambling Mania — Scenes in the Uptown Pool,’ full front-page art by Theo. Wust, The Daily Graphic No. 1123, Thursday 19 Oct.

1876 [64] Political Candidates. ‘The Struggle of Political Giants,’ ‘A Considerate Manipulator of the Press,’ ‘The Southern Wolf and the Lamb,’ ‘The Frog and the Fox,’ quadruple front-page art by Theo. Wust. and H.V. Poland, The Daily Graphic No. 1127, Tuesday 24 Oct.

1876 [65] Political Victims. ‘The Modern Pharaoh and his Host Destroyed,’ ‘Falling Between Two Stools,’ ‘The Wily Kid and the Innocent Wolf,’ ‘A Returned Statesman in Difficulties’ — with Boss Tweed again — quadruple front-page art by H.V. Poland, The Daily Graphic No. 1136, Friday 3 Nov.

1876 [66] After all political noise and fury. ‘A Happy Relief From Politics. Paterfamilias — “Ah! I’m glad to see a return to sober sense after all this political noise and fury. Now we shall have a newspaper pleasant and profitable to read and take home with us. Politics is well enough for down-town in the morning, but we want something else in evenings at home.”’ Full front-page art by Clarence Grey-Parker, The Daily Graphic No. 1141, Thursday 9 Nov.

1876 [67] Political Characters. ‘Two Specimen Patriots of the Pools,’ ‘Quid Pro Quo,’ ‘Our Insane Artist’s Idea of the “World’s” Arithmetic Man,’ ‘Professor Watterson on Political Punching,’ quadruple front-page art by H.V. Poland, The Daily Graphic No. 1150, Monday 20 Nov.

1876 [68] The Three Johns and Stanbul. ‘Jonathan Getting The Best in a Foreign Quarrel,’ full front-page art by H.V. Poland, The Daily Graphic No. 1153, Thursday 23 Nov.

BROTHER JONATHAN. When Washington was in want of ammunition, he called a council of officers, but no practical suggestion could be offered. “We must consult brother Jonathan,” said the general, meaning His Excellency Jonathan Trumbull, governor of the State of Connecticut. This was done, and the difficulty was remedied. “To consult Brother Jonathan” then became a set phrase, and Brother Jonathan became the “John Bull” of the United States. — Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, 1955 ed. [George Washington was the first President of the United States, 1789-97.] 
   

1876 [69] The US Vaults. ‘The American Guy Fawkes and his Crew,’ full front-page art by H.V. Poland, The Daily Graphic No. 1157, Tuesday 28 Nov.

GUY FAWKES. Guy Fawkes (1570-1606) was an English conspirator, hanged for his part in the Gunpowder Plot to blow up James I and parliament on November 5, 1605. Yearly celebrated in England on that date with bonfires, fireworks and the burning of Guys.
   

1876 [70] Season’s greetings to all. ‘A Merry Christmas Gathering,’ full front-page art by F.O.C. Darley with caption in rhyme, The Daily Graphic No. 1185, for the occasion titled The Christmas Graphic, Saturday 23 Dec.

1877 [71] World wide wire service. ‘Terrors of the Telephone — The Orator of the Future.’ Full front-page art by Wms, The Daily Graphic No. 1246, Thursday 15 March.

1878 [72] Future prediction. ‘The phonograph at home reading out a novel.’ Detail of picture cluster. The Daily Graphic No. 1570, Tuesday 2 Apr.

1878 [73] Recorded sound. ‘Awful Possibilities of the New Speaking Phonograph.’ A strip-like picture cluster, full front-page feature written and drawn by C.D. Weldon. The Daily Graphic No. 1560, Thursday, 21 Mar.

1876 [74] Tempus Amor. ‘Around the Matrimonial Clock,’ full front-page art written and drawn by Clarence Grey-Parker, The Daily Graphic No. 1089, Saturday 9 Sep.

1880 [75] Nature calls. ‘Professor Tigwissel in the Adirondacks,’ full front-page strip-like picture cluster by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHop.’ The Daily Graphic No. 2309, Saturday 21 Aug.

1880 [76] Testing the Lamps. ‘Broadway illuminated by Electricity. Experiments with the Brush electric light on Broadway last Monday night.’ Full-page picture cluster in The Daily Graphic, 22 Dec. (A fine example of the already slightly old-fashioned, stiff reportage style, made into a standard by the British weekly Illustrated London News, published since 1842.)

1881 [77] ‘This Is The House That Vander-Built.’ ‘What Would His Father Say?’ Full front-page satirical picture cluster in The Daily Graphic No. 2635 (?), Monday 12 Sep (cropped art).

1881 [78] Coney Island, New York. Elderberry Brown and Family Visit Coney Island, satirical scenes of the much advertised amusement park in Brooklyn’s Long Island, strip-like full front-page of The Daily Graphic No. 2599 (?), Saturday 30 July.

1878 [79] ‘Some Cool Reflections.’ ‘The Humors of the Howgate Colonization Plan.’ Full front-page comic strip by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHop,’ in The Daily Graphic No. 1575, Monday 8 Apr.

1890s [80] Livingston Yourtu Hopkins. Photo of artist-writer Hopkins in Australia where he hit the jackpot, and would get a state funeral in 1927.

1883 [81] Gender issues. ‘In The Bridal Chamber — The Reconstructed Female.’ Full front-page art by Clarence Grey-Parker, in The Daily Graphic No. 3290, Saturday 9 Sep (cropped art).

1877 [82] The Polls. ‘Our artist didn’t vote because the election happened to fall on the anniversary of his bath.’ Full front-page strip-like picture cluster by Livingston Hopkins, signed ‘LHop.’ The Daily Graphic No. 1446, Monday 5 Nov.

1880 [83] Printing Innovations. ‘A Combination Halftone and Line Plate of 1880.’ Full front-page art by Clarence Grey-Parker for The Daily Graphic No. 2164, Thursday 4 Mar. A lady presenter explains the technical innovations taking place in the paper. Her dress is lettered with, from top to bottom: ‘Fine Arts, Literature, Science, Music, Politics, Finance.’ In this issue Stephen H. Horgan shows his ultimate halftone.

   
HALFTONE PROOF. According to Stephen Henry Horgan, artists are ‘disheartened’ by the fine quality when shown his version of a halftone reproduction of a photograph, published in print in Thursday’s issue of the black-and-white Daily Graphic, dated March 4, 1880. A halftone like his teacher William Leggo started making a dozen years earlier. Any tone in artwork can already be reproduced in print by photographing the artwork through a screen of lines or dots at the start. The result in print by way of variously sized dots of ink suggest a perfect reproduction to the human eye. It takes some more testing years — a true pen and wash wave floods the printed media since the 80s for example, especially in upmarket, booklike magazines — but from around the year 1900 swift and economical reproduction of the full range of all tones and halftones for blacks, grays, or colors in published photography in printed media will spread and become common practice.

The earliest edition this Thursday carried a front-page caption that was much shorter — and in rhyme:

THE GRAPHIC’S SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY
If in these fleeting years
We have these wonders done
What greater marvels shall be wrought
In seven years to come
      

1880 [84] Standard Oil Co. ‘A Horrible Monster, whose tentacles spread poverty, disease and death, and which is the primal cause of the nuisances at Hunter’s Point.’ Full front-page art by Hooper, in The Daily Graphic No. 2280, Monday 19 July (cropped art).

1902 [85] Maiden with Books. June issue of trade magazine The Inland Printer. Pictured in the background is famed writer Mark Twain, standing tongue-in-cheek behind an armored knight beside him. Magazine covers printed in full color started as a luxury in the 1870s and 80s, but along the 1890s became standard procedure. Still most popular today.

1882 [86] The Melancholy Days. ‘The stereoscopic martyr-friend of the man who has traveled all summer abroad.’ Printed reproductions of stereoscopic photographs were tagged ‘stereographs.’ Viewed in handheld stereoscopes they gave most viewers a 3D-effect. Most stereographs were published as black-and-white photos. Some where issued as ‘Polychrome Stereo Views,’ tinted-in by hand with fake colors. Detail of comic strip art by Livingston Hopkins in The Daily Graphic No. 2968, 10 Nov.

   

“What greater marvels shall be wrought

In seven years to come”

—
DEDICATED TO:
xxx  
Alfredo Castelli, and his Here we are again

A BIG THANK YOU TO:
xxx  

John Adcock
Richard E. Marschall

Brian Hughes

Ianus Keller

Jim Kelly

Melinda McIntosh
Doug Wheeler, whose research convinced us

Leonardo De Sá, who found the things we couldn’t find
Robert Lee Beerbohm, who was a driving force
Michael Twyman

Eddie Campbell

Cyril Koopmeiners

Richard S. West
Sara Willett Duke

Stephen H. Horgan

Claude Galarneau

The Inland Printer

Joe Rainone
Glenn Bray

Craig Yoe

Penrose Annual

Antoine Sausverd
Library of Congress

Adirondacks Museum

Sellers of cut-up material

   

P.S. With the similar, later title of The Daily Graphic launched in London, England, The Daily Graphic of New York had nothing to do. No comparison — compared to the New York paper (1873-89) the London paper (launched in 1890) was old hat from the start.
    

★

1879 [87] Crayon-drawn. Young Thomas Edison in search of electric light. ‘The Wizard’s Search,’ unsigned illustrated front page, The Daily Graphic No. 1961, Wednesday 9 July. Partly cut-off tear sheet taken from a bound volume.

   
EDISON. On 22 December 2017, a kind reader sent us this 1879 Daily Graphic cover with Thomas Edison (b. 1847) pictured as a young wizard. Was this lithographic picture directly drawn on stone by the artist? The answer is no. This page was printed from stone, but there was no need to draw the picture on it directly on stone. This front-page artwork was already a reproduction of a crayon drawing — a drawing done on heavy pasteboard, already with an added text-quote pasted in, probably some typeset text clipped from a newspaper — which was transferred by photomechanical means to the quadruple-sized stone for Wednesday’s edition. A stone with all four of the paper’s illustrated pages on it, to be printed together in one press run. Four pages of 56 x 44.5 (22 x 17.5 inch) each. On a lithographic stone that had the size of the Daily Graphic’s quadruple sheet. Stone as well as paper sheet in sizes close to 112 by 89 cm (44 x 35 inch). 
   

★

This special production is first published online in Yesterday’s Papers, Tuesday 19 December 2017. Researched, written and composed by Huib van Opstal © copyright 2017 worldwide. Picture [87] and minor text corrections have been added on 23 December 2017 and 31 March 2018.