Names in 1872, the former site of
Lovejoy's Hotel The paper was founded as the
New York Evening Mail in 1867 and published under that name through 1877. It then went through some minor name changes, becoming the
New York Mail for about a year (November 1877 – November 1878), and then
The Mail (through late 1879). It then became the
Evening Mail from 1879 through December 1881, when owner
Cyrus West Field (1819–1892) acquired the
New York Evening Express (which had been founded by
James (1810–1873) and
Erastus Brooks (1815–1886) as a
Whig paper in June 1836), and created
The Mail and Express. It retained the
Mail and Express moniker until 1904, when it eventually became the
Evening Mail once again. In 1915 the newspaper was acquired by
Edward Rumely with financing from a source in
Germany. Rumely felt that most American newspapers were taking a pro-British side threatening neutrality. In January 1924, the paper was merged with the
Evening Telegram upon being acquired by
Frank Munsey from Henry Luther Stoddard (1862–1947). This later became the
New York World-Telegram in 1931.
Early history On March 20, 1888,
Elliott Fitch Shepard purchased the
Mail and Express (with an estimated value of $200,000 ($ in ) from Cyrus West Field for $425,000 ($ in ). Deeply religious, Shepard placed a verse from the Bible at the head of each edition's editorial page. As president of the newspaper company until his death, he approved every important decision or policy. Shepard's brother Augustus Dennis Shepard (1836–1913), who was the vice president, became acting president of the Mail and Express Company on his brother's death.
Mail and Express building In 1892, the newspaper's owner
Elliott Fitch Shepard ordered a new headquarters built. Shepard owned the company from 1888 until his death in 1893. The building was on Broadway, between Fulton and Dey Streets. It was 66 by 25 by 211 feet, ten stories, and was built by
Carrère & Hastings (architects of the
New York Public Library). The building's dimensions were challenging based on the land purchased, and thus the
Buffalo Morning Express wrote that it "looks for all the world like an upright lead pencil". The ground floor featured
caryatids representing the newspaper's reach across all "four corners of the world". The building became an architectural landmark, such that after a fire in 1900, the
Troy Daily Times wrote that it was "such an ornament to Broadway that its destruction would be a calamity". It was demolished in 1920, following AT&T's plans to expand its building at
195 Broadway to take over nearly the entire block. In 1907,
Rube Goldberg moved to New York, finding employment as a cartoonist with the
New York Evening Mail. The
New York Evening Mail was syndicated to the first newspaper syndicate, the
McClure Newspaper Syndicate, giving Goldberg's cartoons a wider distribution, and by 1915 he was earning $25,000 per year and being billed by the paper as America's most popular cartoonist.
Arthur Brisbane had offered Goldberg $2,600 per year in 1911 in an unsuccessful attempt to get him to move to
William Randolph Hearst's newspaper chain, and in 1915 raised the offer to $50,000 per year. Rather than lose Goldberg to Hearst, the
New York Evening Mail matched the salary offer and formed the Evening Mail Syndicate to syndicate Goldberg's cartoons nationally.
World War I controversy The
New York Times of July 9, 1918, reported that
Edward Rumely, "... vice president, secretary and publisher of the
New York Evening Mail, was arrested late yesterday afternoon by agents of the Government, charged with perjury. The charge grew out of a statement filed with
A. Mitchell Palmer, the
Alien Property Custodian, in which Rumely asserted that
The Evening Mail was an American-owned newspaper. The Government is in possession of evidence which, it is held, shows that instead of being owned by Americans, the paper is in fact owned by the Imperial German Government, which on June 1, 1915, paid to Rumely, through Walter Lyon, of the former Wall Street house of Renskorf. Lyon & Co., the sum of $735,000, which transferred the control of the newspaper to the Kaiser." In July 1918 Rumely was arrested and convicted of violation of the
Trading with the Enemy Act. Rumely however denied the allegations, claiming, instead, he had received money to buy the paper from an American citizen in Germany. He had failed to report this when he received the money. He said the charge was baseless, and based on perjured testimony. President
Coolidge granted him a presidential pardon in 1925. == Staff == •
Rheta Childe Dorr •
Rube Goldberg •
H.L. Mencken •
William Charles Morris (1874–1940), political cartoonist •
Roderic C. Penfield •
Harry J. Tuthill == Publication and bibliographic history ==