in the 1860s
The Sun began publication in New York on September 3, 1833, as a morning newspaper edited by
Benjamin Day (1810–1889), with the slogan "It Shines for All". It cost only one penny (equivalent to ¢ in ), was easy to carry, and had illustrations and crime reporting popular with working-class readers. It inspired a new genre across the nation, known as the
penny press, which made the news more accessible to low-income readers at a time when most papers cost five cents.
The Sun was the first newspaper to report crimes and personal events such as suicides, deaths, and divorces. The paper had a focus on police reports and
human-interest stories for the masses, which consisted of short descriptions of arrests, thefts, and violence.
The Sun and
The Herald took sides in these cases, championing working class people over the traditional landed and mercantile elites which, during this era, held disproportionate power over the nation's politics and economy. It became the largest among the Gotham papers for 20 years, sometimes eclipsed by the
New-York Tribune or the
New York Herald. The newspaper printed the first newspaper account of a suicide. This story was significant because it was the first about the death of an ordinary person. It changed journalism forever, making the newspaper an integral part of the community and the lives of the readers. Day was the first to hire reporters to go out and collect stories. Prior to this, newspapers dealt almost exclusively in articles about politics or reviews of books or the theater and relied, in the days before the organization of syndicates such as the
Associated Press (AP) and
United Press International (UPI), on items sent in by readers and unauthorized copies of stories from other newspapers.
The Suns focus on crime was the beginning of "the craft of reporting and storytelling". Crime news provided New Yorkers with information about how the city worked, dwelling on violations of justice, abuse of state power and corrupt schemes.
The Sun was also the first newspaper to show that a newspaper could be substantially supported by advertisements rather than subscription fees, and could be sold on the street instead of delivered to each subscriber. Prior to
The Sun, printers produced newspapers, often at a loss, making their living selling printing services. Day and
The Sun recognized that the masses were fast becoming literate, and demonstrated that a profit could be made selling to them. The offices of
The Sun were initially located on
Printing House Square, now called
Park Row, Manhattan, and was next to
New York City Hall and
New York City Police Department. It had a
pigeon house built on the roof of its New York office at
Nassau Street, receiving news from
New York Harbor. They also later used horses,
steamships, trains, and the
telegraph, the
Pony Express and
Royal Mail Ships.
Later history " on Broadway, Manhattan, near
Chambers Streets Moses Yale Beach's sons,
Alfred Ely Beach and
Moses S. Beach, took over the paper following his retirement. He celebrated the event at his house on
Chambers Street, along with the other editors of Gotham, with guests including Congressmen
Horace Greeley and
James Brooks, and Abraham Lincoln's Chairman
Henry Jarvis Raymond. In 1868, Moses S. Beach sold the newspaper to
Charles A. Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War of
Abraham Lincoln, and stayed a stockholder. In 1872
The Sun exposed the
Crédit Mobilier Scandal, implicating a number of corrupt Congressmen and Vice President
Schuyler Colfax in a corrupt scheme involving the construction of the
Union Pacific Railroad, and in 1881 exposed the
Star Route Scandal, implicating a number of high-profile politicians and businessmen in a scheme relating to the
US Postal Service, resulting in number of trials and increasing public support for
civil service reform. An evening edition, known as
The Evening Sun, was introduced in 1887. The newspaper magnate
Frank Munsey bought both editions of the paper in 1916 and merged
The Evening Sun with his
New York Press. The morning edition of
The Sun was merged for a time with Munsey's
New York Herald as
The Sun and New York Herald, but in 1920, Munsey separated them again, killed
The Evening Sun, and switched
The Sun to an evening publishing format. A clock featuring
The Sun name and slogan was built at the corner with Broadway and Chambers Street. Munsey died in 1925 with a fortune of about 20 million dollars, and was ranked as one of the most powerful media moguls of his time, along with
William Randolph Hearst. He left the bulk of his estate, including
The Sun, to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. The next year
The Sun was sold to William Dewart, a longtime associate of Munsey's. Dewart's son Thomas later ran the paper. In the 1940s, the newspaper was considered among the most conservative in New York City and was strongly opposed to the
New Deal and labor unions.
The Sun won a Pulitzer Prize in 1949 for an exposé of labor racketeering; it also published the early work of sportswriter
W.C. Heinz. It continued until January 4, 1950, when it merged with the
New York World-Telegram to form a new paper called the
New York World-Telegram and Sun. That paper continued for 16 years; in 1966, it joined with the
New York Herald Tribune to briefly become part of the
World Journal Tribune, preserving the names of three of the most historic city newspapers, which folded amid disputes with the unions representing its staff the following year. == Milestones ==