James Elverson, Sr.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14126995/james-elverson

Publisher. Newspaperman. James Elverson was born in England in 1838, but came with his parents to Newark, New Jersey, in 1847. He obtained a common school education and at the age of 14 began his business career as a messenger boy in the Magnetic Telegraph Company’s office in Newark. This was in the early days of telegraphy and foreseeing that the business was to assume great proportions, he set out to master it. At 16 he was an operator, and before he was 20 had become manager of the consolidated offices in Newark, Associated Press agent, and instructor of other operators. Having mastered all that was then known of electrical science, he assisted in the construction of new lines throughout the state.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Mr. Elverson at age 23 was made Manager of the American Telegraph office near the departments where most of the important business was transacted. Because of this proximity to the country’s nerve center, he came into friendly relations with President Abraham Lincoln, Secretaries of War Simon Cameron and Edwin Stanton, and others. Throughout the war he conducted this important office with great fidelity.

In 1865 he moved to Philadelphia and, in company with a former associate, established the Saturday Night, a journal which was conducted in the interest of municipal reform. The next year Mr. Elverson was convinced that there was room for a publication similar to the New York Ledger, and Saturday Night was made exclusively a story paper. Soon it reached a circulation of 300,000 copies distributed over every section of the American Continent. Two novel ideas were the foundation of success: 1) news agents were allowed to return unsold copies, and 2) the business card of every individual agent in the country was printed on sample copies for free distribution. These revolutionized the entire newsstand business and made their Mr. Elverson a handsome fortune; in 1879 he became sole proprietor.

In 1880 Mr. Elverson established the Golden Days, a weekly publication for boys and girls, starting it in a way characteristic of his business foresight. He printed 3,000,000 copies of the first issue and, through a system established after months of labor and an outlay of $50,000, distributed them simultaneously in every town and hamlet in the United States from Maine to California – free. By the second issue he had 52,000 subscribers, a figure which steadily increased to more than 100,000. Parents eagerly sought the magazine as an antidote to what they felt was the abundant pernicious literature being distributed at the time – penny dreadfuls, dime novels, etc.

In February 1889, Mr. Elverson purchased a controlling interest in the Philadelphia Inquirer, a two-cent morning paper with a small circulation, meagre news facilities, and a small editorial staff. The Inquirer had been founded in June 1829 by John R. Walker and John Norvell as the “Pennsylvania Inquirer.” Unable to turn a profit by November of that year, they sold it to Jesper Harding, who managed it until his retirement in 1859; his son William White Harding took it over and changed its name to The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1860. He also cut the price of the paper, began delivery routes, and had newsboys sell papers on the street. From 1859 to 1863, the circulation rose from 7,000 to 70,000. Harding kept the paper neutral throughout the Civil War such that Confederate Generals sought copies to read, believing its coverage to be accurate. The hardships of the War caused a decrease in the size of the paper. Initially a white paper shortage brought down the 8 pages to a rather awkward 6 pages. When the 8-page format was restored in March 1863, the width of the page had shrunk from nine columns to five. It was not restored to prewar dimensions until December 1869

By 1888, the Inquirer’s circulation had fallen back to 5000 and it was failing when Elverson purchased it. Around 1890, Philadelphia was supporting thirteen daily newspapers whose cumulative daily circulation exceeded 800,000. Among the papers competing for morning readers were the Public Ledger, Record, Inquirer, and North American. Evening dailies, which were printed in the afternoon to service the city’s working class, included the Item, Call, Herald, Telegraph, and Evening Bulletin.

Elverson displayed rare and daring business foresight. He moved the Inquirer to a new four-story building at 929 Chestnut Street, bought new presses and type, tripled the editorial force, distributed special correspondents throughout the country, secured an unsurpassed foreign service and, in short, strengthened the paper in every way possible. He added a Sunday edition in the fall of 1889. In 1890 he reduced the price to one cent, increased the size to eight pages of eight columns each, put in the largest illustrating plant in the state, and extended the news service still farther. The circulation rapidly increased back to 70,000 daily, with a corresponding increase in business patronage.

Editorially the Inquirer took strong Republican ground on state and national issues, but in municipal matters left itself free to indorse such candidates as seemed best to meet the city’s needs without regard to political affiliations. He editorialized and fought for civil improvements. In 1899, he called for modern paving on the main thoroughfares. After fighting with several city politicians with less foresight, Mayor Edwin Fitler approved the paving of seven miles of asphalt, making it one of the finest central city thoroughfares in the country.

The Inquirer was the first one-cent eight-page morning journal ever published, but Mr. Elverson insisted that the selling price should have no reference to its quality and never hesitated to spend money to improve it.

In 1894 Mr. Elverson purchased a large building at 1109 Market Street and fitted it out with all manner of printing improvements at a cost of about $300,000, making it at that time the most complete newspaper plant in America. This building, designed to last for generations, soon required the additional purchase of properties at 1111 and 1113 Market Street as the newspaper continued to flourish. The size of the Inquirer was increased to twelve pages, but the price remained at one cent, and its value increased by additions to the editorial staff and news facilities. In a short time, the circulation increased to more than 130,000, again taxing the facilities of the plant. Mr. Elverson then took out the presses that had cost him $125,000 and replaced them with six of the finest Hoe presses in existence, with a capacity of 144,000 sixteen page papers per hour, and increased the size of the Inquirer to sixteen pages daily without an increase in price, but with a large addition to the editorial force and a great extension of news facilities. The Inquirer now had the largest circulation of any Republican newspaper in the United States.

The Inquirer was also the first newspaper in the country to run its entire pressroom by electricity, having the largest private electric plant in Philadelphia. It was also the first to discard, whenever possible, the telegraph for the long-distance telephone, a matter involving new outlays, but better results. Although a millionaire, Mr. Elverson was never connected with any corporation but the Inquirer, never borrowed a dollar in his life, never lived beyond his income, and up until his death never let go of the active management of the editorial and financial details of all his publications. He owned a handsome country seat on the heights of Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and, since 1873, has spent every summer in Europe.

In 1899, the Chester County village of Blue Rock was renamed Elverson in his honor, and he donated a stained-glass window to the church. In 1901, Elverson was appointed a member of the Fairmount Park Commission. When Elverson died in 1911, his son Colonel James Elverson Jr. stepped smoothly into his role as owner and published, as he had been his father’s right hand for many years. James Elverson Sr. was interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery in a beautiful mausoleum overlooking the Schuylkill River in Section T, Lot 41. His crypt lists his date of death, age, and a quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Died February 10, 1911 Age 72 years

There is no death! What seems so is transition. This life of mortal breath is but a suburb of the life elysian whose portal we call Death.