Benjamin Henry Day

Benjamin Henry Day

Find A Grave Memorial ID # 92362740

An American newspaper publisher Benjamin Henry Day founded the New York Sun, the first penny press newspaper in the United States, in 1833.

He was born in Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts on April 10, 1810 to Henry Day, a hatter and Mary Ely. Day started his printing career in 1824, at the The Springfield Republican.

Day's Sun was responsible for the story of Richard Adams Locke published in 1835 in which he wrote a story about life on the moon that was fictional, but was received by the general public as fact. The publicity of the article was widespread at that time and now is referred to as "The Great Moon Hoax." He is credited with stretching the truth that came to be known as Sensationalism. Day is also credited for importing to the United States the London Plan, a largely antiquated system today of newspaper distribution in which the paper carriers buy newspapers in bulk from the publisher and sell the papers to the reading public for a profit.

Day sold the Sun to his brother-in-law Moses Yale Beach for $40,000 in 1838. Afterwards he started the True Sun in 1840, which had but a brief run. In 1842, he created the Brother Jonathan, the first illustrated weekly in the U.S., which he ran for twenty years.

He married Evelina Shepard (b. 1811) in 1831, and had four children: Henry (b. 1832), Mary Ely Day (1833–38), Benjamin Henry Day, Jr. (b. 1838), the inventor of Ben-Day dots, and Clarence Shephard Day (1844-1927), a stockbroker (and father of author Clarence Shephard, Jr.).

Source: Wikipedia