Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/404

 388 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

In order to meet a growing demand for news alone, in 1847 the proprietors established the Chicago Daily Tribune, as an off- shoot to the Gem of the Prairie. They continued the Gem of the Prairie as a literary miscellany until 1852. By that time the offshoot had become bigger than the original trunk. The Gem was changed from a week-day weekly to a Sunday weekly, and its name became the Chicago Sunday Tribune. The idea of publish- ing a secular weekly to appear on Sunday had been gaining ground, though slowly, since the founding of the Sunday Morn- ing Atlas at New York in 1838. Publishers must aim to catch readers during their hours of leisure. These Sunday weeklies, though largely literary, were one factor in the development of the Sunday dailies of today devoted primarily to news. The first exclusively Sunday paper to appear in Chicago came out in 1856. It was the Sunday Vacuna, named from the goddess of rural leisure. The first exclusively Sunday paper of any permanence, according to the historian Andreas, came out in the spring of 1857. It was the Sunday Leader, and had able men connected with it. Among them were Bushnell, and Andrew Shuman and Rev. A. C. Barry, who turned off a department called " Whittlings from the Chimney Corner." But neither of these exclusively Sunday papers lasted long. Without a doubt, the competition of the Chicago Sunday Tribune was too strong.

Up to the exciting days of the Civil War, however, there was a strong conviction on the part of substantial, church-going citi- zens that Sunday papers should not be read. But with their hearts burning for the success of the northern cause, and aching for loved sons at the front, the first demand of every man and woman, on Sunday as on a week day, was for news. This was supplied and the habit of reading news on Sunday was begun. It has grown since then, and today the first appeal of the Sunday edition of a daily paper is the appeal of news. Yet in the supple- ments of the Chicago Sunday Tribune today, containing stories, comic pictures, "Worker's Magazine" features, and miscellane- ous reading, one can see the outgrowth of the old Gem of the Prairie. The development of those pages in the Chicago Sunday Tribune which broadly may be classed as literary in character is