Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/460

418 During the first decade of the twentieth century, the number of daily newspapers increased 16.8 per cent: in every geographic division of the United States there was an increase, except in New England, but the greatest increase both relative and absolute was in the Pacific and the West South Central divisions. In every State of New England there was a loss in the number of dailies during the first decade except in Rhode Island where conditions remained stationary.

According to the same statistics gathered for the Thirteenth Census of the United States, New York led among the individual States with a total daily circulation of over one fifth of that for the entire country. Pennsylvania came second with a little more than one eighth and Illinois third with about one tenth. The only other States which had over three per cent of the total daily circulation were California, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Ohio. New York reported the largest absolute increase in circulation and Louisiana the least; the highest per cent of gain was in Oklahoma, and the lowest in Louisiana.

By 1909 the circulation of the evening dailies exceeded that of the morning in eight of the nine main geographic divisions of the United States. The Mountain division was the only one where the morning circulation was greater than the evening.

The total circulation of the daily newspapers in the ten leading cities of the United States showed a decrease from 50.5 per cent in 1904 to forty-seven per cent in 1909, in comparison with that for the entire country. This fact proved that the circulation of dailies published outside the metropolitan centers increased the more rapidly. In 1909 the circulation of the daily papers of New York City was 16.9 per cent of that of all the dailies in the country; in 1904 it was 18.3 per cent. The census of 1910 showed that the preponderance of the evening circulation increased in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia, and that the morning circulation increased, but in decreasing proportion, in Baltimore and San Francisco. In St. Louis the evening papers had a larger circulation than the morning in 1909 a condition quite the reverse of that in 1904; the same condition obtained in Pittsburgh.