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07.21.2004
1885. Sunday Journal debuts; Monday Journal assailed
When The Providence Journal became a daily newspaper in 1829, it published only six days a week. Newspaper reading was not considered an appropriate activity for the Sabbath.
By July 1885, public attitudes had shifted, and many Rhode Island residents, though certainly not all, were ready for a Sunday paper.
On Monday, July 13, The Journal announced it would start publishing a Sunday paper the following week, at a price of 5 cents for a single copy or $2.50 a year by subscription.
"The public demands its food of news and current comment on that day," The Journal said. If readers did not get their news from an upstanding paper like The Journal, it would look for it in disreputable and unwholesome sources. The publishers promised a Sunday paper that would be "elevating and instructive, and cultivate the field of sound thought, healthy sentiment and moral teaching, as well as what is merely amusing or informing."
The lead story in the first issue was about skirmishes between the U.S. Cavalry and Cheyenne forces in the Oklahoma area. A headline promised: "Annihilation will Follow an Outbreak of the Cheyennes."
The editorial page carried a short announcement: "The Providence SUNDAY JOURNAL makes its bow."
An editorial also defended criticism of the Sunday paper. "The announcement that the JOURNAL would be issued seven days in the week has been received with general commendation, as far as we have observed, by contemporaries within and without the State, with the sole exception of our estimable neighbor, the Pawtucket Gazette and Chronicle."
The Gazette and Chronicle's complaint: "The world moves fast, but, with the facilities afforded by the telegraph and telephone, people can afford to wait for ordinary news from Saturday night till Monday morning."
The next day's paper reported that 15,600 copies had been printed of the first Sunday paper. This was at a time when circulation of the Journal's Evening Bulletin on Saturdays exceeded 27,000.
By September, it was not the morality of Sunday publication that irked readers. "The only complaint which has been heard is that, in consequence of a consecutive publication every day in the week, the Monday's issue did not contain the news of two days," a Sept. 27 editorial said.
The solution: Subscribers of the daily paper could also get the Sunday paper free.
With more than 9,000 subscribers, The Sunday Journal of July 18, 1886, forecast a bright future: "It will enter upon its second year with an assurance to take the place of the hope with which it was established, the promise of an endeavor to increase its attractive qualities and the fixed purpose of maintaining its high standard of morality and good faith, and confident that its efforts will be appreciated and rewarded by the people of Rhode Island."
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