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Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper Harrisburg Telegraph (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948 Harrisburg evening telegraph / Daily telegraph

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About Harrisburg Telegraph (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948

The Harrisburg Telegraph was published from 1879 to 1948 in Pennsylvania’s capital city, which also is the seat of Dauphin County. The city on the Susquehanna River was named after 1719 settler John Harris. Dauphin County, formed in 1785 out of Lancaster County, honored the heir-apparent to the French king, Louis XVI, an ally of the American Revolution. It was a highly industrialized city in the early 20th century, with iron and steel mills and many other manufacturing facilities. Edward James Stackpole (1861-1936) was born in McVeytown, Mifflin County, and worked as a printer and reporter at newspapers in McVeytown and Orbisonia before coming to the Harrisburg Telegraph as assistant foreman in 1883. In January 1901, he purchased the controlling interest in the newspaper. In 1927, Stackpole published a memoir, Behind the Scenes with a Newspaper Man: Fifty Years in the Life of an Editor.His son, E.J., Jr. (1894-1967), succeeded him as editor and publisher. E.J., Jr. was assisted in running the Telegraph by Frank Ross Oyster (1868-1925), his brother-in-law, and by Augustus (Gus) M. Steinmetz (1876-1951), a Harrisburg native who had started his career at the Harrisburg Patriot before joining the Telegraph. Calling itself “A newspaper for the home,” the Republican Telegraph was published every evening except Sunday, and at the beginning of 1914 it claimed a circulation of 22,210 (the city’s population in the 1910 census was 64,186).  In addition to a solid base of national and international news, the Telegraph also delivered a lot of social reporting (headed “Receptions, Parties, Weddings, Anniversaries”), arts and cultural news including theater and film, regional church events and religious feature articles (the Stackpoles were leaders in their local Presbyterian church), advice columns, serialized fiction, and far-ranging “Central Pennsylvania” news from areas as far away as Juniata, Union, and Lancaster counties.  Diverse subjects from suffrage to poultry-raising were dealt with in feature articles. The first successful daily comic strip, “Mutt and Jeff” by Bud Fisher, often appeared in the Telegraph, alternating with a strip by Philadelphia cartoonist Walter C. Hoban.

The issue of May 25, 1914, proudly announced a milestone for the newspaper, accompanied by a three-column photo: “Big Goss Sextuple Press Built for the Telegraph.” The Goss Printing Press Co. of Chicago would assemble the 9,000 parts of the 50-ton press “with all manner of time-saving devices” on site. Its production capability was 72,000 copies per hour, for a newspaper of 12 pages or less. The Telegraph’s circulation at the time, reported on page 12, was 23,606. On February 10, 1916, the newspaper announced that on the 12th, the Harrisburg Star-Independent  would be absorbed into the Telegraph; the new acquisition’s title was inserted in small type below the Telegraph’s on the nameplate.

War and international diplomatic news filled the headlines from 1914 on, and E.J. Stackpole, Jr., joined the U.S. Army, and emerged from World War I with the Distinguished Service Cross. In 1930 he founded Stackpole Books, a publishing firm still in business today in Mechanicsburg. 

Provided By: Penn State University Libraries; University Park, PA

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Harrisburg Telegraph (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948

Other Title

  • Harrisburg evening telegraph
  • Daily telegraph

Dates of Publication

  • 1879-1948

Created / Published

  • Harrisburg, Pa. : C.H. Bergner, 1879-

Headings

  • -  Harrisburg (Pa.)--Newspapers
  • -  Pennsylvania--Harrisburg
  • -  United States--Pennsylvania--Dauphin--Harrisburg

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Daily (except Sun.)
  • -  Vol. 23, no. 138 (Mar. 18, 1879)-
  • -  Ceased with Mar. 27, 1948 issue. Cf. Rossell, G.E. Pa. newspapers.
  • -  Publishers: Harrisburg Pub. Co., <1888>; Telegraph Print. Co., <1931>.
  • -  Special centennial ed.: Sept. 7, 1931.
  • -  Supplements accompany some issues.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Morning ed.: Harrisburg morning telegraph.

Medium

  • volumes : illustrations ; 59 cm

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn85038411

OCLC Number

  • 12396379

ISSN Number

  • 2376-3442

Preceding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Harrisburg Telegraph Harrisburg, Pa. -1948. (Harrisburg, PA), Jan. 1 1879. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn85038411/.

APA citation style:

(1879, January 1) Harrisburg Telegraph Harrisburg, Pa. -1948. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn85038411/.

MLA citation style:

Harrisburg Telegraph Harrisburg, Pa. -1948. (Harrisburg, PA) 1 Jan. 1879. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn85038411/.