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Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper The Sunday Tatler and Jersey City Express (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886

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About The Sunday Tatler and Jersey City Express (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886

The Sunday Tattler was started in January 1883 by William Edgar Sackett. In June 1883, the Sunday Tattler took over the Jersey City Express and became The Sunday Tattler and Jersey City Express. Until March 1885, it was an eight-page, seven column paper with Democratic leanings. Of the eight pages of the newspaper, five of them were listings of Jersey City real estate transactions. In March 1885, the newspaper stopped publishing real estate transactions and reduced its size to four pages and its price from three cents to one cent, with the slogan “The Cheapest Sunday Paper in the World,” in an effort to boost circulation. In January 1886, the paper once again published real estate transactions and became an eight-page paper sold for two cents, with a circulation of over eight thousand.

Sackett was born and educated in New York City but lived much of his adult life in Hudson and Essex counties, New Jersey. He initially studied law in the law offices of Chester C. Arthur but gave it up for newspaper work. He wrote about New Jersey affairs for several of the New York dailies in addition to founding Jersey City’s first Sunday newspaper. At the time Sackett launched the Sunday Tattler, Jersey City had grown from a population of 29,226 in 1860 to 120,722 in 1880, though part of the explanation for the growth was the merger of Hudson City, Bergen City, and Greenville into Jersey City in the 1870s.

In the April 18, 1886 edition of the paper, Sackett announced to the readers that it was very likely that the paper would become a daily within the next few weeks, though he wasn’t willing to take on increased debt in order to do this. The daily newspaper never materialized, but the paper did increase to twelve pages and included fictional stories by aspiring Jersey City authors, Trenton gossip, a local editorial page, state political gossip, special features reporting, and Associated Press dispatches.

In 1886, Sackett petitioned the courts for a change of name for the newspaper, believing that the original name was too long to be set in display type on the front page of the newspaper and that the name the “tattler” failed to convey the seriousness of the newspaper and its news-gathering enterprise. It was changed to The Sunday Morning News in October 1886.

Provided By: Rutgers University Libraries

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Sunday Tatler and Jersey City Express (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886

Dates of Publication

  • 1883-1886

Created / Published

  • Jersey City, N.J. : Tatler Pub. Co., -1886.

Headings

  • -  Jersey City (N.J.)--Newspapers
  • -  New Jersey--Jersey City
  • -  United States--New Jersey--Hudson--Jersey City

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Began in June 1883.
  • -  -v. 4, no. 196 (Sept. 26, 1886).
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 3, no. 106 (Dec. 28, 1884).
  • -  Sunday morning news (Jersey City, N.J.) 2688-707X (DLC)sn 85036014 (OCoLC)13200610

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn88071311

OCLC Number

  • 19575180

ISSN Number

  • 2835-4508

Succeeding 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.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://aj.sunback.homes/ndnp/listawardees.html.

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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:

The Sunday Tatler and Jersey City Express Jersey City, N.J. -1886. (Jersey City, NJ), Jan. 1 1883. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn88071311/.

APA citation style:

(1883, January 1) The Sunday Tatler and Jersey City Express Jersey City, N.J. -1886. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn88071311/.

MLA citation style:

The Sunday Tatler and Jersey City Express Jersey City, N.J. -1886. (Jersey City, NJ) 1 Jan. 1883. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn88071311/.