The Morning Times was founded on March 18, 1894, by union printers. Financial difficulties, however, soon forced the printers to sell to Charles G. Conn, a Democratic congressman from Indiana. In August 1895 the Washington Evening Times was added, and the two editions sold as a combined subscription. The evening edition soon became dominant, substantially surpassing the morning paper’s circulation. Late the following year, Conn sold both editions to Stilson Hutchins who had sold his interest in the Washington Post a few years earlier. In 1901 Frank A. Munsey, who was known for his consolidation practices and as a destroyer of the dailies, purchased the paper and ran it from the Munsey Building, which he had built on E Street in the northwest quadrant of the city. Munsey ceased printing the morning edition on November 29, 1902, and his evening and Sunday editions became known, simply, as the Washington Times. William Randolph Hearst gained control of the Times in 1917 and five years later merged it with the Washington Herald.

The Washington Herald first appeared on October 8, 1906 with the aim of upholding serious journalism in an era of muckraking. The paper was founded and edited by Scott C. Bone, an eminent newspaperman and former managing editor of the Washington Post from 1888 until his dismissal by new owner John R. McLean in 1905. Bone published the 16-page morning daily to challenge the position of the Post as the foundation of Washington journalism. At its peak, the Herald enjoyed a circulation of roughly 50,000, and surpassed the Post in daily sales. It occupied offices at 734 Fifteenth Street, in close vicinity to newspaper row in the city’s northwest quadrant, and its editorial board included prominent figures such as managing editor William P. Spargeon, the first president of the National Press Club. Bone himself garnered respect in the newspaper world for his work with the Post, and later the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and went on to become governor of Alaska.

The paper created a niche for itself based on substantive news reporting, displaying the motto “A Paper of Quality” on its masthead. An early advertisement proclaimed the arrival of the Herald as a “clean, compact, newsy newspaper that would appeal to the intelligent and discriminating clientele of Washington.” Its front page most prominently featured discussions of domestic politics, followed by stories of international scope, and the occasional newsworthy crime or personal interest story. The Herald also included a page each on sports, market news, and women’s interest, plus a slew of advertisements and classifieds. Its Sunday edition attempted to rival that of the Post with a 30-page edition featuring special sections on society news, literature, theater, and serialized fiction.

Although the Herald rose to be one of the top three penny dailies in Washington, it underwent a series of transformations after its second decade. In 1913, Clinton T. Brainerd, president of the McClure Syndicate Service, purchased the paper. In 1922, the Herald was taken over by William Randolph Hearst who appointed one of the first female newspaper editors of the era – Eleanor Medill “Cissy” Patterson of the Medill media dynasty. Cissy Patterson revived the paper and its popularity, and in 1939 she merged it with the Washington Times creating the Washington Times-Herald. After her death in 1948, however, the paper declined once again. The Herald died an ironic death in 1954 when the Times-Herald was merged with the Washington Post. Although named the Washington Post and Times Herald, the Post restored its original name in 1973 and the Herald faded into obscurity.

The San Francisco Call began life on December 1, 1856, as the Daily Morning Call. Staunchly Republican in political outlook, the Call was popular with the working classes, and it was the city’s leading morning newspaper for several decades. By the summer of 1864, the Call was boasting the highest daily circulation in the city, and its readership continued to rise, going from 10,750 in 1865 to 41,066 in 1880. In 1884 it boasted a circulation double that of any other daily. Originally a four page daily, the Call also put out a weekly, published on Tuesdays, and a Sunday edition. One of the paper’s early writers was Mark Twain, who served as Nevada correspondent in 1863 and as reporter after he moved to San Francisco the following year. In just over four months as full time beat reporter, Twain produced some 200 articles on crime and the courts, theater and the opera, and politics.

Among the original owners of the Call were James Joseph Ayers, Charles F. Jobson, and Llewellyn Zublin. Peter B. Forster soon joined the group, and, by May 1866, he became the paper’s publisher of record. In 1869, George K. Fitch, Loring Pickering, and James W. Simonton, owners of the rival San Francisco Bulletin, purchased the Call and ran it for over two decades. By the 1890s, the paper’s staff had grown to over 40, including editorial writers, sports reporters, and drama and art critics. In January 1895, after the deaths of Pickering and Simonton, the Call was sold in probate court to Charles M. Shortridge, publisher of the San Jose Daily Mercury.

Two years later, Shortridge relinquished control of the paper to John D. Spreckels, a noted industrialist and philanthropist, who increased the paper’s size to 14 pages. The Call reached the peak of its significance, coverage, and quality during this period. Novels were serialized in the 40 page Sunday issue and comic pages began to appear in 1903. Five years later, the Junior Call, an eight page tabloid supplement, began to appear on Saturdays. In the competition with the other morning papers, however, the Call was losing ground. At the time of the great earthquake and fire in 1906 the reported circulation of the Examiner was 98,000 as opposed to 80,000 for the Chronicle and 62,000 for the Call. William Randolph Hearst purchased the Call in 1913, merging it with the Evening Post, converted it to an evening newspaper, and renamed it as the San Francisco Call and Post. In July 1918, Hearst lured Fremont Older, who had begun his newspaper career some two decades earlier as a beat reporter at the Call, from the rival Bulletin and installed him as managing editor. Soon thereafter Hearst made John Francis Neylan, once a cub reporter on the Bulletin and later a protege of the Progressive Hiram Johnson, as publisher. The conversion of the Call from a conservative morning newspaper to a progressive evening newspaper was complete.

Note: Two indexes for the San Francisco Call are available on microfiche from the California State Library: one for the years 1893-1904; a second one for the period 1904-1913, combined with indexes for the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner for the years from 1914 to the mid-century.