January 2011

The automobile question is becoming more and more interesting daily, and signs are not wanting that our warning of some months ago to the automobilists to be careful lest they arouse the animosity of the public by a careless attitude toward the rights of the latter was not without justification. We had hoped that the devotees of this sport would of their own initiative impose such restrictions upon the pursuit thereof as would conduce to the public safety and their own popularity. This they do not seem to have done, and with the multiplication of accidents in the public highways much indignation against them is accreting which before long may burst forth in an overwhelming torrent of wrath. One correspondent offers a thousand dollars to be used in the organization of a troop of minute-men armed with rifles, who shall stand on street corners and pick off automobilists as they pass, much as the minute-men of ’76 picked off the offensive redcoats of the British army.

—From Harper’s Weekly, May 17, 1902

The murders for which Nicola Sacco and Barlolomeo Vanzetti were convicted and finally executed were quick, simple, and brutal. On the afternoon of April 15, 1920, in the small shoe manufacturing town of South Braintree, Massachusetts, a paymaster, Frederick Parmenter, and his guard, Alessandro Berardelli, were shot and robbed as they walked down Pearl Street with the Slater & Morrill Shoe Company payroll—some fifteen thousand dollars in two metal boxes.

O n May 30, 1842, a young Englishman named John Francis chew a pistol from his waistcoat pocket and fired a shot at Queen Victoria as she rode by in an open carriage. A police constable grabbed the would-be assassin just as he pressed the trigger, so his bullet whizzed harmlessly through the air. His effort made history nonetheless, for it became the subject of the first spot news picture in the world’s first pictorial newspaper, the still surviving—and still great— Illustrated London News .

This pioneer picture is reproduced in the portfolio thai accompanies this article. Pictorial journalism, as a distinct profession, technique, and business, is now 120 years old. Its newest productions are not necessarily its most handsome or entertaining—as the display of older American papers on the opposite page may suggest.

In the pages that follow are some of the actual news pictures and cartoons and historic front pages that marked the rise of pictorial journalism up to the year 1900. All of these are from the collection assembled by Roger Butterfield, author of the accompanying article, and recently acquired by the New York State Historical Association at Cooperstown. With its 200,000 items—books and pamphlets, broadsides and catalogues, newspapers and magazines—it has long been recognized as one of the finest private collections of Americana in this country. The editors of A MERICAN H ERITAGE —a more recent arrival among pictorial magazines—are pleased to present this visual salute to the pioneers of a great profession.

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

Three decades of his life had been devoted to a single passion—a passion that took him to the very pinnacle of success. then the era he had helped to create began to fade, and one could see in his face an awareness of the onrushing winds of change. The year was 1855, and the burst of genius and energy which had made America, for a time, the greatest maritime power in the world was being drowned by forces beyond anyone’s ability to control.