Friday, March 25, 2016

What was the price of a newspaper in the 1920s?

The day after the Wall Street Crash in 1929, The New York Times cost the princely sum of two cents. Meanwhile, out West in Wisconsin, The Milwaukee Leader, a publication with a much smaller circulation, cost a penny more.
Overall, the cover price of newspapers didn't change all that much over the course of the decade. The demand for news and the supply of paper remained relatively stable throughout this period, ensuring that there were no significant fluctuations in the price of newsprint. Fierce competition also kept prices down as most American cities had several newspapers, each with a morning and an evening edition. Increased automation and developments in printing technology kept production costs low which inevitably had a knock-on effect on cover prices. As papers were also the main source of news for most Americans, they could count on a regular supply of advertising revenue to keep going, something that in this digital age is no longer the case.


The answer to this depends, of course, upon which country we're discussing and which year from this decade we're talking about, as it's always possible that prices may have changed over a ten year period. As such, we'll need to check 1920 and 1929 to see these trends. There is a very helpful website providing historic prices, hosted by Morris County Library in New Jersey. This website allows you to find the prices of most standard everyday items in any year of your choice.
According to Morris County Library, a newspaper in 1920, undefined as to the type of newspaper, cost 2 cents. Morris County Library also finds that newspapers in 1929 were still 2 cents. The record for 1925 specifies that this paper was the NJ Daily Record.

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