1 See, for example, Cappon, Lester J. and Duff, Stella F., Virginia Gazette Index, 1736–1780 (Williamsburg, Va., 1950), 2 vols.; The New York Daily Tribune Index, 1875–1906 (New York, 1876–1907), 22 vols.; Index to the Chicago Record-Herald, Daily and Sunday, 1904–1912 (n.p., n. d.), 9 vols. See, generally, Brayer, Herbert O., “Preliminary Guide to Indexed Newspapers in the United States, 1850–1900,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 33 (September 1946), 237–258.Google Scholar

2 The New York Times Index, for the Published News of September 1851–December 1862 (New York, 1967). Prior Series, Vol. I; et seq. Google Scholar

3 The Chicago Tribune began publication in 1847; the first surviving copy dates from April, 1819. There are few extant copies before December, 1852, at which time a fairly consistent run (though broken by occasional gaps of a week's or even a month's or several months' duration) extends to the Great Fire of October 8, 1871. The Tribune resumed publication on October 12, 1871 and from that date forward there is, to the best of our knowledge, a continuous sequence of daily issues. The earliest editorial on an educational subject that we have found is in the issue of December 24, 1852, entitled “Chicago Business College,” not included here because it dealt with a proprietary, adult education institution. We should add that it is very difficult to determine what is and what is not an editorial in the Tribune issues of the middle 1850s because articles, editorials, and even advertisements are mingled together in such a way as to make it hard to tell which purpose was intended by each piece.Google Scholar

4 Gregory, Winifred, American Newspapers, 1821–1936 (New York, 1937); Schwegmann, George A. Jr., Newspapers on Microfilm (Washington, 1967), 6th ed. The Chicago Tribune was microfilmed by the University of Chicago in the 1930s when the state of the art was quite primitive. Consequently there are some frames, particularly in the reels between 1860 and 1870, that are blurred or over-exposed or under-exposed to the point of being barely decipherable. Recently the Micro Photo Division of Bell & Howell, Old Mansfield Rd., Wooster, Ohio 44691, has re-microfilmed the issues of the Chicago Tribune from 1849 through 1872 and has also made an effort to locate the issues missing when the University of Chicago did the original microfilming. The Micro Photo edition has been on the market for only a few months and so we have keyed our list to the standard, widely distributed University of Chicago edition.Google Scholar

5 We wish to acknowledge with gratitude financial help and scholarly encouragement from Professors Francis S. Chase and Roald F. Campbell when each was serving as chairman, Department of Education, University of Chicago.Google Scholar