The story of the Sun, New York: 1833-1928 / by Frank M. O'Brien ; with an introduction by Edward Page Mitchell ...

THE STORY OF"THE SUN"
CHAPTER I
SUNRISE AT 222 WILLIAM STREET
Benjamin t I. Day, with No Capital Except Youth and
Courage, Establishes the First Permanent Penny
Newspaper.-The Curious First Number Entirely
His Own Work.
N the early thirties of last century the only newspapers in the city of New York were six-cent journals whose reading matter was adapted to the politics
of men, and whose only appeal to women was their size,
perfectly suited to deep pantry shelves.
Dave Ramsey, a compositor on one of these sixpennies,
the Journal of Commerce, had an obsession. It was
that a penny paper, to be called the Sun, would be a
success in a city full of persons whose interest was in
humanity in general, rather than in politics, and whose
pantry shelves were of negligible width. Why his mind
fastened on the Sun as the name of this child of his
vision is not known; perhaps it was because there was
a daily in London bearing that title. It was a short
name, easily written, easily spoken, easily remembered.
Benjamin H. Day, another printer, worked beside
Dave Ramsey in 1830. Ramsey reiterated his idea to
his neighbor so often that Day came to believe in it,
I