Mugging and Murder on a New York City Street, 1891

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Mugging and Murder on a New York City Street, 1891

Illustration

By: Anonymous

Date: 1891

Source: Corbis.

About the Illustrator: This illustration appeared in the National Police Gazette, a nineteenth century periodical devoted to lurid coverage of crime and criminals.

INTRODUCTION

The National Police Gazette capitalized on the American fascination with blood and gore to become the most popular men's publication of the late nineteenth century. Printed on pink paper, the Police Gazette horrified Victorian society and New York City's elite press but delighted ordinary folk with lavish illustrations of violent events.

The Police Gazette, as it was commonly called, began in 1845 chronicling crimes of the day. After the Civil War, George Matsell, a former New York City chief of police, took over the newspaper and began sensationalizing crime coverage. However, circulation dwindled and the newspaper nearly died. Richard Kyle Fox, an Irish immigrant journalist, purchased it in 1876 and made significant changes—including adding pictures to the crime stories. New York City had an enormously high percentage of immigrants, many of whom could not read English. Fox guaranteed the survival of his newspaper by including plenty of graphic depictions of murders, seductions, and horrible accidents.

Such regular features as "Noose Notes" and "Crimes of the Clergy" particularly appealed to the magazine's almost entirely young male working-class readership. They also scandalized the New York City Society for the Suppression of Vice. The newspaper was taken to court several times for its shocking articles. Promising atrocities of a number to satisfy any man, the column "Homicidal Horrors" covered the hanging of a Texas wife murderer, a fatal love affair in Cleveland, and a murder trial in San Antonio in a personal, chatty tone. "Vice's Varieties" offered brief descriptions of wrongdoing contributed by readers from every state. The newspaper typically featured headlines that were often gruesome and frequently sexual in nature.

The National Police Gazette made Fox a multimillionaire and became so well-known a publication that the James Boys, notorious bank and train robbers, sent their autographed pictures to its New York City headquarters. While it saw itself as a national institution, most of its material came from New York City.

PRIMARY SOURCE

MUGGING AND MURDER ON A NEW YORK CITY STREET, 1891

See primary source image.

SIGNIFICANCE

The National Police Gazette became one of the top American periodicals of the late nineteenth century. By 1886, the newspaper had subscribers in twenty-six countries and a weekly circulation of 150,000. Many of these readers were part of a new audience developed by Fox—men who were at the bottom of the social ladder and who had little interest in upholding the traditions of Victorian society. Fox allowed them to escape the repression of the times.

The Gazette offered a new type of entertainment for the dawning age of consumerism. The success of the newspaper showed other publishers the value of brightening solid pages of newsprint with attractive pictures. In devoting lavish illustrations to bloody and violent events, the Gazette was visionary. Covering human interest stories such as crimes set an example for daily papers and revolutionized newspaper standards, shifting the focus from an emphasis on moral purity to an emphasis on spectacle.

By the 1890s, the "new journalism" as practiced by the dailies packaged the news as series of heavily illustrated melodramas and atrocities. The National Police Gazette pioneered the techniques that gave rise to the famed "yellow press" of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer.