Chicago Ledger

{{Short description|American story paper (1872–1924)}}

{{DISPLAYTITLE:Chicago Ledger}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}

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The Chicago Ledger was a story paper published in Chicago, Illinois, from 1872 until 1924. Put out by the Ledger Company and edited by Samuel H. Williams, the Ledger was a boilerplate literary magazine.{{cite book|last1=Mott|first1=Frank Luther|title=A History of American Magazines, v.4|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofamerica0002mott|url-access=registration|date=1957|publisher=The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge(MA)|pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofamerica0002mott/page/53 53–54]}} Such periodicals were printed using engraved steel sheets. The plates, or casts of them, were then sent out to be printed and inserted into other newspapers.{{cite book|last1=Allen|first1=John Edward|title=Newspaper Designing|date=1947|publisher=Harper|location=New York|page=468|url=http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b112907|accessdate=February 11, 2015}} Ledger subscriptions originally sold for $1 for 52 issues and, by 1879, the paper had a circulation of 10,000.{{cite journal|last1=Fleming|first1=Herbert E.|title=The Literary Interests of Chicago, III & IV|journal=American Journal of Sociology|date=January 1906|volume=11|issue=4|page=501|jstor=2762563|doi=10.1086/211419|s2cid=222424187|url=https://zenodo.org/record/2019465}} Although begun as a literary paper of "a good class,"{{cite book|last1=Scott|first1=Franklin William|title=Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879, v.6|date=1910|publisher=Trustees of the Illinois State Historical Library|location=Springfield (IL)|page=[https://archive.org/details/newspapersandpe00scotgoog/page/n69 111]|url=https://archive.org/details/newspapersandpe00scotgoog|accessdate=February 11, 2015}} the Ledger eventually became more melodramatic in tone. In his 1910 book, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, Franklin Scott, notes that "[t]he sensational, although not immoral, character of the Ledger stories, and the use that the large mail-order houses have made of its advertising columns, have given this paper an unusually long life and extensive circulation."

In 1892, William D. Boyce, who helped to found the Boy Scouts of America and later the Lone Scouts of America, purchased the Ledger and turned it into a "mail order" paper. As such, the Ledger relied on advertising by direct mail retailers to support its publication.{{cite book|last1=Mott|first1=Frank Luther|title=A History of American Magazines, v.4|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofamerica0004mott|url-access=registration|date=1957|publisher=The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge(MA)|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofamerica0004mott/page/39 39]}}{{Cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vyUuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA33 |title = The Advertising Age and Mail Order Journal|year = 1916|website=Google Books|author=Mail Order Journal Company}} This kind of publication made money without a large initial outlay. The Ledger contained serialized fiction and short stories designed to appeal to the whole family. Later issues had a supplement called the Little Ledger, which offered "Useful Knowledge, Romance, and Amusement for Young People."{{cite web|title=Series - The Chicago Ledger|url=http://dimenovels.org/Series/194|website=The Edward T. LeBlanc Dime Novel Bibliography project|accessdate=February 12, 2015}}

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The W.D. Boyce Company operated from the "second skyscraper in Chicago," at 30 North Dearborn Street{{cite journal|title=Advertisement|journal=Marketing Communications|date=1921|volume=117|issue=December 1|page=148|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wLU9AQAAMAAJ|accessdate=February 11, 2015}} until moving to the historic Boyce Building at 500-510 North Dearborn Street. Boyce sold the Chicago Ledger and The Saturday Blade, known together as Boyce's Big Weeklies, through a network of news boys. They earned two cents per paper sold and were not charged for unsold issues.{{cite book|last1=Frasca|first1=Ralph|title=The Rise and Fall of the Sunday Globe|date=1992|publisher=Susquehanna University Press|page=42|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fnPP-BeS81oC|accessdate=February 11, 2015|isbn=9780945636168}} This system worked well for the company as it provided them with a sales force in rural areas and functioned in accordance with Boyce's philosophy of providing rural boys with advantages more easily accessed in cities. Their recruiting material bore the slogan, "The best way to help a boy is to help him to help himself."{{cite web|last1=W.D. Boyce Company|title=[The Saturday Blade and The Chicago Ledger agent solicitation], To: Sam Albert, July, 1911|url=http://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:316039|website=digital.library.villanova.edu|accessdate=February 12, 2015}}

Contributors to the Chicago Ledger included Weldon J. Cobb,{{cite web|title=The House of Beadle & Adams Online|url=http://www.ulib.niu.edu/badndp/cobb_weldon.html|website=ulib.niu.edu|publisher=Northern Illinois University Library|accessdate=February 12, 2015}} Harry Stephen Keeler,{{cite book|last1=Keeler|first1=Harry Stephen|title=Strands of the Web: The Short Stories of Harry Stephen Keeler|date=2009|publisher=Lulu.com|page=253|edition=Fred Cleaver|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OK-hAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA253|accessdate=February 13, 2015|isbn=9781605431987}} and Randall Parrish.{{cite web|title=Chicago Ledger v.XLIX, no 21, Saturday May 21, 1921|url=http://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:333065|website=digital.library.villanova.edu|publisher=Digital Library@Villanova University|accessdate=February 11, 2015}} Noted African-American author Charles W. Chesnutt{{cite web|last1=Browner|first1=Stephanie|title=The Charles Chesnutt Digital Archive|url=http://www.chesnuttarchive.org/bibliography.html|website=chesnuttarchive.org|accessdate=February 11, 2015}} wrote two short stories, "The Doctor’s Wife" and "A Metropolitan Experience," published in June, 1887. Edward Stratemeyer,{{cite web|title=Person - Winfield, Edna|url=http://dimenovels.org/Person/43|website=The Edward T. LeBlanc Dime Novel Bibliography project|accessdate=February 12, 2015}} whose Stratemeyer Syndicate was responsible for such series as The Hardy Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, and Nancy Drew, contributed to The Chicago Ledger under the name Edna Winfield.

In 1925, Boyce's Big Weeklies merged to become the Blade and Ledger. William D. Boyce died in 1929 in his penthouse apartment in the Boyce Building. The Blade & Ledger continued to be published monthly until 1937.

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