In the In Times Past column, David W. Dunlap explores New York Times history through artifacts housed in the Museum of The Times.
The New York Times shares a lot of journalistic DNA with The Associated Press, including two foundational leaders. Henry Jarvis Raymond (1820-1869), who established The Times in 1851, and Adolph S. Ochs (1858-1935), whose family has published The Times since 1896, played a role in shaping the modern A.P., too.
Raymond was the editor of The New York Courier & Enquirer in 1846 when he and a half dozen other New York journalists formed the New York Associated Press, originally to share the cost of covering the distant Mexican-American War.
Competitors emerged as the New York A.P. grew. The Western Associated Press broke away in 1866. The United Press (no relation to United Press International) was formed in 1882. In 1891, Ochs, then the publisher of The Chattanooga Times, organized the Southern Associated Press, which the United Press took over in 1894, having already absorbed the New York Associated Press.
The failure of the United Press in 1897 left the Western Associated Press of Chicago as the nation’s dominant newswire. A member newspaper, The Daily Inter Ocean of Chicago, sued The A.P. in 1898 for punitively withholding service. In 1900, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that The A.P., as a public utility, had to offer its news service to any newspaper that wished to be a client.
As a result, the association reorganized in New York, where corporate laws were more favorable, as a nonprofit cooperative, the forebear of the modern A.P.
On Sept. 29, 1900, The A.P. issued an imposing 14-by-14-inch vellum sheet embossed with its corporate seal of telegraph poles and wires. In a handsome calligraphic hand, the document certified Adolph S. Ochs as a member who was “entitled to a news report of The Associated Press solely for publication in the New York Times.” The Times still has the certificate on file.
David W. Dunlap, a retired Times reporter and columnist, is the curator of the Museum at The Times, which houses Times artifacts and historical documents.
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