The printers — the press as a business

1883

The trade: The newspapers' editorial record belongs to this history's media pass; their printing firms' commercial record belongs here, and Farr's 1883 directory is its document. Under Printers the directory lists seven houses: Dunbar, E. C., 110 e Washington; Fikentscher, G., 134 n Main; Murray, C. L. & Sons, 218 s Michigan; the Register Printing Co., 134 n Michigan; Shively, Benjamin F., 106 s Michigan; the Times Printing Co., 120 n Main; and the Tribune Printing Co., 127 w Washington. Under Book Binders it lists Holloway, C. W., and the Register and Tribune companies again. The directory's own errata add a working name: "Casey, P. H., job printer Register."

The Tribune Printing Company: The largest of the houses printed the directory itself — Farr's title page reads "Tribune Printing Co., Printers" — and the company's full-page advertisement at the directory's page 240 lists its lines as one business: printers, stationers, booksellers, bookbinders, and newsdealers, dealing besides in blank books, wall paper, pictures, toys, albums, and frames, and claiming for its paper a "circulation larger than any Indiana paper outside of Indianapolis" — the claim is the company's own, printed as its advertisement gives it. The directory's Newspapers heading names the seven papers whose offices these shops served: Der Indiana Courier, the Farmer's Friend, the South Bend Era, the South Bend Times, the South Bend Tribune, the St. Joseph Valley Register, and The Globe. Seven papers and seven printing houses: in 1883 the press was not a firm in this city but a trade, and it stands in this record at the trade's size.

Sources:

1. Farr's South Bend City Directory for 1883 — the Classified Business Directory's Printers, Book Binders, and Newspapers headings; the directory's errata (P. H. Casey); its title page (Tribune Printing Co., Printers); and the Tribune Printing Company's advertisement at page 240.