abstract: The Chicago Ledger appeared every week between 1873 and 1925, making it one of the longest-running story papers published in the United States. Rather than rely on the American News Company for distribution, like most of its competitors in New York and Philadelphia, it was sold directly to readers across the nation's farms, towns, and villages, where it was read in millions of country homes. Because it carried advertising and mostly circulated in rural areas, however, the Ledger has long been dismissed as a mere "advertising sheet" or "mail-order paper." This article examines the distribution, revenue, advertising, and editorial strategies used by the Ledger's publishers to argue for understanding it instead as a story paper for the country custom. This reframing makes it easier to appreciate all of the complex ways that story papers were read and sold, especially in non-urban markets, while opening up a wider conversations about weekly papers for the home, an important and long-neglected part of rural print culture.
Matthew Short (Wed,) studied this question.