The year 1908 was not remarkable by most accounts, but it was an auspicious year for journalism. As newspapers sought to recover from big-city yellow journalism and circulation wars that reached their lowpoint a few years earlier during the Spanish American War, press clubs began to champion higher education. And schools dedicated to journalism education, led by the University of Missouri, began to emerge. Now sanctioned by universities, journalism could teach acceptable behavior and establish credentials. It was nothing less than the birth of a profession.

Journalism—1908 opens a window on mass communication a century ago. It tells how the news media in the United States were fundamentally changed by the creation of academic departments and schools of journalism, by the founding of the National Press Club, and by exciting advances that included early newsreels, the introduction of halftones to print, and even changes in newspaper design.

Journalism educator Betty Houchin Winfield has gathered a team of well-known media scholars, all specialists in particular areas of journalism history, to examine the status of their profession in 1908: news organizations, business practices, media law, advertising, forms of coverage from sports to arts, and more. Various facets of journalism are explored and situated within the country’s history and the movement toward reform and professionalism—not only formalized standards and ethics but also labor issues concerning pay, hours, and job differentiation that came with the emergence of new technologies.

This overview of a watershed year is national in scope, examining early journalism education programs not only at Missouri but also at such schools as Colgate, Washington and Lee, Wisconsin, and Columbia. It also reviews the status of women in the profession and looks beyond big-city papers to Progressive Era magazines, the immigrant press, and African American publications.

Journalism—1908 commemorates a century of progress in the media and, given the place of Missouri’s School of Journalism in that history, is an appropriate celebration of that school’s centennial celebration. It is a lode of information about journalism education history that will surprise even many of those in the field and marks a seminal year with lasting significance for the profession.

About the Editor
            Betty Houchin Winfield is University of Missouri Distinguished Curators’ Professor and the author of three books, including FDR and the News Media.

Contents

Introduction

            Emerging Journalism Professionalism and Modernity by Betty Houchin Winfield

 The Scene in 1908

            1908: A Very Political Year for the Press by Betty Houchin Winfield

            From Whiskey Ads to the Reverend Jellyfish: Media Law in 1908 by Sandra Davidson

 Modernization: Journalism Comes of Age

            Community Journalism: A Continuous Objective by William Howard Taft

            Press Clubs Champion Journalism Education by Stephen Banning

            Philosophy at Work: Ideas Made a Difference by Hans Ibold and Lee Wilkins

Institutional Rumblings and Change

            Power, Irony, and Contradictions: Education and the News Business by Fred Blevens

            The Age of “Glory and Risk”: The Advertising Industry Finds Its Worth by Caryl Cooper

 Journalism's Extended Family

            Work in Progress: Labor and the Press in 1908 by Bonnie Brennen

            Good Women and Bad Girls: Women and Journalism in 1908 by Maurine H. Beasley

General Assignment Plus

            Sports Journalism and the New American Character of Energy and Leisure by Tracy Everbach

            Enter Stage Right: Critics Flex Their Muscles in the Heyday of Live Performances by Scott Fosdick

1908: The Beginnings of Globalization of Journalism Education by John C. Merrill and Hans Ibold

            The Look of 1908: Newspaper Design Status at a Turning Point in Journalism by Lori England Wegman

 Journalism's Concurrent Voices

            Reform, Consume: Social Tumult on the Pages of Progressive Era Magazines by Janice Hume

Foreign Voices Yearning to Breathe Free: The Early Twentieth-Century Immigrant Press in the United States by Berkley Hudson

            Forced to the Margins: The Early Twentieth-Century African American Press by Earnest Perry and Aimee Edmondson

Conclusion

            1908: The Aftermath by Betty Houchin Winfield