Philadelphia Public Ledger

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The Philadelphia Public Ledger was published from March 25, 1836 to January 1942. For a time, it was Philadelphia's most popular newspaper, but circulation declined in the mid-1930s.

Founded by William M. Swain, Arunah S. Abell, and Azariah H. Simmons, and edited by Swain, it was the first penny paper in Philadelphia, the first daily to make use of a pony express, and among the first papers to use the electromagnetic telegraph. From 1846, it was printed on the first rotary printing press.

In 1864, it was sold to George William Childs and Anthony J. Drexel. In 1870, Mark Twain, in his column for The Galaxy, mocked the Ledger for its rhyming obituaries in a piece entitled "Post-Mortem Poetry":

There is an element about some poetry which is able to make even physical suffering and death cheerful things to contemplate and consummations to be desired.

In 1902, New York Times owner Adolph Ochs bought the paper, merged in the Philadelphia Times (which he had bought the previous year), and installed his brother George as editor.

In 1913, Cyrus Curtis purchased the paper, launching an evening edition in 1914. On April 16, 1934, the morning and Sunday editions were merged into The Philadelphia Inquirer (also held by the heirs of Curtis), but the paper continued an independent life as the Evening Public Ledger.

In 1941, the Evening Public Ledger was sold to Robert Cresswell, formerly of the New York Herald Tribune. Mounting debts brought on a court-ordered liquidation, and the paper ceased publication in January, 1942.

[edit] Known editors

William M. Swain
William Henry Fry (1844-1846)
George Oakes
Charles Munro Morrison (1930-1939, 1941)
John McLaughlin

[edit] Public Ledger Building

The Public Ledger Building (1924) at 600-606 Chestnut Street was designed in the Georgian Revival style by Horace Trumbauer and houses a sculpture of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph A. Bailly (1825-1883).