The Birmingham Age-Herald
The Birmingham Age-Herald was a newspaper published in Birmingham from 1888 to 1950.
The Daily Herald, founded by William Pinckard in 1887, merged with the slightly-older Daily Age on November 8, 1888. Pinckard retained ownership until 1894 while Frank O'Brien served as president, business manager and director.
In 1893 the 12-page, 72-column Weekly Age-Herald appeared each Wednesday morning and was available by mail for a $1.00 annual subscription. That June the company took delivery of new typesetting machines from the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. With the new equipment, the paper upgraded its design with a "full-faced, leaded nonpareil" for news columns and a "leaded minion" for editorial sections.
O'Brien resigned in September 1893. J. F. B. Jackson succeeded him as president and general manager, while his seat as director was filled by W. M. Malone.
In 1895 the paper was bought by the founders of The Daily State and merged with that paper to become The Birmingham State Herald. Their general manager, John Rountree assumed controlling interest in the publication.
Rountree sold the paper to Edward Barrett in 1897, and the Age-Herald name was restored. Under his guidance, the paper campaigned for educational progress in the state. A new Age-Herald Building was constructed on 5th Avenue North in 1910.
In 1912 the circulation of the Age-Herald was reported as 17,011 daily and 28,475 on Sundays. In 1916 editor C. E. Stanley explained why the paper did not "segregate" news items relating to the city's Black residents, criticizing the practices of the Birmingham News and Birmingham Ledger as, "barbarism," which, "shows nothing wise on the part of the paper, or the one who is responsible for it.". He stated on behalf of his paper that, "We appreciate Negro news, and will run all that's contributed to us by an authorised correspondent, but when we publish it, we do so because its[sic] news and without the remotest idea of placing it off to itself as if afraid it might bite the white news."
After Barrett's death in June 1922, the paper was owned and managed by his widow, Lewis Barrett, who had become familiar with the operation. She remarried, to hotel executive Robert Meyer in November of the same year, and sold the business to a group consisting of Frederick Thompson, B. B. Comer, and his son, Donald Comer.
The partners in turn sold it to Birmingham News publisher Victor Hanson in 1927. He kept both papers going, the Age-Herald in the morning, and the News in the evenings with a joint Birmingham News Age-Herald Sunday edition.
In 1933, the first on-the-job fatality of a newspaper-carrier for the Age-Herald occurred. T. E. McGiboney, 15, was struck by a car while delivering papers on his bicycle. He is buried at Oakland Cemetery in Ensley.
Publication of the Age-Herald, as well as the The Birmingham News and The Birmingham Post was suspended from July 12 to August 15, 1945 due to a printers' strike.
The Age-Herald was sold to Scripps-Howard, publisher of the Birmingham Post, in 1950. The resulting merged paper was dubbed the Birmingham Post-Herald.
Preceded by: The Daily Age and The Daily Herald |
The Birmingham Age-Herald 1888–1895 |
Succeeded by: The Birmingham State Herald |
Preceded by: The Birmingham Age-Herald |
The Birmingham State Herald 1895–1897 |
Succeeded by: The Birmingham Age-Herald |
Preceded by: The Birmingham State Herald and The Birmingham Post |
The Birmingham Age-Herald 1897–1950 |
Succeeded by: Birmingham Post-Herald |
References
- "Type Setting Machines" (May 10, 1893) The Weekly Age-Herald, p. 4
- "Mr. O'Brien's Resignation" (September 13, 1893) The Weekly Age-Herald, p. 4
- "Birmingham Age-Herald Does Not Segregate Its Negro News." (June 17, 1916) Voice of the People, p. 4
External links
- Birmingham Age-Herald digital collection (incomplete) at The University of Alabama Libraries Digital Collections