Although I've never actually seen someone buy a tabloid
they are a continuous fixture in the checkout isles of groceries parading the
latest gossip and fiction. Honestly, it would probably be embarrassing to
purchase a newspaper that claimed that they had seen Elvis alive and shopping
with the Big Foot in Manhattan. Maybe these papers are purchased because of the
incredulity of the published statements, but some people really enjoy the
reading whether they believe it to be reality or not. Somehow the paper is
making enough money and is therefore allowed to stay for all of the waiting
eyes to glance at during the check-out process. After Dr. Burt described the
penny press papers of the past I kept thinking of them as these tabloids. Two
of the things that makes the newspapers of today thankfully better from the
1800's penny press papers is that they mostly only go after famous people and
that they have rules about what they can and cannot write and what proof they
can use. Yet these old papers show that love and desire were two themes that
still managed to hook people.
There used to be a lot less people
in the towns and cities that allowed small communities to form between
neighbors and friends. It was very easy to lose the respect of others and be
banned from the community if you did not show yourself to be proper. With the
dawning of the gossip filled penny press everyone was fair game to be ridiculed
and mocked on the front page, especially the upper echelon of society. This
would have made life a lot more difficult with the gossip being published in
the very papers that everyone reads. If your name managed to make its way their
either from gossip or fiction not only would you be frowned upon from your
community but also from the entire city, as far as the paper was able to reach.
As a woman this would be especially hurtful because it would not only affect
your social life but possibly also affect the decision of who would be willing to
marry you.
I feel so grateful to be a woman
living in this day and age. To be a woman in the 1800's is a condemned life
where only those who marry well have some semblance of freedom, although it is
still a freedom chained to a man. I personally know that my dream career of
being a dentist would have been barred from me due to my gender. Even if you
were lucky enough to get a job you would be stuck in a particular position that
was deemed proper for women. In the journal world this was referred to as
"the velvet ghetto". A place filled with advice columns on cleaning
supplies and bake it yourself advice.
Maybe it is different from back in
the 1800's but now people believe nearly everything that is written in the
popular newspapers. Therefore when a paper writes a scandalous article people
will read it even more carefully and put more empathy into what is being read.
In the 1800's several of the articles seemed to be fiction. How dangerous it
could become if the New York Times started publishing fake articles that
catered to their own beliefs and agendas. It is a dangerous path and I am so
thankful that now sources and citations have to be used so that the validity of
our news can be confirmed. Titles such as "Love, Despair, and
Suicide" were rampantly popular for the penny press. Thankfully these
heartbreak articles are usually only found as the title of the next
melodramatic novel. The poor families and friends of the person who had committed
suicide; having to deal with the horror of having to read and hear their
personal lives from the tongues of the city.
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