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Samuel Bowles
| Firmenname | Samuel Bowles |
| Ortssitz | Springfield (Mass.) |
| Art des Unternehmens | Druckerei |
| Anmerkungen | - |
| Quellenangaben | [Bishop: History of American manufacturers 1 (1868) 653] |
| Zeit |
Ereignis |
| 1826 |
Geburt von Samuel Bowles in Springfield, Mass., bald nachdem sein Vater von Hartford, Conn., wo dieser die Zeitung "The Springfield Republican" begonnen hatte. |
| 1844 |
Der achtzehnjährige Samuel Bowles überredet seinen Vater, den "The Daily Republican" herauszugeben. |
| 1848 |
Im Mexikanischen Krieg (1846) beginnt sich der "Telegraph" zu verteilen und bringt Neuigkeiten zur selben Zeit heraus, und das Blastt wächst zu einer angesehenen Stellung zu Profit bis 1848. |
| 1849 |
Dr. J. G. Holland ("Timothy Titcomb") wird assoziierter Herausgeber, und der Senior Bowles widmet sich der Geschäftsleitung. |
| 1853 |
Tod von Mr. Bowles. Clark W. Bryan tritt in die Firma ein, und unter seiner direkten Leitung wird eine ausgedehnte Buch- und Akzidenzdruckerei und Buchbinderei geplant und schirttweise aufgebaut. |
| 1857 |
Versuch, in Boston eine Zeitung herauszugben |
| 1860 |
Dr. Holland bleibt bis 1860 bei der Zeitung und der Firma. |
| Winter 1865/66 |
Die Druckerei stellt 1.200 Exemplare von Dr. Holland's "Life of Lincoln" jeden Tag her. |
| ZEIT | 1868 |
| THEMA | Firmenbeschreibung |
| TEXT | Is entitled to a place among distinguished American printers. Though more properly a journalist, yet he is the head of one of the most extensive, comprehensive, and successful Printing Offices and Binderies in New England, and is entitled to rank alike as a professional man, an artisan, and a manufacturer. His grandfather was Samuel Bowles; his father was also named Samuel; and a fourth of the same name is well advanced on the way to manhood. The present Mr. Samuel Bowles was born in Springfield, Mass., in 1826, soon after his father, coming from Hartford, Conn., had commenced there The Springfield Republican newspaper; and there has his home always been, and probably always will be - a rare fact in the history of the American man. He went to school there, never elsewhere, and at sixteen turned in p.s a boy of all-work in his father's printing office, folding and carrying papers, rolling the type, attending the counting-room, dabbling with pen and scissors for copy" for the weekly paper. In 1844, when he was eighteen, he persuaded his father to start The Daily Republican, and from its beginning, he has been its constant and substantial conductor. It was a "wee" affair at first, with only a hundred or two subscribers, but the Mexican War came in 1846, and the Telegraph began to dot and carry news about the same time, and the paper grew into position and profit by 1848. In these early years, Mr. Bowles was omnipresent in the business. He slept on a sofa in the office, gathered and prepared the general and local news of the paper, marshalled the compositors at four o'clock every morning for the late "copy," superintended the "make-up" of the paper, took his turn at the wheel of the Adams' press that worked it off, despatched the town carriers, and prepared the mail and railroad packages - all before breakfast. Such perseverance and industry rapidly told in producing success. In 1849, Dr. J. G. Holland ("Timothy Titcomb,") came in as associate editor, the senior Mr. Bowles devoting himself to the business management, and the Republican at once assumed rank as the best written and most enterprising provincial newspaper in the country. Dr. Holland remained with the paper and firm until about 1860, proving a large element in its popularity and success, and retired from active participation in editorial labors, only to devote himself more exclusively to purely literary work; but meantime, and since, the editorial staff of the Republican has grown by various excellent additions, until it now numbers six to eight different persons. Chief of them, and longest in the service, is Mr. J. E. Hood, a graduate of Dartmouth College, and the leading editorial writer of the Republican for the the last ten years. The paper has become a model in journalism, and a power in politics and society. It fills its niche so completely and satisfactorily, that no rival has yet lived in its neighborhood; and its daily circulation in Springfield averages a copy to every family, and is more in proportion to the inhabitants than that of any other paper in any town or city in the land. The aggregate circulation of the Daily Republican is now seven thousand five hundred; that of the Weekly Republican, which is spread extensively all over New England, and in the West, is fifteen thousand. These aggregates are far in advance of those of any Journals outside the largest cities of the country. In 1853, the senior Mr. Bowles having died, Mr. Clark W. Bryan was added to the firm, and, under his direct superintendence, an extensive Book and Job Printing Office and Book Bindery was planned and gradually built up. By his energy, tact, and other high business qualities, this has grown to the first rank in manufactories of this description, and is indeed a model in New England. Then the firm employed fifteen workmen; now its list of workers is swollen to two hundred and seventy-five, and its monthly payments for labor amount to from $10.000 to 13.000. Seventeen printing presses are in constant use, and fifty to sixty machines of different kinds, some of them invented for special purposes in the establishment itself. A steam-engine of twenty-five horse power drives the whole. All descriptions of printing and binding are done by the firm. Photograph Albums of all kinds, and Blank Books, are specialties of the Binding department, under the superintendance of a partner - Mr. J. F. Tapley. At one time, perhaps still, Messrs. Bowles & Company were the largest Album manufacturers in the country, their sales of Albums in a single month being 30,000. Three hundred tons of paper are used up in the establishment in a year, one book that they manufacture requiring six tons of paper for a single edition. In the winter of 1865-6, the office manufactured twelve hundred copies of Dr. Holland's "Life of Lincoln" each day. At this time Mr. Bowles and his partners occupy a new and extensive building, erected expressly for their purposes. Located on a central corner in Springfield, it extends fifty-two feet on Main street, with a brown stone front, and runs back one hundred and forty-five feet, four stories in height, the whole, save a banking-house in one lower corner, being devoted to their extensive operations. Electrotyping has recently been added, and now the establishment is perhaps as various, well-appointed, and complete as any in the country. Their tools and machinery, and materials on hand, are valued at between one hundred and two hundred thousand dollars, and the capital required in the whole business is not far from a quarter of a million of dollars. The success of the establishment is very largely due to the liberal course adopted in the beginning by Mr. Bowles, and followed since, of giving an interest in the business to every one, who, after trial, proved equal to leadership in any department. Thus there are now six partners in the firm, including those mentioned, two of the editorial assistants, and Mr. Bowles's brother, who has charge of the counting-room and finances. All the capital in the concern has been made out of it, none has been brought into it from without; and the experience of Mr. Bowles, in dealing thus liberally with associates and assistants, is a praiseworthy example to all business men. Aside from the growth of his paper and this extensive connected business, Mr. Bowles's life presents few salient features for a biographer. He has shrunk from all public life so called. Journalism has furnished him enough association with public affairs to satisfy his ambition, and he has greatly strengthened his paper and its influence by refusing to use it for any outside personal advantage. He has been repeatedly urged to undertake journalism in a larger field, but is quite content with his present triumph and position. In 1857, he undertook the charge of a newspaper enterprise in Boston; but being disappointed in the character and purposes of some of his associates, left it in a very few months, during which he still continued his control of the Republican, and his residence in Springfield. The hard, exhaustive life of his business has greatly broken his nervous system of late years; but he stills continues at the head of the paper and its connected establishment. In 1862, he spent the summer in Europe for the benefit of his health, and in 1865, he joined Speaker Colfax in a summer tour overland to the Rocky Mountains, Utah, and the States of the Pacific coast. His letters to the Republican, describing this journey, attracted so much attention and praise, that they were revised and published in a book form, with the title of "Across the Continent," and fifteen thousand copies of it speedily sold. Mr. Bowles has gained more reputation from this volume than from any other circumstance or performance of his life. It is regarded as by far the best account ever written of Nature and Life in the Western half of our continent, and by many critics has been commended as the most interesting book of modern, travel. The style of the volume, and the characteristics of its pages, are perhaps the best illustration of the author's mind and capacities. He writes fluently, but tersely, and compactly and graphically. His quick instincts, and his trained powers of observation and scrutiny among men and things, give him rapid and thorough comprehension, and discarding superfluous details, he goes at once to the heart of his subject, and presents the marrow of every thing of which he treats. Without the scholarship of the college, without extensive reading of books - few men, perhaps, have read fewer volumes - he has acquired, by long reading of newspapers and intimate connection with people of larger culture, by a close observation and a quick and natural power of appropriation and absorption, much of the results and advantages that these give to men, and few of our journalists write more gracefully and scholarly than he does. Though only forty-one years of age, Mr. Bowles has had a long career as a business and professional man - two more years will complete a quarter of a century since he became the conductor of the Daily Republican. He has been part and parcel in the birth and growth of modern American Journalism, and no one man has, perhaps, contributed more to its development and elevation. His ideal of the Public Journal is still far from realization; he looks to see it still more the great instrument, guide, and protector in the growth of our political and social system, disseminating knowledge, disarming ignorance and vice, and defending order and justice. There remains only to add to our sketch that Mr. Bowles was married as early as he began business life, has a large family of children, and lives in a home of taste and elegance in Springfield, respected and honored most by those who have known him longest and best. |
| QUELLE | [Bishop: History of American manufacturers 1 (1868) 653] |
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