The founders of the Sun

Maryland Historical Society

The daily Baltimore Sun was first published May 17, 1837, by its founder, Arunah S. Abell from offices on Light Street, near Mercer. It was the city's first "penny paper," selling for one cent, and offering news of Baltimore and the world to a mass audience at an affordable price. Other newspapers of the day were selling for a "fip" or 6 ¼ cents; the Sun forced them all down to a penny.

Two principles have made the Sun stand out among American newspapers: its embrace of technological innovation and its commitment to foreign news. The Sun was the first American newspaper to use the telegraph extensively for newsgathering-numerous "scoops" in the 1840s moved it to the front of Baltimore's journalistic pack. It was the first to place in production the experimental Hoe "Lightning" rotary press, which increased press speeds four-fold. Its embrace of technology included its building. The five-story Sun Iron Building at Baltimore and South Streets, opened in 1851, was the first tall American building to use iron columns instead of masonry for support, breaking new ground in construction technology. Iron columns made possible tall buildings that were at once sturdy and financially feasible.

Sun building on Charles and Baltimore Streets

Maryland Historical Society

Early Years
In its early years the Sun grew rapidly, claiming nearly 40,000 subscribers our of a city population of 212,418 in 1860, a figure double that of all other English-language papers combined. During the Civil War the paper adopted a neutral posture, although Abell, its publisher, was sympathetic to the Confederate cause. After the war, the Sun embarked on a strategy of growth by opening a Washington, DC, bureau, or office for journalists and editors, in 1872 and circulating strongly in that city.

In 1901, the Sunday Sun hit the streets for the first time, selling for two cents, the same price as the Sun. The Sun's growth was slowed by the Baltimore Fire of 1904 when the Iron Building was consumed in the conflagration. (The Sun managed to continue publishing, printing at the plant of the Washington Evening Star after being composed in Baltimore at the Sun Job Printing Office. H.L. Mencken was hired as Sunday editor in 1906; Baltimore's most famous journalist stayed with the Sunpapers, in various capacities, for the next forty-two years. In 1906 the Sun moved to a new four-story building at the corner of Charles and Baltimore Streets, outfitted with the latest in technology and presses.

The period 1910-1930 was both dynamic and depressing for Baltimore's newspapers. Brutal competition prevailed, afternoon newspapers grew in popularity, and many papers either folded or were sold. Charles H. Grasty, with support from prominent Baltimoreans, purchased an interest in the Sun in 1910. The A.S. Abell Company was reorganized and recapitalized. Under Grasty's direction, the Evening Sun was launched to compete in the fast-breaking evening news field and the single-copy price of all Sun publications was dropped to one cent. A week's subscription to all three-morning, evening, and Sunday Sun-could be had for a dime.

The Sunpapers, as the company was known after the Evening Sun's establishment in 1910, survived the two world wars and entered the 1950s by committing to foreign news. It opened bureaus in Bonn, Moscow, and Rome to add to the London (opened 1924) and Washington bureaus. In the 1960s, the company opened bureaus in New Delhi, Rio, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Paris. Also in 1950, the Sunpapers moved into its present four-story brick quarters at Calvert and Center Streets.

Later Twentieth Century
By 1975, declining industrial jobs and increasing vehicular traffic were affecting afternoon newspaper distribution; the Evening Sun was losing readers, but the morning and Sunday editions were picking up the slack. The Sunpapers unveiled a state-of-the-art Harris editing system in 1975, consistent with its well-earned reputation as a leader in newspaper technology. Nevertheless, the Evening Sun closed in 1995.

In 1982, John R. Murphy was hired as publisher, the first outsider since Grasty had bought an interest. He set about making substantive changes to the format and sectioning of the three papers, forming the template for the modern-day Sun. On June 27, 1986-the day the Hearst Corporation closed the competing Baltimore News-American and one year before the Sunpapers' 150th anniversary—Murphy announced to his staff that the A. S. Abell Co. had sold the Sunpapers to the Times-Mirror Corporation of Los Angeles for $600 million. The Sunpapers were no longer independently owned, and quickly assimilated into the bottom-line world of corporate journalism.