When did the New York newsapers start printing/delivering on Christmas
and Thanksgiving? Times, Post, News? If that's an easy question how
about including Washington Post, LA Times, and Chicago Trib?

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Clarification of Question by sailguy-ga on 15 Jan 2003 12:14 PST

Thanks folks for the comments. I appreciate your help.

As a third-generation newspaper reporter, it is my experience that
daily newspapers publish EVERY day and have "always" done so. There
may be cases in which there was no home delivery on Christmas or
Thanksgiving, but the paper would still have been published.

Nellie Bly

Well, next time I'll look (or ask) before I leap.   I just spoke with
the "older" generation who remember newspapers not being published on
major holidays, albeit before WWII.

Others recall no Sunday publication, which I recall also.  So, I'll
take my foot out of my mouth and go see if I can find a proper answer
to your question.

Nellie Bly

Hi Nellie and Sailguy- some observations from our local papers in
Vancouver BC.

My only direct experience is that I used to deliver the Vancouver Sun
when it was an afternoon paper. Now both it and The Vancouver Province
are morning papers. No Sun on Sunday, no Province on Saturday. And as
recently as 5-10 years ago, no paper period on holiday. (no delivery
or publishing.)

(kinda sad, but both these large papers are from the same company, as
is one of the two major national papers, The National Post.)

Other then that there are about 20 to 30 local papers in the
communities of the lower mainland. One in each community owned by one
company and the other owned by a second company.

I just checked the online archive of the last 144 years of The Glove
and Mail, our other national paper. The archives are available up to
1999. There was no Christmas paper in 99, there was a Remembrance Day
paper, a Labour Day paper, a Canada Day paper, a Victoria Day paper,
no Good Friday paper, and there was a New Years Day paper.

sparky4ca-ga.

(I know, very little bearing on the question)

Hi Sailguy-
I queried the New York papers by e-mail but got no response from any
of them.

I did learn that the Washington Post has published on Christmas Day
since its first year of publication 1897.

Evidently, many small town papers and some city papers did not publish
on Sunday, nor on Christmas and Thanksgiving.  From what I've learned
it would require some research a paper's librarian/historian to
ascertain when/if a paper didn't publish on Christmas.  It's not
impossible to get the answer to your question, but it's a scope of
work far beyond a $2 question I'm afraid.

I'm sorry not to be more informative.

Nellie Bley