The Saturday Globe

In 1881, a newspaper was founded in Utica which was destined to carry the name of the city to every section of the United States and Canada. This was the Utica Saturday Globe, which began its remarkable career as a small weekly started by William T. and Thomas F. Baker in two rooms on Bleeker Street. The first edition of two thousand copies was printed by Curtis and Childs. The next year the paper moved to Charlotte Street and installed its own presses.

The Saturday Globe was the first illustrated newspaper in the United States and, under the able editorship of A. M. Dickinson, it grew with extraordinary speed. In 1885, the Globe erected its own building on Whitesboro Street; in 1887, this building was doubled in size and in 1892 redoubled. In 1886, the Globe changed its type of illustration from woodcuts to zine etchings, and in 1892 to halftone etchings. Four years later, it installed a rotary press for halftones, the first of its kind in the world.

Following a sensational murder case, of which it procured excellent photographs, the paper published its first local edition in Little Falls. This policy proved so successful that by 1893 the Utica Saturday Globe published in Utica thirty-three editions, each to be sold in its own section of the country from Maine to California, and each containing local news of its own section. By that time it had a circulation of 180,000 copies each week. Although it was a weekly paper, its presses worked six days a week. For several years its circulation was over 200,000 copies, the largest edition being 294,000.

As other newspapers increased the use of pictures, the demand for the Utica Saturday Globe decreased. In 1920, it was sold to Globe-Telegram Company, which was founded to publish a new daily paper in Utica. This, however, was not a success and on February 16, 1924, the Utica Saturday Globe published its last issue.