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- The Providence Journal, established in 1820, embraced technological advancements throughout its history to deliver news to Rhode Islanders.
- From hand-operated presses to steam-powered and electric-powered presses, The Journal continuously innovated its printing processes.
- The newspaper also pioneered typesetting machines, utilized wireless telegraphy and embraced digital technologies such as computers and the internet.
From fast horses to the internet, from type plucked by hand from a California job case to the Mergenthaler Linotype to computer typesetting, from presses hand-fed a single linen page at a time to electric-powered behemoths designed to spew out 70,000 complete papers an hour, The Providence Journal has ridden the crest of technology’s wave for some 200 years.
As the paper closes its plant − moving print operations to a corporate cousin in New Jersey − it is only fitting to look back at the ways The Journal has used technology to meet the challenges of the times, constantly innovating the best way to gather and disseminate news to Rhode Islanders.
As The Journal retires the last flexographic newspaper press in the world, it bears recalling the ways Rhode Island’s largest paper has helped innovate, and wondering what the next 200 years might hold.
Here is a brief look at some of the tools the paper used to be “a faithful reporter of the passing news,” as its first publisher described it in 1820, nine years before it became a daily paper.
The Journal emerges from a hand-fed press
Jan. 3, 1820: Printer Honest John Miller, with the backing of Samuel Slater and other manufacturing leaders, establishes The Providence Journal, which publishes Mondays and Thursdays under the unwieldy title “Manufacturers’ & Farmers’ Journal, Providence and Pawtucket Advertiser.” − with the period as part of its name.
July 21, 1829: First issue of The Providence Daily Journal, and General Advertiser. This four-page newspaper was typeset by hand and pressed, one linen page at a time, on an iron hand press capable of 240 impressions per hour.
1829: The Journal uses an early version of the Pony Express to deliver President Andrew Jackson’s State of the Union address by horse 500 miles, from Washington to New York to Hartford to Boston to Providence to Journal readers, in only three days.
1846: Distant news begins arriving, at least partway, by telegraph.
1848: Providence ties into the New York-Boston telegraph line.
Steam engines take over running the press
1856: A Hoe single-cylinder press, the first driven by steam power, comes into operation.
Jan. 26, 1863: After irregular issues of “Journal Extra” the previous two years, The Journal begins publishing The Evening Bulletin, a daily afternoon paper to bring news by telegraph from Civil War battlefields as well as updated financial reports.
1881: First web-perfecting press installed; it printed from a continuous roll of paper.
1885: Journal office lit by incandescent lamps powered by Narragansett Electric Lighting Co.
1886: First hand-drawn illustration to accompany a news story, about sailing.
Journal helps pioneer typesetting machines
1889: First typesetting machines in New England are installed, called the Mergenthaler Linotype.
1892: Journal builds a backup printing plant south of Rhode Island Hospital in case downtown is destroyed by fire. It would never be used.
1894: Presses powered for the first time by electricity from Narragansett Electric Lighting Co.
Journal experiments with wireless telegraphy
1903: Journal establishes wireless station at Point Judith; prints the Block Island Wireless, a daily paper published by The Journal on the island.
1912: Journal reporter Charles R. Stark Jr., at the New York City docks, asks Western Union to transmit the New York telephone book to tie up a telegraph line so he could use it to send the first interviews of arriving survivors after the sinking of RMS Titanic.
1918: The Journal stretches a sheet across Eddy Street outside the Old Journal Building next to City Hall and projects election result bulletins, a method used for several decades to bring breaking news to crowds who jammed the streets before the advent of radio took over newsflashes.
Color comics debut
1925: First color comics section appears in The Sunday Journal.
1928: Journal becomes first paper delivered to Block Island by airplane.
1936: First use of AP Wirephoto, which transmitted photographs from distant news events over telephone lines.
1950: Journal licensed to use two-way radio for reporters and photographers.
1961: Spot color appears regularly in the news pages.
Computers get their foot in the door
1968: First use of computers in the composing room.
1975: The end of the “hot lead” era. Computers create columns of type on paper that are pasted up onto pages from which printing plates are made photographically.
1976: Installation of electronic writing and editing equipment in the newsroom.
1985: Searchable electronic archive of Journal stories launched.
State-of-the-art printing plant opens
1987: $60-million Journal printing plant with flexographic presses opens on Kinsley Avenue, designed to produce 70,000 papers an hour, 20,000 more than the letterpresses they replaced.
1995: Journal launches Rhode Island Horizons, an online newspaper hosted by the Prodigy dial-up service.
1996: Journal launches projo.com, the paper’s first website.
2001: Journal ends phase-in to digital photography.
2003: Journal correspondent in Iraq sends stories from the battlefield to Providence via satellite telephone.
2003: Journal launches daily email newsletter, starting with deals from the paper’s advertisers, followed by Red Sox stories and breaking news.
2008: Journal website regularly includes video.
2011: Journal mobile app debuts.
March 9, 2025: The last Journal to be printed in Providence rolls off the flexographic press at Kinsley Avenue.