The Acquisitions Table: Amateur Newspapers in Chicago

Amateur city directory. Chicago: Warner Bros., 1876.
This rare pamphlet chronicles Chicago’s amateur press community as of 1876. Its publisher was 15-year-old Frank Dudley Warner, editor of the recently established Amateur Monthly—one of a burgeoning number of amateur newspapers then being published nationwide by hobbyists on table-top presses. Included is a directory of nearly a hundred Chicago amateur printers, a listing of 13 amateur newspapers (all monthlies) then being published in Chicago (“the combined circulation … is between Seven and Eight Thousand”), biographies of the Greater Chicago Amateur Press Association’s teen-aged officers, and advertisements for printing supplies. Quite expertly printed for an amateur publication, the Directory usefully supplements AAS’s superb collection of 19th-century amateur newspapers.  Purchased on eBay. Francis H. Dewey Fund.
~ David Whitesell