The Baltimore Sun history

Horace Greeley, who crusaded for women’s rights and against slavery, founded the independent New York Tribune (1841). Another independent, though less flamboyant, paper, The New York Times, appeared 10 years later.

It didn't take Abell long to see the possibilities in Samuel F.B. Morse's telegraph, invented in 1844.

In 1846, Abell set up a combination of telegraph, railroad, steamboat, stage coaches and a pony express line to speed war news to the city from New Orleans.

Abell moved his paper in 1851 to an architecturally important building at Baltimore and South streets, which became known as The Sun Iron Building.

Abell, also the largest holder of ground rents in Baltimore, had made substantial deposits in both Union and Southern banks, and by 1864 had bought out his original partners.

He lived to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Sun and was 81 when he died at his residence at Charles and Madison streets, in 1888.

In 1896 Alfred Harmsworth (Lord Northcliffe) launched the London Daily Mail as a national paper.

Henry Louis Mencken joined The Sun in 1906 as Sunday editor, beginning a nearly 50-year career as a columnist, correspondent and adviser to the A.S. Abell Co.

The Evening Sun was created out of the Baltimore World, bought in 1910.

In 1931, The Sun won the first of its 15 Pulitzer Prizes with and award to editorial cartoonist Edmund P. Duffy.

In 1939, the American Newspaper Guild won a representational election but a decade would pass before the Guild secured a contract with the company.

The Village Voice in New York City began publishing in 1955.

In 1975, the first computers entered the newsroom, which meant a switch from traditional "hot type" printing method.

The Sun papers have always provided outstanding war coverage, particularly in World War II. The Sun newspapers, together with their corporate owner, the A.S. Abell Company, were bought by the Times Mirror Company in 1986.

At the time of The Sun's 150th anniversary in 1987, the paper had correspondents in seven foreign capitals and news bureaus in addition to Washington, San Francisco and New York City.

The company purchased 60 acres at Port Covington in 1988, which had formerly been the yards of the Western Maryland Railway.

The Sun's first female managing editor in the paper's history, Kathryn Christensen, was named in 1991 to the paper's No.

Between its founding and 1995, The Baltimore Sun and The Baltimore Evening Sun were two distinct publications, both with completely separate editorial staff and reporting.

In September 1996, The Baltimore Sun first introduced its website.

Times Mirror was acquired in 2000 by Tribune Co. of Chicago, making The Sun a part of a major-market, multimedia company whose operations in addition to newspapers includes television and radio broadcasting, and interactive media.

As a result of cost-cutting in 2005, the Beijing and London bureaus also fell through, and the final standing foreign bureaus in Johannesburg, Moscow and Jerusalem then closed a few years later.

In 2007, Tribune Co. was purchased by real estate tycoon Sam Zell, and the next year, the newspaper's 171-year-old name was changed to The Baltimore Sun.

In 2009, it was announced by the Tribune Company that 61 staff, out of the 205 in the Sun newsroom, were going to be laid off.

Mary J. Corey, a former reporter and editor, became the first woman in the 173-year history of The Baltimore Sun to lead the newsroom, when she was named senior vice president and director of content in 2010.

In 2011, the newspaper moved to its web edition behind a paywall, beginning on October 10.

The Baltimore Sun, whose pages have chronicled Maryland life and its institution for generations, whose reporters covered every government and conflict and glory of the city since long before the Civil War, celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2012.

Howard County Emma Halley outstanding in History Day contest [Glenwood/Glenelg/Dayton] Emma Halley, a junior at Glenelg High School, was a winner in the 2013 National History Day competition.

In February 2014, it was announced by The Baltimore Sun Media Group that the alternative weekly newspaper, the City Paper, was being purchased by them.

However, as of August 2020, the publication remains to be the leading newspaper in the area in terms of circulation, and its website popularity proves that The Baltimore Sun is still attracting a large number of readers, just in a different format.