For all my years of growing up, Youngstown was basically a one-newspaper town. In 2019, Youngstown faced the prospect of becoming a newspaper desert as the Vindicator announced it would cease operations. Subsequently, the Warren Tribune-Chronicle picked up the Vindicator name and continues to publish a paper in Youngstown under that name. Several other news outlets stepped up their news coverage including The Business Journal and a new online news outlet, Mahoning Matters. Local television stations added coverage on their websites as well. There are actually more news outlets than in 2019.

This was the case in Youngstown through much of its history until 1936. My dad talked about delivering the Telegram in his youth. For about five decades, Youngstown had two major papers, the Youngstown Vindicator and the Youngstown Telegram. It arose out of a newspaper war in the 1880’s. McKelvey’s founder G. M. McKelvey, Judge L. W. King, H. M. Garlick, William Cornelius, and Hal K. Taylor formed the Youngstown Printing Company on November 17, 1885, with McKelvey as president. On December 1, the Youngstown Evening Telegram came into existence with Judge L. W. King as editorial manager, In 1891, they discontinued the Sunday paper and in 1895 the name became the Youngstown Telegram.

The paper was known to have a Republican bent. The paper advocated prohibition, which may have been the reason publisher Samuel G, McClure’s home was bombed. A few years later, The New York Times, reported the bombing of the newspaper offices on the night of November 15, 1918.

One of Youngstown’s most well-known reporters came out of the Telegram. Esther Hamilton began her career as a reporter with the paper and then joined the Vindicator when the Telegram was acquired by the Vindicator in 1936. One of her early assignments was to cover the Youngstown City Schools.

In subsequent years, the newspaper became part of the Scripps-Howard chain. The paper had more of a national focus and subscriptions began to slip, and hence ad revenues. Then in 1928, the paper turned its back on its Republican base and endorsed Al Smith in his race against Herbert Hoover. Smith lost and the paper lost circulation. Around this time, a circulation reporting scandal arose, as the newspaper reported higher circulation figures when in fact, the circulation department was buying back over 3,000 copies. By the time when they were acquired by the Vindicator, one source puts their circulation in the neighborhood of 24,000 to over 42,000 for the Vindicator, which meant much higher ad revenues for the Vindicator. The Vindicator also had a Sunday edition.

The last edition of The Youngstown Telegram was July 2, 1936. For many years, the name appearing at the top of the front page was “Youngstown Vindicator” and in much smaller print “The Youngstown Telegram.” The last day this appears on the paper was May 3, 1960, after which only the Youngstown Vindicator and later Vindicator appears. I don’t know what the disappearance of the name meant, but the use of the two may have suggested more of a merger than an acquisition. Certainly staff for both newspapers worked on the Vindicator. Perhaps it was also a way to appeal to old Telegram subscribers. A front page story on July 3, 1936 in the new paper states: “Readers of the Telegram will find little changed in the new Vindicator-Telegram. The Vindicator has won national recognition for its progressive editorial policy and undoubtedly it will be continued in the merged publication.”

My dad used to call it the Vindicator-Telegram. Now I understand why. I was just learning to read when the last vestige of the Telegram disappeared. But the hyphenated name looks back to a time when Youngstown was a two-newspaper town.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!