Abstract
It was the age of the Real Thing. Americans in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries were famously smitten with science, enchanted by facts, hungry for authenticity, and preoccupied with realism, which, as one cultural mandarin wrote in 1887, had become “the state of mind of the nineteenth century. It affects the poet, fictionist, humorist, journalist, essayist, historian; the religionist; the philosopher; the natural scientist; the social scientist; the musician, the dramatist, the actor, the painter, the sculptor.” This was the era, as many scholars have argued, when American culture took a decided turn away from idealism and romanticism and strove to see, represent, and embrace the world as it truly was.1
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Notes
Richard Watson Gilder, “Certain Tendencies in Current Literature,” New Princeton Review 4 (July 1887): 4. Useful secondary sources in the large literature on this topic are Miles Orvell, The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989); Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877–1920 (New York: Harper, 2009), esp. chap. 6; David E. Shi, Facing Facts: Realism in American Thought and Culture, 1850–1920 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
My research into the words fake and story would have been impossible without the use of a variety of digitization projects and full-text search engines, including Google Books, JSTOR, the Proquest and Readex databases of historic newspapers and periodicals, “Chronicling America” at the Library of Congress, the “Making of America” projects at Cornell and the University of Michigan, and the online archives of Harper’s Weekly. Like many scholars, however, I have also developed a keen appreciation of how frustrating and perilous these invaluable tools can be. OCR systems often confused fake and its derivatives with forms of sake or take, and it was impossible to search so commonplace and versatile a term as story in a consistent way across an array of search engines whose capacity for precision varies so widely. Thus while I am confident that I am accurately describing trends in how the words were used, I do not attempt to quantify my findings or indulge in absolutes (“the first,” “the most widespread”), which would imply an exactness I cannot defend.
Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic, 1978); James W. Carey, “American Journalism On, Before, and After September 11,” in Journalism After September 11, ed. Barbie Zelizer and Stuart Allan, 71–90 (London: Routledge, 2002); Karen Roggenkamp, Narrating the News: New Journalism and Literary Genre in Late Nineteenth-Century American Newspapers and Fiction (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2005).
William H. Hills, “Advice to Newspaper Correspondents III: Some Hints on Style,” Writer 1 (June 1887): 51.
Edwin L. Shuman, Steps into Journalism: Helps and Hints for Young Writers (Evanston, IL: Evanston Press, 1894) 122, 123; on his life see s.v. National Cyclopaedia of American Biography 15: 275–76.
John Brisben Walker, “Some Difficulties of Modern Journalism,” Cosmopolitan 24 (January 1898): 328. See also Ralph Pulitzer, The Profession of Journalism: Accuracy in the News: An Address before the Pulitzer School of Journalism, Columbia University, New York, Delivered at Earl Hall December 16, 1912 (New York: The World, 1912), 14–15.
Charles Edward Russell, These Shifting Scenes (New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1914), 19–21.
Lincoln Steffens, Autobiography (Santa Clara: Santa Clara University Press, 2005[1931]), 179; Julius Chambers, News Hunting on Three Continents (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1921), 7.
Russell, Shifting Scenes, 19.
William Salisbury, The Career of a Journalist (New York: Dodge, 1908), 108–9.
Theodore Dreiser, Newspaper Days: An Autobiography, ed. T. D. Nostwich (Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 2000), 166–67, 247– 54, 263–65, 285–88.
Walker Aken, “A Lesson in Reporting,” Harper’s Weekly, July 4, 1896, 663.
On De Quille, see C. Grant Loomis, “The Tall Tales of Dan De Quille,” California Folklore Quarterly 5 (January 1946): 26–71; see also E. D. Cope to De Quille, on American Naturalist letterhead, Philadelphia, September 18, 1880; and Thomas Donaldson to T. T. Orbiston, on US Centennial Commission letterhead, Philadelphia, March 7, 1876; both in the Dan De Quille Papers, BANC MSS P-G 246, Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. On Mulhatton, see “Western Writer of Fakes,” New York Daily Tribune, January 13, 1901, B4; and “Joe Mulhatton Dead—Or Joke?” Chicago Tribune, December 21, 1913, 6; Salisbury, Career, 5–6. On the Tribune’s story about the fire, see Andie Tucher, “In Search of Jenkins: Taste, Style, and Credibility in Gilded-Age Journalism,” Journalism History 27.2 (Summer 2001): 51–52. On the cognitive processes for judging fact and fiction, see Lisa Zunshine, Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2006), esp. 47–54.
On journalism and professionalism in general, see Andie Tucher, “Reporting for Duty: The Bohemian Brigade, the Civil War, and the Social Construction of the Reporter,” Book History 9 (2006): 131– 57; Schudson, Discovering the News; Schudson and Chris Anderson, “Objectivity, Professionalism, and Truth Seeking in Journalism,” in The Handbook of Journalism Studies, ed. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch, 88–101 (New York: Routledge, 2009); and Stephen A. Banning, “The Professionalization of Journalism: A Nineteenth-Century Beginning,” Journalism History 24. 4 (Winter 1998/99): 157–63.
“Fake, v.2,” Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, 1989, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/67778; on the theatrical derivation, John S. Farmer, ed. and comp., Americanisms Old and New: A Dictionary of Words, Phrases, and Colloqiualisms Peculiar to the United States, British America, the West Indies, &c., &c... (London: Thomas Poulter & Sons, 1889), 232–33.
George Grantham Bain, “Newspaper ‘Faking,’” Lippincott’s Monthly, August 1894, 274–75.
Tucher, “Jenkins,” 51–52; George William Curtis, “Easy Chair,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 42 (April 1871): 774.
Charles M. Sheldon, “The Daily Papers and the Truth,” Outlook 65 (May 12, 1900): 117.
John Arthur, “Reporting, Practical and Theoretical,” Writer 3 (February 1889): 37.
H. R. Shattuck, “Reporters’ Ethics,” Writer 3 (March 1889): 57–58.
Hills, “Book Reviews: Steps Into Journalism,” Writer 7 (August 1894): 120–21; for another review chastising Shuman for his comments on faking, see “Briefs on New Books,” Dial 17.202 (November 16, 1894), 298–99; Edwin Shuman, Practical Journalism: A Complete Manual of the Best Newspaper Methods (New York: D. Appleton, 1903), 119.
On the Western AP, see for example “Unfounded Political Rumor,” New York Times (copying the Rochester Union and Advertiser), August 30, 1894, 4; “A Fakir Assaulted,” Atlanta Constitution, June 28, 1895, 3; “‘Fake’ Story of the Race,” New York Tribune, September 9, 1895, 2. On the country press, see “Famous Newspaper Fakes,” Washington Post (copying the New Orleans Picayune), August 11, 1907, MS3; on the British press, see “Fake Journalism,” Our Paper 18 (July 12, 1902): 441; on the other papers that fell for it, see “Baron Mulhatton: The Latest Effort of the Modern Rival of Munchausen—That Big Snake Fake from Kentucky,” Missouri Republican, March 24, 1888, 3; on the veterans, see Salisbury, Career, 111–12.
A search with the Google Books Ngram viewer for the frequency of the terms fake and faking in the American English books in its database that were published between 1850 and 1950 offers a rough corroboration for their increasing popularity in general use at the turn of the century. For faking, the line is relatively flat between 1850 and 1890, beginning and ending that segment at about.0000030% with some wavering in between, but then it registers a steep and consistent rise, to about.0000110% in 1910,.0000200% in 1930, and.0000325% in 1950. The line for fake is slightly more erratic between 1850 and 1890: it starts at around.0000300%, crests just above.0000400% around 1865, and slumps to just above.0000200% in 1890. It then reverses itself, however, climbing steadily, hitting just above.0000800% in 1910 and holding around.0001800 in the mid-1930s to mid-1940s, before declining gently to just below.0001700% in 1950.
“Fake Journalism,” Journalist 19 (March 17, 1894): 2 (copied from the New Haven Register); “Stolen Information: How it is Handled by ‘Fake Newspaper Men,’” Successful American 4 (September–October 1901): 563–64; “Faked Cable News,” Independent 61 (November 1, 1906): 1068; “Where Fakes are Made,” Journalist 31 (December 14, 1901): 101; “High School Lad Stirs Up a Hornet’s Nest by ‘Fake’ Tales,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 15, 1905, 26.
J. B. Montgomery-M’Govern, “An Important Phase of Gutter Journalism: Faking,” Arena 19 (February 1898): 240; Max Sherover, Fakes in American Journalism (Buffalo: Buffalo Publishing, 1914), 1.
These examples represent just a tiny sampling of usages found in the popular press between 1890 and 1910: on butter, see George Lang Jr., “Comments on Missouri Bulletins,” American Food Journal 3 (April 15, 1908): 14; on hotels, see “Mr. Raines and His Law,” Nation 63 (December 10, 1896): 433–34; on pecan stock, see Elizabeth Higgins, “The Lure of the Pecan,” Harper’s Weekly 55 (February 11, 1911): 19; on retouching in photography, see C. H. Claudy, “Working Up a Picture,” Photo Era 13 (July 1904): 112; on art works, see “Forgeries in Collections,” New York Times, August 16, 1896 (copying the Contemporary Review), 22; on insanity, see “Murderer Fales’s Will: A Writing That Suggests Both Lunacy and ‘Faking,’” New York Times, March 24, 1893, 2; on alleged injuries from streetcar accidents, see Edward Hungerford, “The Business of ‘Beating’ Street Railway Companies,” Harper’s Weekly 51 (September 14, 1907): 1340; on a faked book, see “Now Who is Mr. Vandam? And is ‘The Englishman in Paris’ Really a ‘Faked’ Book?” New York Times, October 15 1892, 4; on antiquities, see “Faking Antiquities: How Imitation Treasures of Former Ages Such as Furniture, China, and Pictures Are Made,” Chicago Tribune, July 12, 1903, A4; on boxing matches, see “Was It A Fake? The MitchellLa Blanche Fiasco,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 21, 1891, 10; on hypnotists, see “Fake Hypnotists Reap a Harvest: Humbugs Make Easy Livings Out of Dupes,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 21, 1897, 23; on advertising, see L. J. Vance, “Advertising Fakes,” Printers’ Ink 6 (March 30, 1892): 420–21; on forecasting, see F. J. Walz, “Fake Weather Forecasts,” Popular Science Monthly 67 (October 1905): 503–13. On nature faking, see generally Ralph H. Lutts, The Nature Fakers: Wildlife, Science and Sentiment (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990). On St. Paul’s ordinance, see Hiram David Frankel, comp., Compiled Ordinances of the City of St. Paul, Minnesota, Corrected and Revised to January 1, 1906 (St. Paul: Review Publishing, 1908), 127. The term fake book as applied to music came later, around the 1940s: see Barry Kernfeld, The Story of Fake Books: Bootlegging Songs to Musicians (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2006).
Schudson, Discovering the News, 88–120; Roggenkamp, Narrating the News, 27–47. Other scholars have referred to “hard” vs. “soft,” “important” vs. “interesting,” or “news” vs. “human interest”; see S. Elizabeth Bird and Robert W. Dardenne, “Myth, Chronicle, and Story: Exploring the Narrative Qualities of News,” in Media, Myths, and Narratives: Television and the Press, ed. James W. Carey (Newbury Park: Sage, 1988), 68–69.
Dreiser, Newspaper Days, 644–46; Michael Davitt Bell, The Problem of American Realism: Studies in the Cultural History of a Literary Idea (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1993), 113.
On stuff, see Charles H. Olin, Journalism: Explains the Workings of a Modern Newspaper Office, and Gives Full Directions for Those Who Desire to Enter the Field of Journalism (Philadelphia: Penn Publishing, 1910), 187; “Newspaper Expressions,” 42. The Civil War memoirs were George Alfred Townsend, Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, and His Romaunt Abroad During the War (New York: Blelock, 1866); Albert D. Richardson, The Secret Service, the Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape (Hartford: American Publishing, 1865); Junius Henri Browne, Four Years in Secessia: Adventures Within and Beyond the Union Lines: Embracing a Great Variety of Facts, Incidents, and Romance of the War... (Hartford: O. D. Case, 1865); Thomas W. Knox, Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field: Southern Adventure in Time of War; Life with the Union Armies, and Residence on a Louisiana Plantation (New York: Blelock, 1865); and Charles Carleton Coffin, Four Years of Fighting: A Volume of Personal Observation with the
Shuman, Steps into Journalism, 7; Ex-City Editor, “Gathering the Local News,” Harper’s Weekly 36 (January 9, 1892): 42; Elizabeth G. Jordan, Tales of the City Room (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898), viii; Horace Foster, “The Priest and the Newspaper,” Ecclesiastical Review 51 (September 1914): 285–86.
Fred W. Allsopp, Twenty Years in a Newspaper Office (Little Rock: Central, 1907), 27; “Spectator,” 437; “The Point of View: The Newspaper and Fiction,” Scribner’s Magazine 40 (July 1906): 122, 123.
“15,000 Freight Cars Ordered,” New York Times, October 28, 1899, 3; “The Theatre Fire,” New York Times, January 2, 1904, 8. Equally unperturbed by the paradoxical meaning was Ralph Pulitzer, who on succeeding his father in 1911 continued the New York World as an entertaining mass-circulation paper while launching a crusade for journalistic standards. He established a sort of prototype ombuds office “to promote accuracy and fair play, to correct carelessness and to stamp out fakes and fakers,” and warned the first class of students at the Columbia Journalism School that the newspaper that “prints a deliberate fake” becomes “a degenerate and perverted monstrosity.” But in that same speech he routinely used the term story to refer to the contents of his strenuously fake-free paper. Merle Harrold Thorpe, ed., The Coming Newspaper (New York: Holt, 1915), 321; Pulitzer, Profession of Journalism, 16.
Charles Tilly, Why? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 65.
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Tucher, A. (2013). The True, the False, and the “not exactly lying”. In: Canada, M. (eds) Literature and Journalism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137329301_5
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