The Flag of our Union was a popular, weekly newspaper published in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 in the mid-19th century. In addition to news, it published works of fiction and poetry, including contributions from notable writers.

Brief history

Publisher Frederick Gleason

Frederick Gleason

Frederick Gleason was a publisher in Boston, Massachusetts in the mid-19th century. He is best known for establishing the popular illustrated weekly Gleason's Pictorial, at the time an innovation in American publishing...

 began The Flag in 1846, a "miscellaneous family journal, containing news, wit, humor, and romance -- independent of party or sect." Original stories, verse, and illustration appeared in the paper, as well as brief news items on local, national and international current events. Maturin Murray Ballou

Maturin Murray Ballou

Maturin Murray Ballou was a writer and publisher in 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts. He co-founded Gleason's Pictorial; was the first editor of the Boston Daily Globe; and wrote numerous travel books and works of popular fiction.-1820s - 1840s:Ballou was born in Boston in 1820, to parents Hosea...

 served as editor. In 1849, Gleason's office was located "on the corner of Court and Tremont Streets" in Boston.

The Flag became quite popular. By some accounts, the paper had "the largest circulation of any papers in the United States," ca.1851. Around 1852, circulation reached 75,000, and shortly grew to 100,000.

Story contributors in the paper's early years included Ballou, Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. was an American writer of popular fiction during the mid-19th century. His work was published in the New York Ledger, The Flag of Our Union, The Weekly Novelette, Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, and elsewhere.- Brief biography :Cobb was born in Waterville, Maine to...

, Joseph Holt Ingraham

Joseph Holt Ingraham

Joseph Holt Ingraham was an American author.- Biography :Ingraham was born in 1809 in Portland, Maine. He spent several years at sea, then worked as a teacher of languages in Mississippi. In the 1840's he published work in Arthur's Magazine...

, Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

 and others. Authors' work frequently appeared pseudonymously. Also notable were the illustrations. "The reader will please remember that all illustrations that appear in Flag are originally designed and engraved for this paper, nor will any second hand cuts ever be found in its columns."

Editor Ballou later became the paper's publisher after buying it from Gleason in 1854. Over the years, publishers included Gleason (1846–1854), Ballou (1854–1863), James R. Elliott (1863–1870), William Henry Thomes (1863–1871), and Newton Talbot (1863–1871) -- the latter as firms Elliott, Thomes & Talbot, and Thomes & Talbot.

Contributors in later years included some particularly notable authors. Sarah Orne Jewett

Sarah Orne Jewett

Sarah Orne Jewett was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for her local color works set in or near South Berwick, Maine, on the border of New Hampshire, which in her day was a declining New England seaport.-Biography:Jewett's family had been residents of New England for many...

 published her first story, "Jenny Garrow's Lovers", in 1868. Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...

 published work under a pen-name; she also wrote a manuscript for The Flag entitled "A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase is a suspense novel by Louisa May Alcott. She wrote it in 1866, two years before the publication of Little Women finally established her literary reputation and began to resolve her financial problems...

", but not published until 1995. Alcott describes a fictionalized Flag (i.e. The Blarneystone Banner and The Weekly Volcano ) in Little Women

Little Women

Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott . The book was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869...

(1868).

Further reading

• J. Randolph Cox. The dime novel companion: a source book. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000.
• Shelley Streeby. American sensations: class, empire, and the production of popular culture. University of California Press, 2002.

External links

• Library of Congress. Digitized issues for 1849.