Presented to - rit.edu · The 2003 Isaiah Thomas Award in Publishing From Rochester Institute of Technology School of Print Media Presented to Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. Sponsored

The 2003 Isaiah Thomas Award in PublishingFrom Rochester Institute of Technology

School of Print Media

Presented to Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr.

Sponsored By Xerox

THE TWENTY-FOURTH

Isaiah Thomas Award in PublishingSponsored by The Xerox Corporation

Presented to

ARTHUR O. SULZBERGER JR.

Presented at

On Demand Digital Printing & PublishingStrategy Conference and Exposition

New York, New York

April 7, 2003

School of Print MediaCollege of Imaging Arts & Sciences

ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK

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Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.

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ARTHUR O. SULZBERGER JR. Chairman and PublisherThe New York Times Company

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. was named chairman of The New York Times Company on October 16, 1997. As the Company’s senior execu-

tive, he is responsible for its long-term business strategy. Mr. Sulzberger, who became publisher of The New York Times in 1992, continues to run the Company’s flagship enterprise on a day-to-day basis. Over the past decade, he has shaped and implemented innovative print, broadcast and online initiatives that are enabling the Company to compete successfully in the 21st century global media marketplace. These include:

• Pursuing the national expansion of The Times, with 18 new print sites

• Creating the new six-section color newspaper

• Entering the Knowledge Age with the launch of the NYT

Electronic Media Company, which includes The Times’s NYTimes.com—the No.1 newspaper-owned Web site in the world

• Establishing new enterprises such as The New York Times Learning Network, Upfront magazine, NYT-Television and the Continuous News operations

• Acquiring the International Herald Tribune

• Purchasing 50% ownership of the Discovery Civilization Channel

• Becoming a minority partner in New England Sports Ventures, which includes the Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park and 80% of the New England Sports Network

During Mr. Sulzberger’s tenure as publisher, The Times has earned 25 Pulitzer Prizes and provided its readers with innumerable examples of momentous journalism such as its breakthrough “How Race is Lived in America” series, its historic new millennium edition, and its internation-ally acclaimed coverage of the September 11 terrorist attack in a “A Nation Challenged” and “Portraits of Grief.”

It should also be noted that The New York Times Company has been repeatedly cited for its commitment to excellence, innovation and social

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responsibility. In Fortune magazine’s 2002 annual survey of “America’s Most Admired Companies,” The New York Times was listed as No. 1 in its industry, receiving the top ranking in all eight categories. The company also ranked No. 1 among all 530 companies surveyed in social responsibility and the quality of its products.

Before coming to The Times, Mr. Sulzberger was a reporter with The Raleigh (N.C.) Times from 1974 to 1976, and a correspondent in London for The Associated Press from 1976 to 1978. He joined The Times in 1978 as a correspondent in its Washington bureau. He moved to New York as a metro reporter in 1981 and was appointed assistant metro editor later that year.

From 1983 until 1987, he worked in a variety of business departments, including production and corporate planning. In January 1987, he was named assistant publisher and, a year later, deputy publisher, overseeing the news and business departments. In both capacities, he was involved in planning The Times’s automated color printing and distribution facilities in Edison, N.J., and at College Point in Queens, N.Y., as well as the creation of the six-section color newspaper.

Mr. Sulzberger played a central role in the development of the Times Square Business Improvement District, officially launched in January 1992, serving as the first chairman of that civic organization. He also helped found, and served as a past chairman, of the New York City Outward Bound Center. He was also a member of the North Carolina Outward Bound board of directors.

Mr. Sulzberger earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Tufts University in 1974. He is also a 1985 graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Program for Management Development.

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A young Arthur Sulzberger Jr. in the New York Times newsroom. (Photo courtesy of The New York Times Company Archives)

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The Times Building’s Pulitzer hall. The New York Times has received 88 Pulitzer Prizes more than any other news organization. (Photo courtesy of The New York Times Company Archives)

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A portrait of the founder of the modern New York Times with his grandson and great grandson. (Photo courtesy of The New York Times Company Archives)

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Checking election returns in the 1950’s. (Photo courtesy of The New York Times Company Archives)

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The Times Tower with it’s news zipper in the 1950’s. (Photo courtesy of The New York Times Company Archives)

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PROGRAM

GREETINGS

Bob KrakoffChairman & CEO, Advanstar Communications, Inc.

John ManciniPresident, AIIM International

Charlie PeskoPresident, CAP Ventures, Inc.

INTRODUCTION

Dr. Joan StoneDean, College of Imaging Arts and Sciences

Rochester Institute of Technology

WELCOME

Ursula M. BurnsPresident, Business Group Operations

Xerox Corporation

VIDEO

PRESENTATION OF AWARD

Professor Barbara PellowAdministrative Chair, School of Print Media

College of Imaging Arts and SciencesRochester Institute of Technology

Ursula M. BurnsPresident, Business Group Operations

Xerox Corporation

ACCEPTANCE OF AWARD

AND REMARKS

Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr.Chairman and Publisher

The New York Times Company

CLOSING

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Program

An early newsroom in Times Square. (Photo courtesy of The New York Times Company Archives)

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A Times delivery truck from the 1920’s. (Photo courtesy of The New York Times Company Archives)

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The New York Times at 150 by Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. presented at New York Public Library New York, New York January 10, 2002

Good evening and thank you. It is a pleasure to finally be here. Let me begin by apologizing to anyone inconvenienced by the unavoidable

postponement of this engagement in September. As you can imagine, for all of us at The New York Times, the attack on September 11 demanded our complete attention and focus. To meet the needs of our millions of readers, who desperately wanted to know everything they could about this absolutely terrifying and hopefully, once-in-a-lifetime story, we immedi-ately fell back on a simple journalistic strategy: bring in plenty of food; forget about your personal life; work around the clock. Simple but I hope effective.

As we begin 2002, our lives have become a lot less frantic. Our country and its coalition partners have achieved a major victory in our war against terrorism in Afghanistan; the anthrax threat seems to have dissipated (or at least gone back underground) and we no longer shudder every time we hear the sound of an airplane overhead. We are again worrying about more prosaic concerns—like the state of the national economy, or the economy of Argentina, or the economy of New York City.

The theme of this evening—The New York Times at 150—has not changed. But since September 11, most of us see history though a some-what different prism and our point of view has shifted a bit. How could it not? For me, recent events have brought back into focus the extraordinary power of newspapers to forge a sense of community and to help people under siege.

But sit back for a moment and let me see if I can give you an overview of a century and half of The New York Times in 150 seconds, more or less. Who says we can’t be brief?

A century and a half. And in all that time, I believe that The New York Times has never fulfilled its mission more successfully than it is do-ing today. Over the past four months, with sacrifice, teamwork, and selfless cooperation, the newspaper I so proudly lead has magnificently covered the attack on America and our nation’s war against terrorism.

The Times has reestablished what it means to be the newspaper of re-

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cord. Our “Nation Challenged” section served as both a source of breaking news and a textbook to our new world. And “Portraits of Grief” reminded all of us that those who died were individuals—people just like ourselves.

At The Times, our first reaction to the attack on September 11 was the same as yours—shock and horror. We immediately tried to call those loved ones who worked in downtown Manhattan or for one of the fire, police or emergency medical service units that had rushed to Ground Zero.

Our next instinct was to go to work and serve our journalistic mission. We knew that the most effective way we could help our nation was by doing our absolute best to report the news and keep people informed.

While others fled downtown, we tried to get there or at least to Times Square. One individual actually persuaded a yacht owner from Jersey City to ferry him across the Hudson in an inflatable dinghy. Our journalistic goal was straightforward. It was, as one individual put it, to make “the unimagi-nable understandable.”

By far, the most remarkable response to our coverage came from Ru-pert Murdoch, who recently said of The Times: “In this crisis, they have just…done a fantastically good job.” When I read this, it immediately brought to mind a passage from the Book of Isaiah: “And the wolf shall also dwell with the lamb.” We’re the lamb.

While we provided our readers with full coverage of the war against terrorism, we also became directly involved in the relief effort. Just 24 hours after the assault, The New York Times Company Foundation established a 9/11 Neediest Fund to provide money for victims and their families. The appeal has raised more than $50 million, a truly impressive achievement.

So how do the journalistic accomplishments of the past few years fit into the history of this newspaper—one which has become as much of an institution as The New York Public Library?

Well, it begins with people just like you. Now this comment may seem a little presumptuous since I haven’t

had the pleasure of actually meeting most of you. But I would go out on a limb and bet that you’ve been reading us since you successfully climbed out of your playpens. Why else would you take so much time out of your busy schedules and listen to some stodgy publisher drone on about the past glories of his ancient newspaper.

In fact, our market research has uncovered, somewhat surprisingly, that a good percentage of our readers would rather come to this lecture than take

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a white water rafting trip through the Grand Canyon, ski in Utah or ride in a hot air balloon across Southern France. No accounting for taste. Or maybe no one wants to get on an airplane.

In truth, we greatly appreciate the dedication of our readers and ex-plicitly recognize that it is rooted in The Times’s dedication to a set of underlying principles and premises that have guided us generation after generation.

By creating and sustaining a strong philosophical foundation, we have made it much easier for our newspaper and our Company to achieve their long-term journalistic and business objectives.

The Times first appeared on September 18, 1851. When you look back at that year, it is apparent that bold ambitions and grand visions were in the air. The birth of The Times coincided with the opening of the Great Exhibition in London, Sojourner Truth’s legendary “Ain’t I a Woman” speech at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, and the exploration by U.S. Navy captain William Lewis Herndon of 4,000 miles of the Amazon.

These were events that appealed to the imagination of a public mes-merized by the prospect of the imminent and dramatic change that was being brought about by Industrial Age innovations.

New York City and Brooklyn, which did not become a borough of our great metropolis until 1898, were fully caught up in the excitement and promise of this new era. Every day, thousands of people arrived on our streets, farmers from New Hampshire, immigrants from famine-ravished Ireland, escaped slaves from the Deep South and political exiles from the failed revolutions of 1848, all looking for opportunity and a new way of life.

Clearly, 1851 was a great year to start a new publishing venture. As Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace noted in their Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Gotham:”

In the 1840s and 1850s Manhattan became the nation’s in-formation center, a fountain from which news and novels, stock quotes and lithographs flowed in ceaseless profusion. A mountain of printed matter, generated by a growing army of publishers and printshops, was delivered by rail. But the data was also dispatched, almost magically, through an expanding latticework of wires, itself the progeny of New York’s scientific and commercial cultures.

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The Times’s founders—Henry Raymond and George Jones be-lieved that the only way for The New-York Daily Times, as it was then called, to distinguish itself was to establish a solid reputation for trust-worthy news. In their original four-page paper, Raymond and Jones laid out a set of guiding principles in an editorial entitled, “A Word about Ourselves,” they declared:

Upon all topics,—Political, Social, Moral and Religious— we intend that the paper shall speak for itself. We shall be Conservative where we think Conservatism essential to the public good; and be Radical in everything, which may seem to us to require radical treatment, and radical reform. What is good we desire to preserve and improve; what is evil, to exterminate or reform.

Admittedly, that last sentence was a little over the top, but being a publisher in New York City has never been easy.

In 1896, Adolph Ochs, a young businessman from Chattanooga and my great-grandfather, purchased The New York Times. By then, the original management was gone, profits were nonexistent and there was a real question of whether the paper was going to make it into the 20th century.

Part of the problem was that the newspaper had endorsed the Democratic candidate for president, Grover Cleveland, in 1884 and its Republican advertisers left in droves. Our advertisers are now relatively indifferent to who occupies the White House; unfortunately so too are many voters. Perhaps the post-September 11 mindset will help generate a new interest in the political process.

Despite all these obstacles, Mr. Ochs—like Raymond and Jones— believed that he had a winning formula for appealing to the increasingly sophisticated New York City readers. Within a few days of the consum-mation of that sale, he sat in his room at the Madison Avenue Hotel and drafted a set of principles that would guide the newspaper for over a century:

It will be my earnest aim, he wrote, that The New York Times give the news, all the news, in concise and attrac-tive form, in language that is parliamentary in good society to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regard-less of party, sect or interest involved.

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These statements from Raymond, Jones and Ochs were, in their time, a radical departure from the common journalistic ethic. They established a covenant with their readers; a sacred bond of trust that would become part and parcel of all that we strive to do. They also set a high standard—one not always reached, to be sure. In their way, they demanded more from the reader—a commitment to an honest dialogue and debate, not merely a re-affirmation of one’s current political views.

One of the earliest defining moments of The New York Times was in 1871 when it exposed Tammany Hall, a group of incredibly corrupt New York City politicians who tried to steal everything that wasn’t nailed down—and a few things that were. The city’s bosses even offered a five million dollar bribe to quash the stories—an amazing amount of money in those days.

Decade after decade, The Times has continued to shine a bright light on all forms of governmental misbehavior. When Senator McCarthy was finally discredited during the televised Army hearings of 1954, Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, the chairman of the Internal Security Sub-committee, tried to keep this issue alive by claiming that Communists had infiltrated the newspaper industry.

But Eastland wasn’t just interested in following in the footsteps of Mc-Carthy. By subpoenaing thirty current or former Times employees, he was attempting to force the newspaper to back off from its strong editorial posi-tion that Mississippi adhere to Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that required schools to end their separate, but equal polices. Eastland theorized that if The Times could be intimidated into taking a less aggres-sive stand on civil rights, other newspapers and wire services would soon follow its lead.

On January 5, 1956, The Times published an editorial, written by-then editorial page editor, Charles Merz. Let me read just one paragraph:

And our faith is strong that long after Senator Eastland and his present subcommittee are gone, long after segregation has lost its final battle in the South, long after all that was known as McCarthyism is a dim, unwelcome memory, long after the last Congressional committee has learned that it cannot tamper successfully with a free press, The New York Times will be speaking for (those) who make it, and only for (those) who make it, and speaking, without fear or favor, the truth as it sees it.

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The first New York Times offices (1851). (Photo courtesy of The New York Times Com-pany Archives)

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The New York Times front page announcing the death of President Roosevelt (1945). (Photo courtesy of The New York Times Company Archives)

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I must admit that I get goose bumps every time I read this declaration. The editorial was reprinted in its entirety by newspapers throughout the country and the Eastland committee slipped into a well-deserved oblivion.

About 15 years later, Neil Sheehan, a correspondent in our Washington bureau, was given a copy of a 47-volume, top-secret study of the Vietnam War. These documents exposed a decision-making process that led our country into one of its worst foreign policy fiascoes and, one can only hope, provide future generations with a “how-not-to” manual for avoiding such disasters.

While publicly revealing The Pentagon Papers—as they would become known—had profound consequences, I doubt that anyone fully understood the extent of the leap that we were about to take into the journalistic and legal void.

Punch Sulzberger, my father and the publisher of The Times during that period, once recalled both the pride and apprehension he felt as the decision to publicize these extraordinary documents was being made.

Our brilliant editor, Abe Rosenthal, laid out the newsroom’s plans for him, complete with an off-site news and composing room to maintain se-crecy.

“The more I listened,” my father recalled, “the more certain I became that the entire operation smelled of 20 to life.”

Even so, he gave the go ahead to publish what may have been the most controversial leak in the 20th century and, as a result, transformed the rela-tionship between the news media and the government.

None of you are probably too shocked that my narrative has been re-plete with upbeat and inspiring anecdotes. It is our anniversary. But we’ve also made a few wrong turns along the way. Consider the fact that The Times: • Declared the paintings of Degas to be repulsive.

• Ridiculed the physics of Robert Goddard, the father of rocketry.

• Panned Joseph Heller’s novel, “Catch 22.”

• Called Senator Thomas Eagleton “a casting director’s ideal for a running mate.”

• And, in a fit of complete madness, announced in a 1911 edition of our Sunday Magazine section that the Martians had actually built two canals on their planet—in record time.

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More importantly, and all too seriously, we terribly regret that we did not fully publicize the full horrors perpetrated by Adolph Hitler and his wretched Third Reich. While we did print reports about the insidious policies that eventually lead to such unimaginable atrocities as Dachau, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, we did not do nearly enough to protect the European Jews from the coming Holocaust.

As Max Frankel, a former executive editor of The Times, wrote in an essay that was published last November: “Why, then, were the terrifying tales almost hidden in the back pages? Like most—though not all—Ameri-can media, and most of official Washington, The Times drowned its reports about the fate of Jews in the flood of wartime news. Its neglect was far from unique and its reach was not then fully national, but as the premier Ameri-can source of wartime news, it surely influenced the judgment of other news purveyors. No single explanation seems to suffice for what was surely the century’s bitterest journalistic failure.”

The Times is an imperfect institution. But despite our errors of judg-ment, past, present and future, I look back at our journalistic record with enormous pride and gratitude, as a testament to the thousands of fallible Times men and women who have struggled, year-in-and-year out, to ad-here to the highest standards of our profession.

Almost from the day I began my career as a journalist in 1974 as a young reporter at a small afternoon daily in Raleigh, North Carolina, I have been hearing about the death knell of newspapers.

More than a century ago, well before my great grandfather bought The New York Times, one of the legendary newspaper editors in New York thought he saw the end of newspapers approaching. James Gordon Ben-nett, the editor of the New York Herald, had built his reputation in large part by getting the news first. But all of a sudden a disturbing new technol-ogy had appeared on the scene.

“The telegraph may not affect magazine literature,” he said, “but the mere newspaper must submit to destiny and go out of business.”

Seemingly with every generation, a new information platform emerg-es—radio, television, cable, now the Internet—and the smart money once again predicts a radical shakeout in the media marketplace.

In 1980, Ted Turner—the creator of CNN—warned that newspapers would be gone in ten years. A decade later, Mr. Turner acknowledged that he had to eat a lot of crow for that statement.

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The New York Times building today. (Photo courtesy of The New York Times Company Archives)

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An enlargement of the Pulitzer Prize Medal, which the Times first won in 1918, for public service. (Photo courtesy of The New York Times Company Archives)

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More recently, I heard that a Microsoft VP was using a video pre-sentation predicting that The Times will stop printing its paper in 2018. He reportedly told a group of newsprint executives, “I see dead people everywhere.”

We have a powerful future in the world of interactive media, to be sure. But newspapers, a business that been around since the beginning of the 17th century, are not going away anytime soon.

In a recent study conducted by Yankelovich Partners, Americans rated newspapers, Oreo cookies, CNN and shopping malls, as the num-ber one, two, three and four top items they would like to see continued throughout the 21st century. For the record, they rated telemarketers, cloning, Jerry Springer and professional wrestling as the four top things they would like to see disappear.

Yet, we will not tie all our fortunes to print or to any other medium. To ensure that The Times will eventually celebrate its 200th anniversary, we intend to become the leading content provider for those consumers and businesses on the edge of what we are calling the knowledge econ-omy. This audience is beginning to understand what we already know: information isn’t knowledge. Indeed, information isn’t power. Only knowledge is power.

As my daughter Annie said recently:“Information is knowing Madonna’s phone number. Knowledge is

knowing when to call.” While I don’t think we’ll get to that level of “granularity” with our readers, this shift from the Information Age to the Knowledge Age plays to our strengths. It ensures that our brand of knowledge-rich journalism will be more valuable than ever in the global media marketplace.

In The Making of the President 1972, Theodore White observed:“It is assumed that any telephone call made between nine and noon

anywhere in the executive belt between Boston and Washington is made between two parties both of whom have already read The New York Times and are speaking from the same shared body of information.”

While he didn’t use the language of modern marketing experts, what he was writing about was a form of audience loyalty. In the thirty years that have passed, that audience has grown and we have grown with it.

At The New York Times, we understand that the digital world has magnified our interconnectedness in dramatic ways, some of which we

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can see today and others of which we can’t. But the core of what we were in 1972, what we are today and what we will be a decade hence, is our rel-evance to this quality, knowledge audience.

We are committed to achieving our ever-expanding audience vision and reaching the tens of millions of individuals identified as potential cus-tomers—in print, through the Internet, via television, books and radio.

We have spent a lot of time and effort to learn what we can about this audience. What we found out is that they have an innate curiosity about the world around them—about ideas as well as events—at the national, international and local level. This curiosity is rooted in the high value they place on education and the acquisition of knowledge, and is driven by a sense that what happens in the world affects them.

So how do we reach this quality audience—in print, digitally and in-creasingly, in broadcast? How do we grow The Times in this new century of ours?

We are now in the midst of a long-term strategy based on the prem-ise that our Company has to make the transition from a product-oriented organization, with its single minded-focus on the fine art of slathering ink on dead trees—on newspapers and newspaper customers—to one with a broader understanding of our core competencies: providing quality journal-ism through a variety of channels to an audience that needs and expects such information.

We are guided by a simple thought. The Times has a potential audi-ence of tens of millions of people throughout the country—countless more worldwide—and we can no longer afford to care how we reach them.

Whether it is the printed pages of the paper or the digital realm of the Internet, in magazines or books, on television or radio, we have become single-minded in our efforts to reach this knowledge-hungry audience—re-gardless of the means of distribution.

To achieve this bold goal of building our audience across multiple media platforms in 1999, we created a new ten-year plan that was based on four elements: • The print expansion of The New York Times newspaper;

• The continued global build-out of NYTimes.com, our flag ship Web site;

• Brand extension, which covers a wide range of services and products;

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• And television, which while part of brand extension, is so important and so challenging that we think about it separately.

Our national expansion initiative continues to be one of cornerstones of our long-term, coast-to-coast strategy. We currently offer home delivery in 207 markets and The New York Times is available in 37,000 retail out-lets outside of the greater metropolitan area. In case anyone here plans on moving, we will find you as we continue to add new print sites around the country.

Our investment in our Web-based future—just like our investment in our newsprint based future—is a large and ongoing one. We have learned that, while each medium offers different challenges and opportunities, we cannot succeed in one area alone. Our future depends on our growing in both.

What we also know is that people are spending more time online and using the Web to find out about a wide array of topics. The audience for news and information sites has increased almost 65% between October 2000 and October 2001 according to Jupiter Media Metrix.

NYTimes.com has aggressively competed for its share of this growing online audience and now has ten million individual active users. We aver-age nearly a million active visitors every weekday, almost the equivalent of our print circulation.

Moreover, we had more than 5.4 million international users visit the site in September. Let it also be known that 165 members of the British parliament have registered for our site, about 20% of that body… we think most of them are in the House of Lords.

In this new century, we are pursuing the brand extension component of our audience vision even more aggressively. Our news service and syn-dicate, books, Times Digest, branded pages and photo archives are all an integral part of our effort to reach audiences here at home and internation-ally.

Implementing our long-range vision also requires that we become more familiar with television. At some point in the not-too-distant future, achieving critical mass on the Internet will depend, to a large degree, on our ability to marry the printed word with the moving image. Creating a frame-work that enables us to bridge our analog and digital properties promises to be an enormous challenge—one well worthy of our abilities.

As the pipeline gets bigger and the flow of digital information moves faster, customers will be demanding the state-of-the-art news and informa-

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tion they want, when they want it. Either we give it to them in the form they desire, whatever it might be, or someone else will.

We believe that we are well positioned for this next technological leap forward and that the landscape is already shifting in our favor. Success in the broadcast realm no longer requires that we attempt to speak to the larg-est audience possible. Instead, as a result of the Internet, of the continuing proliferation of cable and of the new wireless technologies, we are seeing that niche strategies are replacing the traditional mass-market approach of television.

In this decade, quality content will become more and more important. In a convergence world, you can take the viewer and reader as far and as deep as he or she wants to go. That plays to our strengths. Increasingly, outlets need what we, almost uniquely, can supply. This is a demand we are preparing to meet.

From a business perspective, we believe we need television to achieve our full financial potential. Journalistically speaking, we feel that we can play a positive role in reshaping how quality news and information is pre-pared and presented in this medium.

As we contemplate our future, we must be agnostic about the method of distribution we use; print, broadcast and digital all provide extremely exciting opportunities and challenges. Our long-term strategy for the 21st century media marketplace is designed to use every available platform and technology to speak to our ever-expanding audience.

Yet, at the end of the day, this strategy only works if we continue to be guided by The New York Times Company’s Core Purpose, which is: “To enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high quality news, information and entertainment.”

As long as we consistently meet the demand for trustworthy, original information; for a respected and trusted voice; and for someone to set a common agenda for decision-makers in a wide variety of fields, not the least of which is democracy, we will make our way through the technological jungle.

When I was getting ready for this speech, I read the seventy-fifth an-niversary edition of The New York Times. At one point, it suggested that The New York Times of 2001 “will have great miracles to record—perhaps a dispatch from Mars” (we do seem to have an odd institutional fascination with that planet). Now that we have moved past that date, which always

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seemed in the very distant future, I regret that this prediction turned out to be a fantasy, but the real miracle is that we have grown and prospered from the very beginning of the modern era to now.

Of course, the true secret to our success is in our closely adhering to the basic principles originally established by our visionary founders. We owe a great debt to Henry Raymond, George Jones and Adolph Ochs. Our 150th anniversary is a tribute to their commitment to the highest ide-als of journalism.

I also want to express once again my gratitude to you, our readers. Over the decades, your unfailing support and your tireless dedication have inspired us to produce a newspaper that could meet your incredibly high expectations.

In the years ahead, we will work even harder to earn your loyalty. If anyone here still has any doubts about our ability to make the changes that will be necessary to compete effectively in this new environment, I would refer them to an essay that was written by The Times’s architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp. In a document given to the four architectural teams competing to win the design contract for our new headquarters, he wrote of us:

The Times is not just another media organization. Its cul-tural peers are those institutions that took shape in the in-tellectual climate of the 18th century Enlightenment: the modern university, the research laboratory and the ency-clopedic museum of art or science. Like these institutions, the paper is governed by Enlightenment ideals of reason, truthfulness, independence, integrity and inquiry.

That’s an extraordinary assessment. Let me add one more element to it. And like these centuries-old institutions, we will continue to grow and endure.

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The front page of The New York Times from the day following the September 11 attacks.(Photo courtesy of The New York Times Company Archives)

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Past R

ecipients

Past Recipients

1979 RONALD A. WHITE President, Graphic Systems Division, Rockwell International

1980 ROBERT G. MARBUT President and CEO, Hart-Hanks Communications, Inc.

1981 ALLEN H. NEUHARTH Chairman and President, Gannett Company, Inc.

1982 EDWARD W. ESTLOW President, The E. W. Scripps Company

1983 KATHARINE GRAHAM President, Washington Post Company

1984 ARTHUR OCHS SULZBERGER Chairman and CEO, New York Times Company

1985 OTIS CHANDLER Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Times Mirror Company

1986 ALVAH H. CHAPMAN JR. Chairman and CEO, Knight-Ridder Newspaper, Inc.

1987 STANTON R. COOK President and CEO, Tribune Company

1988 WARREN H. PHILLIPS Chairman and CEO, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

1990 FRANK A. BENNACK JR. President and CEO, The Hearst Corporation

1991 JAMES C. KENNEDY Chairman and CEO, Cox Enterprises, Inc.

1992 ROBERT F. ERBURU Chairman and CEO, Times-Mirror Company

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ecipients

1993 CHARLES T. BRUMBACK Chairman and CEO, Tribune Company

1994 JOHN J. CURLEY Chairman, President and CEO, Gannett Company, Inc.

1995 LAWRENCE A. LESER Chairman and CEO, The E. W. Scripps Company

1996 FRANK BATTEN Chairman of the Board, Landmark Communications, Inc.

1997 P. ANTHONY RIDDER Chairman and CEO, Knight-Ridder, Inc.

1998 DONA VIOLET A BARRIOS de CHAMORRO Sra. Expresidenta de Nicaragua

1999 GARY B. PRUITT President and CEO, The McClatchy Company

2000 WILLIAM BURLEIGHChairman, The E.W. Scripps Company

2001 JOHN W. SEYBOLDFounder and President, ROCAPPI

2002 TIM O’REILLYFounder and President, O’Reilly and Associates

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About Isaiah T

homas

Isaiah Thomas was one of America’s great patriot printers; he was born in Boston in 1749, and apprenticed to a local printer at the tender age of six. It was immediately apparent that he was no ordinary apprentice, as young Isaiah learned his alphabet and his type case at the same time. He made many improvements in the quality of his master’s printing and at the age of 14 began traveling along the eastern seaboard. Thomas returned to Boston in the spring of 1770 and began publication of his newspaper, The Massachusetts Spy. He became involved with radicals such as John Hancock, Thomas Young and Joseph Greenleaf, and the Spy became the mouthpiece for the Sons of Liberty. In April of 1775, Thomas was one of Paul Revere’s riders. During the war years, Thomas moved his printshop to Worcester in order to continue printing for Hancock and the Provincial Congress. He continued in Worces-ter after the Revolutionary War, establishing himself as perhaps one of the most important publishers in the country. He certainly was the most innovative, enjoying great commercial success. Thomas had always used the best types and papers available, importing great quantities of types from the foundries of Caslon, Fry and Wilson. Thomas’s Type Specimen Book of 1775, the folio Bible of 170l and his History of Printing in America of 1810 are but three of his great achievements in printing. In 1812, Isaiah Thomas founded the American Antiquarian Society and his generous con-tributions over the years established the society as his greatest monument. Isaiah Thomas died in Worcester, Massachusetts on April 4, 1831.

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Specimen of Isaiah Thomas’s Printing Types (1785)

Thomas issued the first American type spec-imen, printed in Worcester in 1785 entitled Specimen of Isaiah Thomas’s Printing Types. “Being as large and complete an ASSORT-MENT,” he claimed, “as to be met with in any one Printing-Office in AMERICA.”

Isaiah Thomas, Patriot-Printer .

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Contributions and F

irsts

Implemented the first six-section color edition of The New York Times newspaper.

Expanded The Times, nationally, with 18 new print sites.

Added the NYT Electronic Media Company (now New York Times Digital), which includes The Times’ NYTimes.com—the No.1 newspaper Web site in the world.Started-up new enterprises such as The New York Times Learning Network, Upfront magazine, NYT-Television and Continuous News operations.

Acquired the International Herald Tribune.

Purchased of 50% ownership of the Discovery Civilization Channel.

Invested as a minority partner in New England Sports Ventures, which includes the Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park and 80% of the New England Sports Network (NESN).

Managed The Times during a period in which it earned 25 Pulitzer Prizes and provid-ed its readers with innumerable examples of momentous journalism such as its breakthrough “How Race is Lived in America” series, its historic new millennium edition, and its internationally acclaimed coverage of the September 11 terrorist attack in a “A Nation Challenged” and “Portraits of Grief.”

Led The New York Times Company to achieve a reputation for its commitment to excellence, innovation and social responsibility. In Fortune magazine’s 2002 annual survey of “America’s Most Admired Companies,” The New York Times was listed as No. 1 in its industry, receiving the top ranking in all eight categories. The Company also ranked No. 1 among all 530 companies surveyed in social responsibility and the quality of its products.

Played a central role in the development of the Times Square Business Improvement District, officially launched in January 1992, serving as the first chairman of that civic organization.

Helped found, and served as a past chairman, of the New York City Outward Bound Center. He was also a member of the North Carolina Outward Bound board of directors.

Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. Contributions Isaiah Thomas Firsts

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First printer in Worcester, Massachusetts (May 1775)

Printed first eyewitness accounts of the battles of Lexington and Concord (Massachusetts Spy, May 3, 1775)

First postmaster in Worcester (May 1775)

Conducted the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in New England (Worcester, 1776)

Issued first American type specimen (A Specimen of Isaiah Thomas’ Printing Types, 1785)

Printed and published the first edition of Mother Goose in America (1786)

First master of the Morning Star Masonic Lodge in Worcester (1793)

Established the first paper mill in Worcester (1793)

Printed and published the first American novel (William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy, 1789)

Was one of the founders of the first bank in Worcester (1804)

Wrote the first history of printing in America (The History of Printing in America, 2 vols., 1810)

Founded the first national historical organization in the United States (American Anti-quarian Society, 1812)

First person in Worcester to own a coach and livery

Sponsored the first theatrical performance in Worcester

Isaiah Thomas Firsts

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Isaiah Thomas:Patriot Printer

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Isaiah Thomas was the foremost printer of the generation that came of age during the American Revolution. He rose from a poor childhood

to become one of the richest men in the new nation. During the height of his career, his business empire stretched from Massachusetts to Mary-land, and included newspapers, paper mills, printing shops, binderies, and bookstores. His shrewd business acumen, his dynamic personality, and his commitment to success guaranteed a legacy that remains strong and thriving into the twenty-first century. The American Antiquarian Society, which Thomas founded in 1812, perpetuates his belief in the importance of the printed word and recognizes the power contained in the early written records and ephemera of our nation.

Isaiah Thomas was born on January 19, 1749. While Isaiah was still a young boy, his father deserted the family and fled to the southern colonies where he is presumed to have died while seeking his fortune. Facing destitute circumstances with four children to raise, Thomas’s mother was forced to place him under the care of the overseers of the poor in Boston. This welfare organization arranged for Isaiah to enter into an apprenticeship with Zechariah Fowle, who owned a small print-ing shop in the city. Although the terms of the indenture stated that Fowle was responsible for Isaiah’s education, Fowle lacked the ability and resources to adequately educate his apprentice. Isaiah was forced to learn to read and write by studying an “Ink stained Bible and Diction-ary” in the pressroom and by setting type. Isaiah was very bright and despite these hardships he soon outshone his master in both printing and business. At the age of sixteen, Isaiah illegally left his apprenticeship and set out for London, where he hoped to gain a more thorough knowl-edge of the printing business. He failed to reach his desired location and instead landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1765. He stayed in Halifax seven months, finding employment in the only printing shop in town, owned by Anthony Henry. During his stay in Halifax, he rigorously opposed the British Stamp Act by printing the tax stamp upside down, creating a woodcut of the devil poking at the stamp, and cutting all stamps off of his printing paper. This spirited opposition to the Stamp Act attracted the attention of the local authorities and within seven months he was forced to flee the province.

After returning briefly to Fowle’s printing shop in Boston, he again set off for London, this time choosing a more southern route, via

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Wilmington, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina, where he settled for three years to work with a printer named Robert Wells. Thomas met his first wife, Mary Dill, while in South Carolina and the two were married on December 25, 1769. Thomas and his wife returned to Boston in the spring of 1770. Once in Boston, Thomas entered into a partnership with his old master, Fowle, and established a newspaper for the middling class entitled the Massachusetts Spy. Thomas’s venture proved so success-ful that he soon purchased the business from Fowle, including the printing press that Thomas had learned his craft on, called “Old Number One,” a press that was to remain with him throughout his life.

Expanding his business in Boston Thomas experimented with other forms of publishing, including almanacs and magazines. He was aware of the colonists’ thirst for knowledge and of their dependency on Great Britain to provide a constant supply of materials that would quench such appetites. He envisioned a printing business that would be totally self-sufficient, one that would rely on printers like himself to bring uniquely American prod-ucts to a rapidly expanding American market.

In the meantime, the Massachusetts Spy soon became one of the most successful newspapers in America, with a circulation of 3,500. Thomas’s paper became a voice of the Whig, or Patriot, cause, containing the most fervent anti-British rhetoric of all of the colonial papers. Postrid-ers and ships carried the newspaper throughout the thirteen colonies, allowing Americans exposure to the growing dissatisfaction with what the Whigs interpreted as the mother country’s increased exploitation of power. Thomas fueled the discontent by also printing pamphlets and other materi-als of an inflammatory nature.

In the spring of 1775, Thomas’s associates, including John Hancock and Joseph Warren, feared for both his safety and that of his printing shop. Thomas reported several troubling incidents involving the British authori-ties in his diary, including: “Indictment for a Libel against Government,” “I am ordered before the Governor (of the province) and Council,” and “Conduct of some British Officers to me respecting a piece I had published of a Court Marital.” Perhaps the most disturbing references were those to threats of bodily harm such as the following: “Affair at Northcarolina (sic)—my Newspaper burnt there by the Common hangman—town meet-ing—Letter addressed to me—I am there hung and burnt in effigy,” “and conduct of a british Regiment who paraded with a countryman they had tarred and feathered…the regiment halted before my house played the

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rogue’s march and threatened I should be the next so served.”Thomas hastily made plans to relocate his enterprise in Worcester, a

town forty miles to the west of Boston. Under the cover of darkness on April 16, 1775, Thomas packed up his press and moved it out of Boston to Worces-ter. Once in Worcester, he set up his printing press in the basement of Whig supporter Timothy Bigelow’s house. Three days later the battles of Lexing-ton and Concord occurred and the American Revolution began. The May 3, 1775, issue of the Spy, the first item printed in Worcester, contained one of the first eyewitness accounts of these battles. During this time Thomas also printed a document containing depositions taken from colonists in Lexing-ton and Concord supporting the reports of atrocities allegedly committed by British troops on April 19, 1775. Entitled A Narrative of the Excursion and Ravages of the King’s Troops, Thomas noted that this was in fact the first book to be printed in Worcester. During the early years of the American Revolution Thomas lived intermittently in Worcester and leased the daily operation of the Spy to first

Power of Sympathy: or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth (Boston, 1789)

Thomas printed and published the first American novel The Power of Sympathy, by William Hill Brown, in 1789.

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William Stearns and Daniel Bigelow and then to Anthony Haswell. All of these gentlemen proved to be poor printers and journalists and the Spy suf-fered in both quality and subscriptions under their tutelage.

In July 1778 Thomas resumed control of the Spy. From this point on Thomas would remain in Worcester and in control of the Spy and an increasing number of other publications and books. Throughout the rest of the war years his business would fluctuate widely, but after the war it grew exponentially, reaching its greatest successes in the years 1790 to 1802. In order to insure the quality of all aspects of the printing process, Thomas set up a paper mill and bookbinding operation. He had controlling interests in three newspapers, a magazine, and eight bookstores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Maryland. At the height of his business, he operated numerous presses throughout the nation and employed some 150 people in Worcester alone.

As his business prospered Thomas became a very wealthy man. He purchased a great deal of property in and around Worcester and built a man-sion in the town. He also purchased a stately home in Boston and contin-ued to travel back and forth between the two towns when business or plea-sure called. He enjoyed showing off his wealth and was the first person in Worcester to own a coach, which he often used in his travels throughout New England.

Like many of the founding fathers, Thomas was also extremely civic-minded. He was an active participant in the Masonic Order and served as the first Master of the Morning Star Lodge in Worcester. He was the first postmaster in Worcester, appointed to that post in May of 1775. As transpor-tation flourished in the new nation Thomas was instrumental in surveying and establishing turnpikes and canals in the area, recognizing the impor-tance of an improved infrastructure to the growth and development of the young nation. He was also a founder and trustee of the first bank in Worces-ter. He also enjoyed the theatre, sponsoring the first theatrical performance in Worcester, and was an original proprietor of the Boston Anthnaeum.

Throughout his life and in his numerous wills, he was very generous to friends, family members, and those less fortunate. Upon his death he left bequests to so many learned societies, charitable institutions, and printers’ societies that this portion of his will was printed and circulated as a broad-side, a fitting means of notifying the recipients of the benevolent printer’s generosity. He had a reputation for being kind and generous to his servants, seeking to provide them with the means to better their station in life, as he

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had so successfully accomplished for himself. Thomas’s house was always open to family members as well as business associates, the atmosphere made hospitable by the master of the house and his many servants.

Thomas’s personal life reveals a more complicated tale. He was mar-ried three times. His first marriage to Mary Dill ended in divorce in 1777, following her affair and subsequent elopement with a British officer. How-ever, the marriage did produce two children, a son named Isaiah and a daughter, Mary Ann. Both of the children grew to adulthood and produced many grandchildren. Isaiah attempted to follow his father in the printing business but met with little success and died from injuries suffered in a fall at age 45. Mary Ann was a wild and free-spirited woman who married three times and divorced twice. She and her children were almost always dependent on Thomas for financial support and he provided for their needs generously if grudgingly.

Thomas married his second wife, again named Mary, in 1778. This was a happy union and they lived together until her death at the age of 68. After her death, Thomas wrote in his diary, “I have buried my best friend and wife, with whom I had lived for 40 years.” In 1819 Thomas took Rebecca Armstrong as his third wife. She was a cousin and companion of his second wife but proved to be an unsuitable match for him. The couple separated after two years of marriage. Thomas devoted his later years to his scholarship and philanthropy, retiring to the more pleasant company of friends and books.

Thomas retired from active business pursuits in 1802 to write The History of Printing in America. This two-volume work was first published in 1810 and is still considered an important source on early American print-ers and the publishing industry. After publishing the History of Printing Thomas determined that he should make available for study all of the materials that he had utilized in his research by establishing a learned soci-ety based on the models of European institutions that had been in exis-tence for hundreds of years. Specifically, Thomas envisioned an institution would organize materials for study in a methodical manner while striving to focus on the documents that would tell the story of the early American nation.

In 1812, he founded the American Antiquarian Society as a learned society and library devoted to American history and culture. It was the third oldest historical society in the country but the first to be truly national in its scope. In Thomas’s words, “The American Antiquarian Society is, in some

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respects, different from all other societies established in the United States. Membership is restricted to no state, or party. There are no members merely honorary, but all have an equal interest and concern in its affairs and the objects of this institution, whatever part of the United States they may reside in. It is truly a national institution. It has no local views nor private concerns. Its objects (to collect and preserve) embrace all time, past present and future….The benefits resulting…will be increased by time and will be chiefly received by a remote posterity.”

Thomas was vain, highly intelligent, charming, quick tempered, and philanthropic. His generosity extended beyond his material wealth. He was genuinely interested in all kinds of intellectual pursuits as is exemplified by the diverse subjects that he printed in both his newspapers and in his books. In addition to being a prodigious maker of books, he was also a great collector and scholar. He amassed an enormous collection of books, pam-

The Royal American Magazine (Boston, 1774)

The Royal American Magazine was a monthly sub-scription publication, issued by Thomas to compete with the British magazines that appealed to a more literary segment of the population. In a brilliant marketing move, Thomas decided to include installments of Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts in each issue. According to Thomas’s biographer Clifford Shipton, the installments were printed separately so that they “could be extracted from the successive numbers of the magazine and bound up together. The subscribers would obtain the his-tory and the magazine for less than the regular price of the history alone.” In addition to Hutchinson’s history the magazine contained articles on science, “true confessions” and love stories, and engrav-ings by Paul Revere and Joseph Callender. The magazine was also the first of its kind in America to publish both the words and music to popular songs.

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phlets, broadsides, almanacs, newspapers, and ephemera during this life-time of collecting. He truly loved the act of accumulating printed materials and believed that such collections would be of tremendous value to future scholars and historians.

Almost two hundred years after the founding of the American Anti-quarian Society, the mission of the institution remains true to Thomas’s vision. In this first year of the 21st century, the AAS remains a center for scholarly research, a place where the history of this great nation, a nation that Thomas helped mold, is still diligently preserved and studied.

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Am

erican Antiquarian Society

The American Antiquarian Society, located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both an independent research library and a learned society whose mis-sion is to collect, preserve, and make available the printed record of what is now the United States from 1640 through 1876. Founded in 1812 by Rev-olutionary War patriot and printer Isaiah Thomas, the American Antiquarian Society is the third oldest historical society in the United States and the first to be national in the scope of its collections.

The American Antiquarian Society

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The American Antiquarian Society

The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) is both a learned society and a major independent research library. Founded in 1812 by the Revolutionary War patriot and printer Isaiah Thomas, the Society is the third oldest his-torical organization in the United States and the first to be national in the scope of its collections. Membership in the Society is by election and is lim-ited to 700. Thirteen U. S. presidents as well as such luminaries as Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Alexander Graham Bell, Ken Burns, Jimmy Carter, David McCullough, Walter Cronkite, and Daniel Boorstin have been, or are currently, AAS members. Collectively, AAS members have won 61 Pulitzer prizes.

The AAS library houses the largest and most accessible collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, sheet music, and graphic arts material printed through 1876 in what is now the United States, as well as manuscripts and a substantial collection of secondary works, bib-liographies, and other reference works related to all aspects of American history and culture before the twentieth century. The library contains 20 miles of shelves that hold over three million items including two out of every three books, pamphlets, and broadsides known to have been printed in this country from the establishment of the first press in 1639 through 1820. The library’s unparalleled graphic arts materials include engravings, lithographs, sheet music, and maps. In addition, the library owns useful collections of microform materials including: Early American Imprints (1639-1819), Early American Newspapers (1690-1820), American city directories through 1860, the Adams Papers, and reference copies of various manuscript collections of the Society. The Society’s holdings also include selected modern secondary works and a full array of bibliographical tools, learned journals, and other aids to research, as well as a collection of sound recordings and tapes of early American music to supplement its holdings of printed music. Scholarship

The exceptional depth of the library’s collections within the fields of American history and culture through 1876, and the accessibility of those collections through various finding aids, as well as a highly skilled staff, make the library a perfect place for in-depth scholarly research. The Soci-ety conducts an extensive fellowship program for scholars, artists, and writ-ers studying pre-twentieth-century America. Residencies of one month to

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one year enable scholars, advanced graduate students, and others to spend an uninterrupted block of time doing research in the AAS library. Over 358 fellows from 41 states and nine foreign countries have been appointed since AAS began awarding fellowships in 1972-73.

Support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation provide the funding for the Soci-ety’s long-term postdoctoral awards. A portion of the Mellon grant allows a recent PhD. recipient to spend a year at AAS revising his or her dissertation for publication. This Mellon grant also provides funds for other general long-term fellowships and for a distinguished scholar to spend an academic year at AAS as Mellon Distinguished Scholar in Residence.

In addition, numerous short-term fellowships are also available to postdoctoral scholars, Ph.D. candidates, and foreign nationals. In 1994 the Society added visiting fellowships for creative and performing artists and writers. Approximately 20 separate short-term fellowships are awarded each year.

The writings produced from these fellowships have made substantial contributions to scholarship. Many have been honored by the prestigious prizes of the academic world and recognized by their peers as seminal works in their fields. The 1999 Bancroft Prize was won by Jill Lepore (Peterson Fellowship 1993-94) for The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity. The 1996 Pulitzer Prize in History and the 1996 Bancroft Prize were awarded to Alan Taylor (AAS-National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship 1989-90) for William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic.

Work done at the Society over the years has contributed greatly to the present understanding of the course of American history and culture from the first contacts between European colonists and Native Americans until the end of the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Research car-ried out here includes work by such well-known historians and authors of the past as Esther Forbes, Allan Nevins, Samuel Eliot Morison and David McCullough and, more recently, by persons conveying historical informa-tion through new media, like the documentary filmmakers Ken Burns, who researched several of his projects at AAS, and Laurie Kahn-Leavitt, who adapted Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s A Midwife’s Tale for the screen.

A key factor in the extraordinary usefulness of the collections has been the fact that the Society has, from the beginning, consciously set out to collect the commonplace and ordinary pieces of printing, not just the first editions

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The American Antiquarian Society library houses the largest and most accessible collec-tion of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, sheet music and graphic arts materials printed through 1876 in what is now the United States, as well as manuscripts and a substantial collection of secondary works, bibliographies, and other reference works related to all aspects of American history and culture before the twentieth century.

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written by canonized authors. For this reason, the collections has been very conducive to the trends in the last generation or two toward intellectual and social history; the history of Native Americans, African Americans, women, and children; the historical context of past literary production; and all manner of interdisciplinary pursuits, including American studies and the history of the book.

The Society’s historic interest in collecting, recording, and interpreting the output of American printing presses since early colonial days has made it a center for research on the history of the book. In 1983 the Society established its Program in the History of the Book in American Culture. This education and research program involves a number of scholarly activities including a series of annual lectures, workshops and seminars, conferences, publications and residential fellowships all centered around the history and bibliography of the printing, publication, and dissemination of books and other printed materials in the geographical areas that became the United States and Canada. Key works in this field include Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America by Cathy N. Davidson (Peterson Fellowship 1984-85); Beneath the American Renaissance:

Isaiah Thomas’s printing press known as “Old No. 1” (after resto-ration)

Isaiah learned the trade of print-ing in Zechariah Fowle’s small shop in Boston. The press he learned on was noted in later documents as old “No. 1.” The press was over six feet tall, approximately three feet wide, and six feet in length. The sup-porting timbers were of elm with pieces of oak and chestnut also used in its construction. The platen was mahogany and all of the hardware iron. Although the press was large and heavy, it had to be braced to the ceiling of the print shop to prevent the machine from “walking” across the floor while in use.

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The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville by David S. Reyn-olds (AAS-NEH Fellowship1982-83); and Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgement: Popular Religious Beliefs in Early New England by David D. Hall (AAS-NEH Fel-lowship1981-82).

A major component of this program is the preparation of a collaborative, interdisciplinary work of scholarship entitled A History of the Book in America. Cambridge University Press, in association with AAS, published the first volume, The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, in late 1999. When completed, the series will comprise five volumes, carrying the story up to the recent past.

The Society has been active as a publisher since its earliest years. Its semiannual learned journal, the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, has been published regularly since 1849. In addition, the Society continues to publish a number of bibliographies and scholarly texts. The Society has also worked with Newsbank/Readex Microprint Corporation to microfilm nearly all the non-serial material published in this country from 1639 to 1820. This pioneer series, entitled Early American Imprints, contains the text in full of approximately 90,000 books, pamphlets, almanacs, and broadsides.

Program

The Society sponsors a wide range of programs for constituencies ranging from school children and their teachers through undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, creative and performing artists and writers, and the general public. The Society also schedules a wide range of symposiums, lectures, workshops, and conferences on topics dealing with American history and culture in general and the history of printing, publishing, and reading in America. Every fall semester, AAS sponsors an undergraduate seminar in American Studies. Students from five Worcester colleges participate in this course held at AAS and led by a visiting professor.

AAS programs for the general public include reading and discussion groups, lectures, musical concerts, theatrical presentations and an innovative radio variety program called The History Show. Each one-hour edition of The History Show uses the talents of professional actors and musicians and the resources of the Society to bring to life a single year in American history.

The Society is also committed to enhancing the quality of K-12 educa-tion by sponsoring teacher-training workshops and seminars and collaborating on a number of educational programs that make available for classroom use for classroom use for classroom use source materials from the AAS collections.

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A Narrative of the Excursion and Ravages of the King’s Troops (Worcester, 1775)

The original document contains the following inscription, in Isaiah Thomas’s handwriting: This was the first printing done in Worcester…. This document group contains depositions “taken by order of Con-gress” to support the reports of the atrocities allegedly committed by British troops, under the command of General Gage, against colonists in Lexington and Concord, on April 19, 1775.

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In the winter of 1999 the Society launched its newest K-12 program, entitled Isaiah Thomas—Patriot Printer. This highly effective program includes a dramatic presentation and a facsimile/curriculum packet that examines the extraordinary life of the Society’s founder and his role in establishing the American nation and creating a uniquely American culture. The curriculum packet includes document facsimiles, graphic images, and background materi-als from the Society’s collections, as well as lesson plans developed by class-room teachers. The Hoche-Scofield Foundation provided initial support for the Isaiah Thomas – Patriot Printer project. Additional funding is also now available through grants from the Colonial Society of America, the Massachu-setts Foundation for the Humanities, and the Worcester Arts and Humanities Educational Collaborative.

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Internationally recognized as a leader in imaging, technology, fine and applied arts, and education of the deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology enrolls 15,000 full- and part-time students in more than 250 career-oriented and professional programs, many of which are unique and enjoy worldwide recognition. Its cooperative education program is one of the oldest and larg-est in the nation.

For the past decade, U.S. News and World Report has ranked RIT as one of the nation’s leading comprehensive universities. RIT is also included in Yahoo Internet Life’s Top 100 Wired Universities, Fisk’s Guide to America’s Best Colleges, as well as Barron’s Best Buys in Education.

SCHOOL OF PRINT MEDIA

Considered the best of its kind in the world, RIT’s School of Print Me-dia offers several programs in graphic communications and graphic media publishing. Part of the nationally accredited College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, the school offers state-of-the-art equipment, and faculty who are world-renowned experts, teaching printing from concept to inception.

Rochester Institute of Technology

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Xerox’s iGen3

Xerox’s DocuColor 6060

With the Xerox DocuColor Book Solution, publishers and book printers can economically produce high-quality digital books in full color, short run lengths, quick turnaround times and with a quicker time to market. By us-ing Xerox’s DocuColor 2060 or 6060 Digital Color Presses or DocuColor iGen3 Digital Production Press, the solution is ideal for pre-edition copies (complimentary, review and sales samples), particularly childrens’ books.

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Xerox G

raphic Arts

Xerox Graphic Arts

Xerox is the leader in monochrome and color digital production print-ing–from the DocuTech Publisher Series, to the DocuColor 2000 series and 6060 Digital Color Presses, and the DocuColor iGen3 Digital Pro-duction Press. Offering a comprehensive portfolio of products, solutions and services, Xerox helps customers build volume, revenue and capture new business opportunities.

Xerox created on-demand digital book production with the intro-duction of DocuTech in 1990. One of the most rapidly-growing areas of print on demand is book publishing, where customers are able to pro-duce short run lengths and personalized books economically.

Publishing is one of five segments in Xerox’s Worldwide Graphic Arts Industry group, which is helping to lead the industry’s transition from traditional printing to The New Business of Printing–just-in-time and one-to-one–enabled by powerful digital technologies and the Inter-net. For more information, visit www.xerox.com/graphicarts.

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PRODUCTION NOTES

Text and cover printed on a Xerox DocuColor iGen3 Digital Production Press on 24 lb. Brilliant White LaserPrint courtesy of Hammermill International Paper, and 80

lb. Winter White Mohawk Options cover courtesy of Mohawk Paper.

Design and execution of the book, accompanying Web site, and signage by Amina Rab and Roxanne Stevens,

New Media students, College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, RIT. Original design and concept by Robert Klapka and Sean Morris

The fonts are Adobe Caslon 540 Roman and Italic.

Software used in the production of the print and Web materials includes Adobe InDesign 2, Adobe Illustrator 10, Adobe Photoshop 7,

and Macromedia Dreamweaver 4.

The Isaiah Thomas Award in Publishing Web site is on-line at http://publish.rit.edu/ITAP.

The Isaiah Thomas Award in Publishing is sponsored by Xerox Corporation and is presented by the School of Print Media,

College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology,

Rochester, NY.

Dr. Joan StoneDean

Professor Barbara PellowAdministrative Chair

Professor Michael L. KleperPaul and Louise Miller Distinguished Professor

Documents

Presented to - rit.edu · The 2003 Isaiah Thomas Award in Publishing From Rochester Institute of Technology School of Print Media Presented to Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. Sponsored