User:Visviva/Robert M. Budd
 | This is not a Wikipedia article: It is an individual user's work-in-progress page, and may be incomplete and/or unreliable. Robert M. Budd, Back Number Budd |
Robert Mackendry Budd | |
|---|---|
_in_1889.webp) Budd in 1889 | |
| Born | 1852 Washington, DC |
| Died | April 19, 1933 (aged 80–81) New York City |
| Other names | Back Number Budd, Robert M. Budd |
| Occupation | Newspaper archive operator |
Robert M. Budd (1852-1933), also known as Back Number Budd, was an African American entrepeneur in New York City. In the 1870s, he established the first known commercial newspaper archive, which he continued to operate until at least 1931.[1]
In the 19th century, newspapers were considered ephemera and back issues were not typically preserved in any systematic way. Instead, old newspapers were simply reused, for example as packing material, or recycled into new paper.[2] Budd was the first to recognize the commercial opportunity in retaining copies of used newspapers.
Early and personal life
[edit]Budd was born in 1852 to free Black parents in Washington, DC.[3] As a child, beginning in 1863, Budd sold newspapers to troops on both sides of the United States Civil War.[4] He discovered that soldiers would sometimes pay a substantial premium for back issues recounting a battle they had fought in.[4]
After the war, he moved to Philadelphia and then to New York City, where at first he operated a conventional newsstand alongside his archive business in the 1870s. He subsequently transitioned to the archive business full time.[1]
Budd married twice and had five children, some of whom also worked in his business.[5]
Archive
[edit]_in_1913.jpg)
Budd operated out of various locations near Greeley Square in Manhattan from the 1870s until 1905. The area was a center of the newspaper industry, and many of Budd's customers were reporters researching stories. Some would pay to use his warehouse as a reading room rather than buying the back issues outright.[6] Many of Budd's other customers were lawyers preparing exhibits for litigation, who required the physical copy and also in some cases paid for him to testify that the newspaper in question was genuine.[7]
At some point no later than 1888, Budd established a larger warehouse in Ravenswood, Queens, where he also lived.[1] Budd's collection grew until his warehouse contained nearly 15 million newspapers.[8] His stock, organized systematically by date and newspaper, covered newspapers from the 1830s to the present.[9]
Budd and his archive featured frequently in newspaper articles, as the newspapers often wished to play up their significance by noting how many of their issues were held at Budd's warehouse. However, many such reports were phrased in disrespectful and steretypical terms, depicting him as speaking in stereotypical Black dialect, or as making money without any effort on his part.[10] Budd reprinted many of the favorable reports in his own advertising, but omitted those that portrayed him in stereotypical terms.[3]
Budd's Ravenswood warehouse suffered a fire in 1895.[11] It also suffered a second, more destructive, fire in 1922.[5] Insurance companies refused to cover Budd's collection because it was considered junk, so his losses were uncompensated.[11]
By the time of the 1922 fire, which destroyed a majority of his holdings, Budd had closed his Manhattan operation and was operating solely out of his Ravenswood warehouse. His business had declined, and many of his former clients had come to rely on new competitors such as clippings services and the public newspaper archives that were beginning to be maintained by public libraries.[12]
Other activities
[edit]In addition to collecting old newspapers, Budd occasionally issued reprints of historically significant newspapers he had acquired. These included reproductions of a 1789 issue of the Gazette of the United States with an account of George Washington's inauguration, and an 1800 issue of the Ulster County Gazette with an account of Washington's funeral.[11] Budd's inauguration reprint,[13] as well as the funeral reprint,[14] have sometimes been mistaken for the originals.
Budd also prepared commissioned scrapbooks of newspaper clippings for some wealthy clients. He prepared one such scrapbook for the 1891 wedding of John Jacob Astor IV and another for the 1892 funeral of Jay Gould.[1]
Death and legacy
[edit]Budd died on April 9, 1933.[12] His descendants include Wayne Budd, a former United States Attorney.[5]
No part of Budd's newspaper collection is known to have survived.[12]
Further reading
[edit]- Garvey, Ellen Gruber (2012). Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199927692.
- Garvey, Ellen Gruber (2022). "Millions of Old Newspapers: Back Number Budd". Periodical Studies Today: Multidisciplinary Analyses. BRILL. ISBN 9789004468313.
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Garvey 2012, p. 230.
- ^ Garvey 2022, p. 172.
- ^ a b Garvey 2022, p. 176.
- ^ a b Grey, John S. (1898-06-15). "'Back Number Budd.' An Interview with the Man who Originated and Owns the Only Business of Its Kind in the World -- Supplying 'At a Price' Back Numbers of Any newspaper or Magazine Ever Published". Printers' Ink. Vol. 23, no. 11. p. 35.
- ^ a b c Garvey, Ellen Gruber (2023-08-20). "Overlooked No More: Robert M. Budd, Whose Newsstand Was Like No Other". The New York Times.
- ^ Garvey 2022, p. 174.
- ^ Garvey 2022, p. 178.
- ^ Popp, Richard K. (2011). "Making Advertising Material: Checking Departments, Systematic Reading, and Geographic Order in Nineteenth-Century Advertising". Book History. 14 (1): 60–61. doi:10.1353/bh.2011.0005.
- ^ Popp 2011, p. 61.
- ^ Garvey 2022, p. 175.
- ^ a b c Grey 1898, p. 36.
- ^ a b c Garvey 2022, p. 180.
- ^ "Gazette of the United-States (New York) May 2, 1789". Original or Reprint? A Guide to Noteworthy Newspaper Issues. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2024-11-26.
- ^ Riesman, David (1933). "The Most Interesting Newspaper in the United States: The Ulster County Gazette of January 4, 1800". Annals of Medical History. 5 (2): 197, 201.
Category:Newspaper archives
Category:Businesspeople from New York City
Category:19th-century African-American businesspeople
Category:1852 births
Category:1933 deaths