On September 3, 1833, the first issue of the New York Sun appeared in Manhattan, helping to transform American urban journalism. Founded by 23-year-old printer Benjamin H. Day, the four-page morning paper sold for an unusually cheap one cent per copy. It was not New York City’s first newspaper, but it became the United States’ first successful penny daily, reaching readers largely ignored by the more expensive papers of the era.
Before the penny press, many newspapers cost five or six cents and depended heavily on subscriptions, placing them beyond the easy reach of many working people. Day pursued a different model: low prices, high circulation, advertising revenue, and accessible stories about local events, crime, police courts, deaths, scandals, and everyday life. He also made street distribution central to the business, using newsboys to sell individual copies directly to passersby. The formula proved powerful; by 1834, The Sun had the largest circulation in the United States.
The paper’s most notorious early episode came in 1835 with the “Great Moon Hoax,” a six-part series that claimed British astronomer Sir John Herschel had observed life on the moon through an extraordinary telescope. The articles described bizarre lunar landscapes and creatures, including beaver-like animals, horned goats, and winged humanoids. The stories were fabricated, but they drew widespread attention and became one of the most famous newspaper hoaxes of the nineteenth century.
The hoax did not single-handedly invent tabloid journalism, nor is it clear that it caused the dramatic, permanent circulation boom often claimed in later retellings. But The Sun’s success demonstrated the commercial force of inexpensive newspapers, street sales, vivid storytelling, and news designed for a mass audience—ingredients that would shape popular journalism for generations.
Image: Benjamin H. Day via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
