Poulson’s Daily Advertiser

PHILADELPHIA NEWSPAPER HISTORY

The history of Philadelphia newspaper publications is a lengthy and complicated one filled with bankruptcies, mergers and political maneuverings, and is generally far too involved for investigation on this page. However, if you are curious you might be interested to read Chapter XLVIII, “The Press of Philadelphia” from Volume 3 of J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott’s brilliant work, The History of Philadelphia 1609-1884.

All three volumes of the History of Philadelphia 1609-1884 have been digitized and are available on Google Books. To view Volume 3, Chapter XLVIII, “The Press of Philadelphia,” (pp. 1958-2062) see the following link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=w0sOAAAAIAAJ

CREATOR OF COLLECTION

The original newspaper transcription work included in this Poulson’s Daily Advertiser collection appears to have been accomplished between 1899 and 1907. The early volumes contain the notation of “K.R.B.” on the title page which led the GSP staff on a hunt to learn the identity of this person.

After searching through early issues of the Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, and also looking through the GSP Minute Books of the time period, we believe we have discovered the initials “K.R.B.” represent a dedicated clerk who was the sole paid staff member of the GSP for many years: Kezia Reeves Bunting.

Miss Bunting “was given space in the old Historical Society building where aided by a certain amount of volunteer labor she began assembling the corpus of manuscript copies destined, bound in book form, to fill eventually such imposing tiers of shelving.” (PGM, Vol. XX, page 24.)

For many years Miss Bunting was described in the yearly GSP minutes as “…Miss Bunting, our efficient clerk and transcriber…” and there was no doubt she was prolific. Kezia R. Bunting resigned her position as GSP clerk and transcriber in December, 1913. In an era long before computers and digitized newspapers online, Philadelphia focused genealogists regularly relied on Miss Buntings’ work to further their research. Indeed, Miss Bunting left us an enduring legacy.

ORGANIZATION OF COLLECTION

7 Volumes total:

Volume 1 – 1791 – 1799

Volume 2 – 1800 – 1810

Volume 3 – 1811 – 1825

Volume 4 – 1826 – 1830

Volume 5 – 1831 – 1833

Volume 6 – 1834 – 1837

Volume 7 – 1838 – 1839

(GSP thanks volunteer Mary Phalan for collecting the images on this page from microfilms held by the Free Library of Philadelphia.)