About The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908
Newark, N.J. (1907-1908)

The Evening star and Newark advertiser

The Evening Star and Newark Advertiser, and its companion paper the Morning Star and Newark Advertiser, superseded the Newark Advertiser, one of the final iterations of the long-running Newark Daily Advertiser.

The Newark Daily Advertiser began in 1832 as the first New Jersey daily newspaper. Its companion weekly paper, the Sentinel of Freedom was Newark's oldest newspaper, first published in 1796. First a supporter of the Whig party, the Newark Daily Advertiser later supported the Republican Party and was a strong advocate for Republican causes. In 1870, it claimed a circulation of 7,000 (the largest of any newspaper in Newark). However, as more immigrants settled in Newark and the Democratic Party became more prominent, the circulation of both the weekly and daily paper began to decline. In 1906, the Newark Daily Advertiser folded after years of declining readership, having frequently changed hands in its final few years.

The Newark Daily Advertiser Publishing Company debuted a new paper in 1907 with James Martin as the president and general manager. Under Martin's leadership, the paper appeared in the morning and the evening (the Newark Daily Advertiser had been only an evening paper) and changed its name to the Evening Star and Newark Advertiser (along with the Morning Star and Newark Advertiser); the price was reduced to one cent. Unlike the Newark Daily Advertiser, which had been Independent Republican, the new paper was independent and non-partisan in political outlook, part of a larger trend within the American newspaper industry as newspapers increasingly sought advertising market share. There was an emphasis on local Newark and wider Essex county events and politics.

Martin was a native of Scotland who immigrated to America in 1884, and his career revolved around newspapers and publishing. He was for many years the legislative correspondent at Trenton for the Newark press and then became the New Jersey editor at the New York World. From 1895 until 1906 he was editor of the New-York Tribune. He remained with the Evening Star and Newark Advertiser until ill health forced him into retirement in December 1907. Martin once unsuccessfully ran for Congress on an independent ticket and was appointed to the New Jersey State Board of Arbitration where he served for several years before he resigned saying that they were "useless." He died of Bright's disease in 1910.

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