James Gordon Bennett (American National Biography)

With $500 in capital, Bennett launched the New York Herald on 6 May 1835. It contained tidbits of local news, summaries of national, state, and foreign news, and a few advertisements. A week later it reappeared on a daily basis, soon adding a new feature--a Wall Street column that explained commercial and financial developments to lay readers. By the late 1830s the Herald and the Sun were the nation's largest circulation dailies. By the 1850s the Herald's average daily circulation was between 50,000 and 70,000, the largest in the nation.