Intro to the Star
This website covers the crime of embezzlement, which is a sub-crime of theft as depicted in the newspaper the Evening Star. Evidence was gathered from the Library of Congress database for American newspapers, Chronicling America, and is held up to other historians' accounts of the crime seen through their research.
The Evening Star, also known as the Star, was an informative newspaper that covered business, politics, and crime nationally, internationally, and in its home district of Washington D.C. throughout its publication run. Stories in this paper were kept as information-based and straightforward as possible, but sometimes bias and ideological rhetoric did slip through the editors’ proofing. This can mostly be seen in cases of racism that were not only directed at African Americans but also at Chinese and Filipino peoples, whether are not they were American citizens. However, major racial themes would not be seen in the paper until America had reached in-depth dealings with Asian countries.
The front pages of the Evening Star followed a simple layout throughout its run. A title with the newspaper’s name and more urgent and pressing news related to the D.C. area printed in columns of seven that mainly focused on politics. From the mid-19th century to 1900, the paper evolved from a short, almost flyer type of publication only providing information on less than six pages at most, to a more traditional newspaper with ten or more pages per issue. In the 1880s, the Evening Star rarely used pictures, if any, and even when the paper switched to a longer length by 1900, images were used mainly to cover politics and business, and seldom depicted crimes. Advertisements were also standard in the Star as sometimes half the issue’s content was advertisements. There were also sections dedicated to local crime in which alleged offenders’ names, their associated crime, status of their trial, and punishment, if any.
The Evening Star was not all that remarkable of a paper. While its reporters were able to get in-depth information, this was not uncommon for any paper at the time, and there was nothing unique about the Star that set it aside from any other publication in the area. Nonetheless, it is a perfect example of how an average newspaper in Washington D.C. covered crime, especially embezzlement.
The Star’s coverage of the crime of embezzlement was frequent. Every day there was a news story or a continuing story about a new embezzlement crime being committed or the trials. These stories were rarely front-page news, though, as, in both 1880 and 1900, embezzlement crimes were relegated to the innermost sections of the paper. These crimes usually centered around two types of embezzlers, low-level or scam salespeople or high-ranking government or private sector offenders. The paper also thought that embezzlement was so typical of a crime that most of the reports were just notes on a person and them being accused and possibly convicted of embezzlement. This form of reporting through notation also shows that the Star also had reporters somewhere in the courts to retrieve this information. The Star was never quick to call out the race or gender of alleged offenders. In addition, they rarely denoted the difference between private and government-based detectives. The Star had good coverage of embezzlement nonetheless.
This website examines 30 reports—half from 1880 and half from 1900.