Theft in the Evening Star, 1900 & 1920

This exhibit will examine the occurrence of theft in the Evening Star of Washington, District of Columbia.

The Evening Star was founded in December 1852, originally under the name Daily Evening Star located in Washington D.C. with the publisher being W.D. Wallach & Hope. Their papers vary from having 16 pages during the 1900s, to 32 pages in 1920s. To have a clearer picture of what dates I am referring to, let’s look into January 1 in the year 1900, and into June 3 in the year 1920.

            The number of columns remained unchanged in both time periods of 1900s and 1920s; the only noticeable difference is the appearance and presentation. The papers on January 1, 1900, of that year were more focused on covering as many stories as they could rather than focusing on ads and illustrations. Moreover, their news mostly covered local topics, events, and crimes that happened in D.C. with a few out-of-state articles from states near their area such as Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania being the most common. For June 3, 1920, of that year, however, almost every page in the Evening Star has at least 1 advertisement accompanying with illustration that correlates to the stories or the advertisement. The cover page being the most eye-catching compared to the 1900s with their illustration and their bold, scandalous wording in their headlines. In this era of 1920s, the papers now expanded their horizon to cover more out-of-state news compared to 1900s, discuss national policies and events, and a few exceptional news from Europe countries that are sensational ranging from important figureheads to bizarre occurrences of crime.

Relating to crimes of theft, there were quite a few being reported back between 1900 and 1920. The length of stories, of course, varies from the smallest being on Jan. 17, 1900, of a simple report of a chained watch being stolen bearing 31 words (Watch and Chain Stolen, 1900), to a hefty article of how a person lost almost all of their car equipment when the victim was in a theater with a whopping amount of 708 words in a single article (Thieves Strip Automoblies While Owner is in Theater, 1920).