The answer: The steamboat schedule was the crucial news of the day.
In 1829, the great railroads did not yet exist. Of course there were no cars or interstates. Rivers, lakes and seas were the American highways. And if you lived in Philadelphia, the biggest manufacturing hub in the country, knowing precisely when a steamer was coming or going was key to your ability to send and receive goods and visitors.
Then as now, information was money. And reading The Inquirer was a route to both.
Vol. 1, No. 1, of the Pennsylvania Inquirer appeared on the afternoon of June 1, 1829, the city's seventh daily in a brutally competitive media market where newspapers routinely opened, closed, and merged.
The Inquirer - Philadelphia replaced Pennsylvania in 1859 - was owned by two men, one a printer named John Walker. His partner, John Norvell, had left the city's largest paper, the Aurora & Gazette, over an editorial shift that he believed favored the creation of a class system in the United States.
"There can be no better name than 'The Inquirer,' " Norvell is supposed to have said as the first issue appeared. "In a free state, there should always be an inquirer asking on behalf of the people: Why was this done? Why is that man put forward? Why is that law proposed?"
That first issue numbered an unimpressive four pages. Its front page bore six columns, each filled top to bottom with dense gray type. No headlines. No photographs. And, really, no news.
Newspapers were still mostly political or commercial sheets, established to support a candidate, religion or policy. The Civil War, which would transform papers into true news-gathering organizations, was 30 years away. Besides, in 1829 no reputable editor would do something so undignified as to send reporters around town to gather information.
