Newspaper Articles

July 7, 1907 - Freie Zeitung May Move from Its Old Home

From "Essex County, NJ, Illustrated 1897":

This, the leading German newspaper in New Jersey, was established in the year 1858 by Benedict Prieth. The paper had existed for some years previous to this time, under the name New Jersey Zeitung and was owned and edited by Major Annecke, who died in the early 1880's. When Benedict Prieth purchased the property of the New Jersey Zeitung, the entire plant consisted of a few fonts of type, and an old fashioned hand press, capable of printing a few hundred sheets per hour. The circulation of the New Jersey Zeitung in those days was about 400 and there was not as much reading matter in its columns as there is on one of the eight pages of the New Jersey Freie Zeitung of today.

The first large increase in circulation was experienced during the Civil War, when the loyal German citizens of Newark were anxious to hear the latest news from the scene of the war. From that time on the paper has steadily grown, owing to the large emigration from Germany to this country. At the present day the New Jersey Freie Zeitung, with its own handsome building at 75 Market Street, and its splendidly equipped plant, produces a paper which from a literary and typographical point of view cannot be excelled by any German paper in America. The Daily and Sunday Freie Zeitung circulates chiefly in Newark and Essex County, while the remainder of the German population of New Jersey is reached by the weekly edition.

In politics the paper has always been independent, with a leaning towards Republican ideas and principles, and its great influence among the Germans of Newark is demonstrated by the fact that the Republican candidates in the city, county, or state, have invariably been defeated whenever the Freie Zeitung has found it necessary to oppose either the candidates themselves, or the platform on which they stood. Its fairness and straightforwardness in dealing with all the leading questions of the day have won it the esteem and confidence of the Germans of Newark.

On the first floor of the New Jersey Freie Zeitung's large building, the business department and the managers' private offices are located. The Hoe perfecting presses and the stereotyping department are in the cellar. In the front of the second floor the editorial staff and in the rear the reportorial staff have their quarters. The composing room is on the top floor, and there are to be found five of the wonderful typesetting devices called Mergenthaler Linotype Machines.

The New Jersey Freie Zeitung, in its various departments, employs a force of over fifty men. It is the proud boast of the New Jersey Freie Zeitung that the four papers which they publish, the New Jersey Freie Zeitung (daily), Der Erzaehler (Sunday), the weekly and special edition for Hudson County, absolutely cover the German population of New Jersey, and that this belief is shared by the advertising public, is demonstrated by the fact that many of the largest business houses in the State advertise in the New Jersey Freie Zeitung's publications alone, to the exclusion of all the other German papers in the state, knowing that thereby they reach the entire German speaking population of New Jersey.