October 2, 1729 – Benjamin Franklin and his partner Hugh Meredith Purchased the Pennsylvania Gazette

On this day in history, Franklin and Meredith purchased the “The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences: and Pennsylvania Gazette” from Samuel Keimer, who was in debt and needed the money.

The two men shortened the title to The Pennsylvania Gazette. According to the Benjamin Franklin Historical Society, The Gazette was the second newspaper published in Philadelphia; the first was American Weekly Mercury published by Andrew Bradford in 1723. Only three copies of the original issue are known to exist. Under Franklin, the Gazette became the most successful newspaper in the colonies.

The Pennsylvania Gazette was published twice a week and contained news and reports on public events. The paper also letters from readers and essays, many of the latter being written by Franklin under a variety of pseudonyms.

Franklin also used the Gazette to advertise his experiments with electricity. On October 19,1752 he published his electric kite experiment by which he proved that lightning and electricity are the same. He described how he constructed a kite with a conductor to draw electricity from a storm cloud and stored it in a Layden Jar.

Starting in 1754, Franklin began to use the Gazette to stress his political views. On May 19, 1754 during the French Indian War, he published the first known American political cartoon known as Join, or Die as part of an editorial titled “The Disunited State.” In the editorial he tried to emphasized the need of the colonies to join forces with Great Britain to defeat the French and Indians.

The Gazette saw a boost in its circulation in 1737 when Franklin was appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia. As Postmaster he was able to include The Pennsylvania Gazette for delivery with delivered with regular mail, thus gaining a wider audience as well as increasing demand for paid advertising space. By the mid-1730s, the Pennsylvania Gazette became the most popular newspaper in the colony.

In 1748 Franklin retired from business and left management of the paper to his partner David Hall. The Pennsylvania Gazette ceased publication in 1800, ten years after Franklin’s death.