Ashbel R. Elliott (1850–1937) founded A. R. Elliott Advertising, one of New York’s first ad agencies, in 1890. After visiting the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, he submitted a letter to the Chicago Inter Ocean on July 20, writing:
“I have just returned from four weeks at the World’s Fair. Like everyone else whose eyes have beheld its beauty I am enthusiastic. It is a cause for chagrin to be that I am not able to find in the New York papers anything that does justice to the subject. This feeling of indignation has grown upon me, until to-day I was constrained to write the enclosed letter to the New York Herald.”
The letter, critical of the New York press’ coverage the Exposition, appears not to have been printed by the New York Herald. In his missive, Elliot complains that “it is with a great deal of regret that I note the small amount of space which it devotes to the World’s Fair,” adding:
“The subject is worthy of two columns daily on the best page, and yet I look over the columns of my favorite newspaper in vain for desirable news and notes from a point where the eyes and the attention of the nation should be turned. There are meetings of international congresses being held there daily, and yet not a word of their doings. The best music the world can produce is being discoursed there, but not a mention of it. Free lectures are daily given on the grounds by men eminent in the arts and sciences, but not a word of report. The grandest collection of works of art ever gathered together under one roof is there, but no writings about them in the columns of my morning paper. A long daily programme of each day’s doings is bulletined in advance by the management, but not a line of it in the great New York Herald.”
“New York Will Be at the Fair” announces this cartoon, despite the “Mean and Noisy Obstructions” that include a “Daily Detractor” and “Daily Wail of Distress” from some voices in that city. [Image from Puck, Apr. 5, 1893.]
SOURCE
“A New Yorker’s Advice” Chicago Inter Ocean July 24, 1893, p. 12.