"An extensively read News paper"

In the 1840s and 1850s, thanks to steam-powered and rotary presses, newspaper dimensions were often enormous. The size of the printing presses, their ability to print evenly over a large surface area, and the speed with which they could print thousands of sheets meant that a four-page newspaper—one large sheet, printed on both sides, and folded once—could carry much more news. In the 1850s, with the development of folding and trimming machinery, a single large sheet could be folded twice and formed into an eight-page paper with smaller pages. This comic drawing by the famous cartoonist and satirist David Claypoole Johnston (1798-1865), which depicts several men sitting around an enormous newspaper all trying to read it at the same time, lampoons both the growing size of newspapers and the eagerness with which they were consumed.