ABSTRACT

The List System—the idea of contracting for a column of space to be sold out by the inch, or by the line, at a fixed price, based upon the alliterative proposal that had taken so well at first—an inch of space inserted a month in one hundred papers for $100—had begun in New England and been extended to New York State. Then there was what was called a Western State combination covering Ohio, Indiana and Illinois; a Middle State List, having papers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland; a Northwestern combination, taking in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota. Iowa, Missouri and Kansas; a Southern List, taking in all the States south of Mason and Dixon’s Line; and, finally, there was a Pacific Coast List, started and conducted in our name, but managed in San Francisco by Mr. J. F. Place, a New Hampshire newspaper man who had noted the progress of the work in New England and thought there, might be millions in it. The man in charge of the List System after the removal to New York was my old schoolmate and friend from childhood days, Nelson Chesman, well known of later years, and at the present time, as conducting a successful advertising agency of his own.