ABSTRACT
The most famous slogan in American journalism made its debut in October 1896, in a row of red lights arrayed across a huge advertising sign at Manhattan’s Madison Square. The slogan was part of a marketing campaign of the beleaguered New York Times which, two months before, had been acquired for a pittance in bankruptcy court. For the owner, a newcomer from Tennessee named Adolph S. Ochs, securing space on the electric sign at Madison Square was nothing less than a coup. The bright, multi-colored lights could be seen for many blocks away. Nowhere in the country, or in Europe, the Times immodestly crowed, was there “so large and perfect a display.” 1
