Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I've found a complete microfiche set of The

National Police Gazette at the University

of Rhode Island.  I'll see if I can get

in to see it.

 

Here's another description of The National

Police Gazette:

 

Strong holdings of The National Police Gazette (New York: 1845-1932, 1933- ). In its heyday under publisher/editor Richard Kyle Fox in the last quarter of the nineteenth century , the Gazette was America's leading illustrated journal of the lurid and sensational, focusing on crime, sex, the theater - and sports, especially boxing. Fox came to realize the potential of boxing for increasing circulation through his coverage of the Paddy Ryan-Joe Goss fight of 30 May 1880. He soon became the ring's foremost promoter, defining weight classifications, offering championship belts, and contributing greatly to boxing's new legitimacy. The Gazette is of decreasing interest after 1900, as sales declined and its journalistic techniques and subject matter were selectively appropriated by the New York dailies.

 

If you look for National Police Gazette

"hits" on Google, you end up mostly with

boxing history sites, and sites interested

in the history of pornography!  The Gazette

is evidently the kind of journal that promoted

stories such as "The Girl in the Red Velvet

Swing."

 

There's also a digitized version available

online, but it looks like a for-pay only

service.

 

So, I think we have a pretty good idea why

horse people in the first part of the 20th

century seemed to know about Frank Hopkins

as a matter of course.  He was a tabloid

hero.  I'd also suspect that that's where

Disney turned him up, too.  I've also found

a professor at the University of Texas who

seems to specialize in the history of the

legendizing through film and literature of

real-life characters in the old west.

 

Linda B. Merims

lbm@xxxxxxxxx

Massachusetts, USA