The Daily Exchange Archive

Charles G. Kerr and Thomas W. Hall, Jr., owners and editors, launched the Baltimore Daily Exchange on February 22, 1858. It was a four-page paper printed every morning except Sundays. In 1859 Henry M. Fitzhugh, William H. Carpenter, and Frank Key Howard bought into the paper as well. The Exchange published news items, financial reports and editorials, political intelligence and editorials that claimed to preserve a position of honest and fearless independence, reviews of literature and art, and advertisements. Howard became the head of the editorial staff with frequent contributions from Severn Teackle Wallis.

The Daily Exchange scorned the Know-Nothing Party and became the voice of the Reform movement in Baltimore. Because the paper was not shy to call out businesses or public figures it viewed as corrupt, its editors were often followed and harassed. On August 12, 1858, gang of notorious roughs and outlaws invaded the newspaper office, destroying property and threatening employees. These intimidation tactics only served to increase the popularity of the paper. As a result a tri-weekly edition began publication in 1858, and a weekly edition, the Dollar Weekly Exchange, was issued in 1860.

In 1860, the scope of the newspaper shifted to national politics, causing disagreement among the paper's owners. Kerr, Hall, and Fitzhugh sold their shares to William Wilkins Glenn, who maintained proprietorship along with Carpenter and Howard. The Exchange backed Democrat John C. Breckenridge in the 1860 presidential election and staunchly supported states rights, though not secession. Its opposition to the Lincoln administration led to the suppression of the paper during the Civil War. On September 10, 1861, the federal government banned the Exchange from the mail and soon thereafter arrested Howard and Glenn. Howard subsequently published an account of his imprisonment, Fourteen Months in American Bastiles. Being the only free editor of the Exchange, Carpenter wrote a scathing editorial in the September 14 issue, resulting in the federal government permanently suppressing the paper.

Days later, the first issue of the Maryland Times was published in Baltimore. It was suspiciously similar in appearance to the Exchange and owned by former Exchange employees Edward F. Carter and William H. Neilson. It reemerged after only four issues on September 24, 1861, as the Maryland News Sheet. Like the Exchange, federal authorities banned it from the mail, but it remained popular until suppressed on August 14, 1862. After a gap in publication, Carter and Neilson established the Baltimore Daily Gazette on October 7, 1862.

Following the war, Glenn, Howard, and Carpenter resumed ownership of the paper which he renamed the Baltimore Gazette. All three retired by 1872. Over the next several decades, the paper was bought and sold numerous times, published as the Gazette in 1876-81; the Baltimore Gazette in 1881-82; and the Day in 1882-85. The Day was discontinued in 1885, when its editor William T. Croasdale moved to New York City to briefly edit the Star and then Henry George's labor paper the Standard.