Art Department

( Originally Published 1913 )

THE great daily newspaper, and many of the smaller ones, maintain what are known as art departments, which furnish them with the illustrations that are not supplied by the syndicate companies.

Connected with this department are one or more photographers, who usually give their entire time to the paper. They work in conjunction with the reporters, and take photographs whenever it seems desirable to do so.

In connection with this department is a photo-engraving plant, which can produce, in less than one hour, a plate from a photograph suitable for newspaper use.

Many of the newspapers illustrate all important events, including banquets, fires, and accidents, and run portraits of important or notorious personages.

The art department carries plates in stock, shelved and indexed like books in a library, to be used when occasion requires.

Many of the illustrations appearing in the newspapers, however, are furnished by the syndicate companies, which distribute either stereotype plates or matrices, but all local illustrations must be obtained by those directly connected with the newspaper's art department.

The manager, of this department, and his assistants, are not necessarily journalists. A few of them are writers. They do the work designated by the editors and reporters.

Besides the syndicate and the newspaper art department, there is, in every large city, a photographer who makes a specialty of carrying photographs, principally of prominent, personages, which he copyrights. These photographs may be obtained at a price, which includes the right to publish them.

Reporters are usually instructed to obtain pbotographs of persons written about, and pictures of the scenes of their stories. If they cannot get them, the photographer is detailed, or he accompanies diem in the first place.

These photographers use instantaneous cameras, and are experts at focusing. If they were not, it would be impossible to obtain even fairly good pictures of men and things, which must be taken by snapshot.

The use of illustrations has become epidemic with more than half of the metropolitan newspapers, and the photographer is a necessary attache. With the aid of quick-acting plates, and the mod-ern efficiency in engraving, pictures of nearly every event may be procured and published within the period of hardly an hour. Illustrations of thousands of burning buildings have appeared in the newspapers while the firemen were endeavoring to extinguish the flames.