Arunah Shepherdson Abell

Arunah Shepherdson Abell (August 10, 1806 – April 19, 1888) was an American publisher from New England who was active in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Born in East Providence, Rhode Island, Abell learned the newspaper business as an apprentice at the Providence Patriot. After stints with newspapers in Boston and New York City, he co-founded the Public Ledger in Philadelphia and later independently founded The Sun of Baltimore, Maryland; both were penny papers to appeal to the working class. Abell and his descendants continued ownership of The Sun as a family business until 1910.

Abell is noted as an innovative publisher in the newspaper business, making use of new systems and technology: pony express delivery of news from New Orleans, using the telegraph to transmit news from the first Mexican–American War and a President's speech to the Congress in Washington, D.C., and using the new rotary/cylinder printing press invented by Richard March Hoe.

Biography Abell was born in East Providence, Rhode Island, on August 10, 1806, to quartermaster Caleb Abell and Elona Shepherdson, who came from generations of English ancestry; his father's family were originally from Stapenhill, Derbyshire (now part of Staffordshire). After leaving school at the age of 14, he worked as a clerk in a retail business specializing in West Indian wares, before he became an apprentice at the Providence Patriot newspaper in 1822. He served as a journeyman printer in Boston and New York City.

In New York, he met two other young newspapermen, Azariah H. Simmons and William Moseley Swain, and they became friends. Together, they decided to go into business and found a "penny paper". For example, Abell's newspaper in Baltimore was strongly associated with the Democratic Party; Abell was offered a political appointment as a result of his work on it. While it was an independent newspaper, The Sun editorially leaned toward the ideals of Jacksonian democracy as championed by sixth President Andrew Jackson. Soon each issue used the phrase "Light for All" as its motto, with a distinctive "vignette" (illustrated logo) on its masthead, which is still in use. Despite its origins as a penny paper, by the late 19th century the Sun had won a position as the newspaper of choice of Baltimore's upper class. By 1864, Abell was sole proprietor of The Sun and had sold his share in the Public Ledger to partner Swain. During World War II, one of the famed "Liberty" cargo ships was named the S.S. Arunah S. Abell in his honor; it was built in South Baltimore's Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard near the Brooklyn-Curtis Bay neighborhoods. The Abell Foundation was established in the 1950s by Harry C. Black and his older brother Van Lear Black, (1875–1930) in the publisher's honor; it has assisted programs throughout the Baltimore and Maryland areas.