The Washington Star

The Washington Star, previously known as the Washington Star-News and the Washington Evening Star, was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C., between 1852 and 1981. The Sunday edition was known as the Sunday Star. The paper was renamed several times before becoming Washington Star by the late 1970s.

For most of the time it was publishing, The Washington Star was the city's newspaper of record. It provided a longtime home to columnist Mary McGrory (1918-2004) and to cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman (1869-1949). On August 7, 1981, after 128 years, The Washington Star ceased publication and filed for bankruptcy. In the bankruptcy sale, The Washington Post purchased the land and buildings owned by The Washington Star, including its printing-presses.

The Washington Star was founded on December 16, 1852, by Captain Joseph Borrows Tate. It was originally headquartered on "Newspaper Row" on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. Tate initially named the paper The Daily Evening Star.

In 1853, Texas surveyor and newspaper entrepreneur William Douglas Wallach purchased the paper, and in 1854 shortened the name to The Evening Star and introduced The Sunday Star edition. As the sole owner of the paper for 14 years, Wallach built up the paper by capitalizing on reporting of the American Civil War, among other things. In 1867, a three-man consortium of Crosby Stuart Noyes, Samuel H. Kauffmann and George W. Adams acquired the paper, with each of the investors putting up $33,333.33. The Noyes-Kauffmann-Adams interests would own the paper for the next four generations.

In 1907, subsequent Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman joined the Star. Berryman was most famous for his 1902 cartoon of President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, "Drawing the Line in Mississippi," which spurred the creation of the teddy bear. During his career, Berryman drew thousands of cartoons commenting on American Presidents and politics. Presidential figures included former Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman. The cartoons satirized both Democrats and Republicans and covered topics such as drought, farm relief, and food prices; representation of the District of Columbia in Congress; labor strikes and legislation; campaigning and elections; political patronage; European coronations; the America's Cup; and the atomic bomb. Berryman's career continued at the Star until he collapsed on the lobby floor one morning in 1949 and died shortly after of a heart ailment.

The next major change to the newspaper came in 1938, when the three owning families diversified their interests. On May 1, the Star purchased the M. A. Leese Radio Corporation and acquired Washington's oldest radio station, WMAL, in the process. Renamed the Evening Star Broadcasting Company, the 1938 acquisition would figure later in the 1981 demise of the newspaper.

The Star's influence and circulation peaked in the 1950s; it constructed a new printing plant in Southeast Washington capable of printing millions of copies, but found itself unable to cope with changing times. Nearly all top editorial and business staff jobs were held by members of the owning families, including a Kauffmann general manager who had gained a reputation for anti-Semitism, driving away advertisers. Suburbanization and competition with television news were other factors for declining circulation and staffing; Carl Bernstein reflected in his 2021 memoir that the Star "couldn't get the paper out to the newer postwar suburbs until late in the afternoon" because "delivery trucks got tied up in rush hour traffic."

Meanwhile, The Washington Post acquired and merged with its morning rival, the Washington Times-Herald, in 1954 and steadily drew readers and advertisers away from the falling Star. By the 1960s, the Post was Washington's leading newspaper.