Financial History Issue 122 (Summer 2017) | Page 26
John J. Kiernan
Business Journalism
Pioneer, 1845–1893
By Rob Wells
John J. Kiernan was a little-known but
key transitional figure in business journal-
ism in the 19th century, a journalist and
business owner who operated at the dawn
of electric news dissemination. Kiernan
and his Wall Street Financial News Bureau
are best known for training three younger
reporters — Charles Dow, Edward Jones
and Edward Bergstresser — right before
they launched the Dow Jones News Ser-
vice and then The Wall Street Journal.
Kiernan, however, deserves more than a
footnote in the Dow Jones company histo-
ries. Several accounts identified Kiernan’s
operation as the leading financial news
agency on Wall Street in the two decades
following the end of the Civil War.
A focus on Kiernan’s business deal-
ings shows the entrepreneurial energy and
evolution of early business journalism, a
dynamic post-Civil War era where signifi-
cant changes in technology, the economy
and markets were creating a new demand
for business news. In this period of disrup-
tive technology — the expansion of the
telegraph — Kiernan adapted by using a
combination of messenger boys and ticker
tape machines to serve Gilded Age clients
such as JP Morgan and Jay Gould. Kiernan
thrived through this blend of physical
news gathering and electric-powered news
distribution to serve stockbrokers and the
market, his core audience. Kiernan’s office
was also a social gathering spot for a grow-
ing corps of financial journalists who were
beginning to form an identity and separate
genre in this era.
Kiernan was a popular Wall Street fig-
ure who transitioned from finance to poli-
tics, a move that led to his downfall as he
lost focus and later control of his news
agency. Kiernan was elected to the New
York State Senate in 1881 and was men-
tioned as a possible mayor of Brooklyn.
Yet during his time in Albany, Kiernan’s
business began to unravel, and he was
surpassed by Dow Jones and the reporters
he once trained.
Business Journalism History
Kiernan’s Wall Street Financial News
Bureau 1 fit comfortably within the notion
that business journalism enjoyed a
24 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Summer 2017 | www.MoAF.org
symbiotic relationship with the markets
and was partly a servant to business. His
news agency began in 1869, about 30 years
into the growth of modern business jour-
nalism, a genre that evolved with the new
industrial society and a related demand
for advertising. Specialized commercial
publications expanded significantly after
the Civil War to meet a demand from
industrial firms and brokers.
Historian Frank Luther Mott described
the late 19th century as the rise of the
independent press, a period when more
than 9,000 periodicals launched. Prior
to Kiernan, significant business journal-
ism included The Economist in 1843 and
William Buck Dana’s Commercial and
Financial Chronicle in 1861, as well as
trade publications such as the American
Railroad Journal, founded in 1826, which
historian Alfred Chandler called “one of
the most influential business journals of
the day.”
John J. Kiernan, a fixture on Wall Street and the
financial news business in the late 19th century.