From Moonday, July, 21, 1969 (Did I work here in a past life?!)

For around 45 years, ATF’s Daily News Gothic delivered the majority of front page headlines for Daily News (officially New York Daily News). Everything from the events of World War II, to the assassination of John Lennon mostly kept consistent with the same type. Tempo Condensed was a steadfast supporting act (usually as oblique). Late 30s/early 40s front pages sometimes used Cheltenham as a secondary. Back covers looked to occasionally have alternate headlines, especially with sports issues.

Daily News Gothic – a metal type credited to ATF director Gerry Powell – effectively replaced the Daily News’s industry-standard wood type sans-serifs used by most newspapers, at that time. ATF were likely referencing wood types in creation of this metal one. Condensed Title Gothic No. 11 and Railroad Gothic (also both metal) definitely hit similar notes.

This Daily Gothic/Tempo combo was used from the Spring of 1939 until the fall of 1985, when a redesign looks to have been put into place. Franklin Gothic Condensed finally unseated Daily News Gothic.

New York Daily News celebrated its 100th anniversary on June 26th, 2019. The paper started out in 1919, with the name Illustrated Daily News. (Only to change to the current a few months later.)

Nick Sherman digitized an ATF trial proof of Daily News Gothic. See samples on his site HEX.

An early use of Daily New Gothic from 1939. A bomb meant to kill Hitler fails.

Daily News Gothic (“ASSASSINATED”) below a condensed woodtype (“KENNEDY”).

On August 1, 1966, former U.S. Marine Charles Whitman opened fire at the University of Texas campus in what was one of the the deadliest mass shootings in US history.

In a speech before the National Press Club on October 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford denies the near-bankrupt New York City a federal bailout.

“Of the two newspapers which published in Dallas in 1963 only the Times Herald reported the assassination on the same day it happened: November 22. The Morning News, being a morning newspaper, reported the assassination in its November 23 issue.” — Timothy Hughes

Two editions of that Nov. 23 Morning News are shown here. Headlines are set in Tempo Heavy Condensed and Bodoni (probably the Ludlow version). The text is most likely set on a Linotype machine using a typeface from the Legibility Group.

A commemorative reprint of the Nov. 23, 1963 Morning News was distributed on Nov. 5, 2013.

A commemorative reprint of the Nov. 23, 1963 Morning News was distributed on Nov. 5, 2013.

I found three different versions of this Dallas Times Herald front page announcing Kennedy’s assassination. The example above has a one-line headline. Then there are those below with two-line headlines, each with different decks: “JFK Ambushed in Dallas” and “Suspect Arrested”. The second is a later edition printed after Lee Harvey Oswald’s name was released. (All are dated “Friday Evening”.)

The type that sets the competing deck lines is Tempo, a Futura competitor produced by the Ludlow company that was a staple of American newspapers from 1930 to the mid-’60s. It included various alternate lettershapes that Futura did not, such as an ‘e’ with a larger eye or the non-splayed ‘M’ that appears under this newspaper’s name.

Due to its size, the big stuff is likely wood type. I can’t identify it, but it’s similar to a typeface that the A.T.A. Type Comparison Book (Merriman, 1965) calls New Gothic Condensed.

Later issues of the paper are also shown below, with headlines in Tempo and Metro No. 2. Only the biggest news was worthy of breaking out the wood type.

The Dallas Times Herald, Nov. 24, 1963

The Dallas Times Herald, Nov. 25, 1963

Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, the German Newspaper Museum shows the exhibition Tatort Dallas in memory of the former President of the United States. — kulturbesitz.de