Was "Street" more common than the abbreviated "St." in pre-1910 American newspapers?
Upvote:3
Note I'm not intending this to be the answer, but rather a summary of my research that will hopefully help you along.
My line of thinking towards a possible solution went along these lines:
- Trends that have existed in published works;
- Origin of the abbreviation "St.";
- Possible influences on this (though it may be quite difficult to choose a definitive reason).
Trends
I think you're right in that there's been a change. However, I'm not aware of any tools that would allow us to explore this. Regarding the trends, there has been a change where the popularity of "Street" actually increases in the late 19th century but this is not a very good comparison as alternative uses of the abbreviation (for 'Saint' and 'Strait') aren't quantified. Nevertheless, some trends do emerge:
Now, this is not newspapers only (actually be only books though some journals also make it in there, I believe) but the general trends could be similar.
Origin of "St."
I was unable to find a source for the origin of the abbreviation "St." for "Street" but it is likely to be older than that turn of the century (maybe?). I'd recommend a query on English:SE for this; their only question thus far on "St."/"Street" is not very useful for this.
Possible Influences
Editorial Standards
The next thing I thought about were editorial standards. It may have been the case (unproven hypothesis coming up...) that as newspapers have conglomerated, editorial standards of one "main" newspaper have been made to apply in their subsidiary ones as well. (Another unproven hypothesis coming up...) Perhaps some minor Californian newspapers got taken over by a bigger one that enforced its style guide for the use of the abbreviated form?
An academic style guide example from DePaul University mentions "St."/"Street":
addresses
Abbreviate Ave., St. and Blvd., when used with a numbered address: 2400 N. Sheffield Ave. All other designations, such as Drive, Road and Circle, are spelled out. Spell out and capitalize when naming the street with no number: Fullerton Avenue, Jackson Boulevard. Lowercase the words street, avenue, etc., when used alone or with more than one street name: the corner of Fullerton and Sheffield avenues.
The original publishing year for this guide isn't noted, but it is likely to be relatively recent if also not frequently edited. I'm more aware of the British journals' style guide myself.
Postal Standards
However, this led me down a path to why "St."/"Street" would be used in street names at all. Wikipedia lists street suffixes based on a USPS standard, "Publication 28 - Postal Addressing Standards". The present form for this is from May 2015, and this mandates the use of abbreviated street suffixes (211).
A standardized address is one that is fully spelled out, abbreviated by using the Postal Service standard abbreviations (shown in this publication) or as shown in the current Postal Service ZIP+4 file.
This is too late to be relevant to the changes you describe. I didn't find many older references to such a standard, including specific searches for the Post Office Department's address standardizations came up empty. Yet, I would suspect they had something—others may have a better idea of where to look.
That said, general address standards (and address standardization as a process) are relatively recent with Coetzee saying that in the US, this process started in 1996 with the 'United States Thoroughfare, Landmark, and Postal Address Data Standard' by the US Federal Geographic Data Committee. I'm not sure this is right, but I also didn't find an older version of the "Postal Addressing Standards" to disprove this claim.
More post
- 📝 How were political borders marked during the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Who first outlawed h*m*sexuality in the Indian sub-continent?
- 📝 What was the output of a Bessemer Converter?
- 📝 Changing troops in first line during battle?
- 📝 Were some Yugoslav "nationalities" more pro-Axis/Allied than others during World War II
- 📝 What was the ethnic identity of first class sergeant Patrick Joseph Cleary?
- 📝 Are there primary sources about Jinnah's vision for Pakistan?
- 📝 Why didn't the Roman Princeps restructure or dismantle the Praetorian Guard?
- 📝 Did the council of Tours abolish January 1st as the beginning of the year?
- 📝 How much (area) territory did Chinese dynasties control?
- 📝 What were the origins of Etruscan Civilisation?
- 📝 What did the people of the Middle Ages call their period?
- 📝 How likely it is that a nobleman of the eighteenth century would give written instructions to his maids?
- 📝 Which Allied forces held the French-Italian border from Operation Dragoon to the end of WWII in Europe?
- 📝 What is the largest number of battles that took place in the same place in the same war?
- 📝 Imposition of property taxes in California
- 📝 Income versus living expense in USSR during the 1980's and 1990's
- 📝 What size are these mosaics of Justinian and Theodora?
- 📝 Are images of the original tablets for the Epic of Gilgamesh available online?
- 📝 Did Karl Marx Fight in the Second Schleswig War?
- 📝 Compare skeleton crew to normal crew on a galleon
- 📝 What is the most advanced nonliterate society?
- 📝 What was going to be Hitler's next plan after taking Russia?
- 📝 What are the most recommended non-biased books on Egyptian History
- 📝 Where are the relics of Anthony the Great?
- 📝 Is there a historical reason for a pattern of worse technological standards beating out better ones?
- 📝 Information about the Kingdom of Raja Dahir of Sindh?
- 📝 Did English/British merchant sailors receive written testimonials between 1500 and 1750?
- 📝 How did it happen that countries and cities got different names in different languages?
- 📝 Did Continental Army officers wear wigs or keep their hair white like their British Army counterparts?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Was "Street" more common than the abbreviated "St." in pre-1910 American newspapers?
- 📝 Why was sugar cultivation more profitable in the Caribbean/Brazil than West Africa?
- 📝 During feudalism in Europe, was one's allegiance to the lord more or less important than the allegiance to the king?
- 📝 At the Battle of Zama, was the Roman army more "native" than the Carthaginian?
- 📝 Why was ancient Christianity more successful than the Roman pantheon and Judaism in gaining followers?
- 📝 Was the Macedonian phalanx more effective than hoplites?
- 📝 During the 1850’s and 60’s, was the free North (and its cause in the U.S. Civil War) considered more virtuous than the slave-holding South?
- 📝 Why was agriculture more conducive to slavery in U.S. South than the North?
- 📝 Was the 1939 Red Army more disciplined / better behaved than the 1943-1945 Red Army?
- 📝 Did Cato the Elder think destruction of Carthage was more important than anything else for Rome?
- 📝 Was there ever a president of the united states related to more than 1 other president?
- 📝 Why were so many more Jewish men than Jewish women killed during the Holocaust?
- 📝 Why was the Council of Nicea held in Nicea rather than Rome or Constantinople?
- 📝 Why was World War I ended on Nov 11 11:00, rather than immediately upon signing the armistice?
- 📝 When was Silver ever more valuable than Gold?
- 📝 Is it true that there are more slaves in the world now than ever at one point in history?
- 📝 Why was Kaliningrad placed under the Russian SFSR rather than the Lithuanian SSR?
- 📝 Why was the Roman Empire considered an empire rather than a kingdom (again)?
- 📝 How common was smoking in first half of the 20th century?
- 📝 Was Hiroshima targeted because its mountains would "rebound the explosion back into the city for more damage"?
- 📝 Why did baseball become more popular than cricket in the USA?
- 📝 How common was marriage between nobles and peasants in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Why do land mines seem to be a more serious problem in the Balkans than the Alps?
- 📝 Was it common to brush off Hitler's radical remarks as just figures of speech to whip up the supporters among US commentators in the 1930's?
- 📝 Was the act of servicemen exchanging their weapons for enemy weapons common during WWII?
- 📝 Is Caesar's birth year more certain now than it was when disputed by Mommsen?
- 📝 How common was it for people to live 80+ years in the 17th century?
- 📝 Was violent or nonviolent protest more effective in the context of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement?
- 📝 How common was it for un-documented ships to bring settlers to the American colonies 1700-1750
- 📝 Why were the Prague Spring leaders treated more leniently than Nagy and his colleagues?