Item: i80284

Authentic Medal of:

United States of America
New York Times – Ralph Spritzer Constitutional Oratory Medal
1931 Medal 52 x 44mm (31.93 grams)
 “TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION… AND SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY”, Liberty seated with sheathed spear, map of United states behind.
NATIONAL ORATORICAL CONTEST ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AWARDED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES TO RALPH SPRITZER 1931, Plaque surrounded with decorations, two wreathed portraits above.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

The New York Times (sometimes abbreviated as the NYT and NYTimes) is an American newspaper based in New York City with worldwide influence and readership. Founded in 1851, the paper has won 127 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. The Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S.

The paper is owned by The New York Times Company, which is publicly traded and is controlled by the Sulzberger family through a dual-class share structure. It has been owned by the family since 1896; A.G. Sulzberger, the paper’s publisher, and his father, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., the company’s chairman, are the fourth and fifth generation of the family to head the paper.

Nicknamed “The Gray Lady,” the Times has long been regarded within the industry as a national “newspaper of record.” The paper’s motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print”, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page.

Since the mid-1970s, The New York Times has greatly expanded its layout and organization, adding special weekly sections on various topics supplementing the regular news, editorials, sports, and features. Since 2008, the Times has been organized into the following sections: News, Editorials/Opinions-Columns/Op-Ed, New York (metropolitan), Business, Sports of The Times, Arts, Science, Styles, Home, Travel, and other features. On Sunday, the Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review (formerly the Week in Review), The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T: The New York Times Style Magazine. The Times stayed with the broadsheet full-page set-up and an eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six, and was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography, especially on the front page.

Ochs era

After George Jones died in 1891, Charles Ransom Miller and other New York Times editors raised $1 million dollars to buy the Times, printing it under the New York Times Publishing Company. However, the newspaper found itself in a financial crisis by the Panic of 1893, and by 1896, the newspaper had a circulation of less than 9,000, and was losing $1,000 a day. That year, Adolph Ochs, the publisher of the Chattanooga Times, gained a controlling interest in the company for $75,000.

Shortly after assuming control of the paper, Ochs coined the paper’s slogan, “All The News That’s Fit To Print”. The slogan has appeared in the paper since September 1896, and has been printed in a box in the upper left hand corner of the front page since early 1897.^[36] The slogan was a jab at competing papers, such as Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal, which were known for a lurid, sensationalist and often inaccurate reporting of facts and opinions, described by the end of the century as “yellow journalism”.^[42] Under Ochs’ guidance, aided by Carr Van Anda, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, and reputation; Sunday circulation went from under 9,000 in 1896 to 780,000 in 1934.^[40] In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, The New York Times, along with The Times, received the first on-the-spot wireless telegraph transmission from a naval battle: a report of the destruction of the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet, at the Battle of Port Arthur, from the press-boat Haimun.^[43] In 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began.^[36] In 1919, The New York Times‘ first trans-Atlantic delivery to London occurred by dirigible balloon. In 1920, during the 1920 Republican National Convention, a “4 A.M. Airplane Edition” was sent to Chicago by plane, so it could be in the hands of convention delegates by evening.

Ochs died in 1935, and was succeeded as publisher by his son-in-law, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. Under his leadership, and that of his son-in-law (and successor), Orvil Dryfoos, the paper extended its breadth and reach, beginning in the 1940s. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the fashion section first appeared in 1946. The New York Times began an international edition in 1946. (The international edition stopped publishing in 1967, when The New York Times joined the owners of the New York Herald Tribune and The Washington Post to publish the International Herald Tribune in Paris.)

Dryfoos died in 1963, and was succeeded as publisher by his brother-in-law, Arthur Ochs “Punch” Sulzberger, who led the Times until 1992, and continued the expansion of the paper.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km²), the United States is the world’s third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe’s 3.9 million square miles (10.1 million km²). With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York. Forty-eight states and the capital’s federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries.

Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century. The United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, and the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776. The war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. The United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, and gradually admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848.

During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery. By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, and its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the country’s status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 Moon landing. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world’s sole superpower.

The United States is the world’s oldest surviving federation. It is a federal republic and a representative democracy, “in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law”. The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States (OAS), and other international organizations. The United States is a highly developed country, with the world’s largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for approximately a quarter of global GDP. The U.S. economy is largely post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world’s largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U.S. holds 33% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. It also suffers from growing levels of income inequality and wealth inequality.

The United States ranks among the highest nations in several measures of socioeconomic performance, including human development, per capita GDP, and productivity per person. The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, and is a leading political, cultural, and scientific force internationally.