Moses Yale Beach was an American inventor, entrepreneur, philanthropist and publisher, who founded the Associated Press, and is credited with originating print syndication. His fortune, as of 1846, amounted to $300,000, which was about 1/4 of the fortune of Cornelius Vanderbilt at the time, and was featured in a book that he published named the Wealthy citizens of the City of New York.

The Sun was a New York newspaper published from 1833 until 1950. It was considered a serious paper, like the city's two more successful broadsheets, The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. The Sun was the first successful penny daily newspaper in the United States, and was for a time, the most successful newspaper in America.