Horace Greeley & Popular Press
Meghan Mitchell
Biographical Information
Date of Birth: February 3, 1811
Birthplace: New Hampshire
Place of Death: Choate House's sanitarium in what is now Pleasantville, New York
Date of Death: November 29, 1872
Family:
- Born to a poor family
- Attended local schools; very bright student
- Father could not pay his taxes, forcing him to flee; bringing along the rest of his family
- For the first 20 minutes of life, he could not breath; causing him to develop Asperger's Syndrome
- He ran away from home to become a printer's apprentice, but was told he was too young.
- At the age of fifteen, he became a printer's apprentice to Amos Bliss- editor of the Northern Spectator
Horace Greeley
- Editor of the New York Tribune
- Argues against popular sovereignty and in favor of violent resistance to slave catchers
- Publications involving himself in the Whig party led to a successful campaign for William Henry Harrison in 1840.
- He was the Liberal Republican Party's candidate for the 1872 presidential election- lost in a landslide; devastated at the defeat, he died three weeks later
Horace Greeley Statue in New York
- Location of Statue: City Hall Park, NY
- One of many dedications made
- Towns all over the US named after Greeley plus a high school named after him
New York Tribune
- Traveled across the continent to write for the Tribune; to publicize the need for the transcontinental railroad, and to give speeches to promote the Republican Party
- One of the first newspaper editors to have a full-time correspondent in Washington
- 1841, offered editorship of the national Whig newspaper, he demanded full control but was not given it because the demand was declined