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Horace Greeley’s early life reads like a later edition of Benjamin Franklin’s. This familiar American rags-to-riches story begins with a poor but precociously literate New England childhood, an apprenticeship to a printer, and a nearly penniless move to the city. Temptation is avoided, thriftiness exercised, a newspaper published, and finally fame, fortune, and political influence are attained. The story of Franklin’s life gained iconic status with the posthumous American publication of his autobiography, but under the pen name of “Poor Richard” he had long been cultivating an image with proverbs of ingenuity, thrift, and common sense life in his newspapers, pamphlets and eponymous almanac. Taking advantage of the new steam press, railroad and telegraph, Horace Greeley likewise used media technology to project his larger-than-life Yankee character to a national audience. Shortly after the Civil War, Horatio Alger’s mass-produced dime novels like Ragged Dick (1868) codified the up-by-his-bootstraps character into a representative American. Like the better-known Franklin’s, Greeley’s actual life doesn’t suffer much in comparison to the myth. By age 30, this gangly farm boy was publisher of the New York Tribune, the first truly national newspaper, reaching nearly a million readers throughout the United States and its territories. Recalling his Wisconsin boyhood, Civil War veteran James Burton Pond wrote that “the Bible and the New York ‘Try-bune’ were almost synonymous in our family, and about the only library we had.” Detailed news features, transcripts of congressional bills and political speeches, financial reports, dispatches from Europe and Asia – the Tribune was a cheap and reliable predecessor to the Internet. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that it was educating the West at two dollars per person per year. Greeley considered information indispensable to democracy. His ideal reader was thoughtful, public-spirited, and morally upright. His editorials lectured them on political and social issues of the day, and especially on utopian reform movements like temperance, public education, agrarian collectivism, women’s rights, and the cause célèbre, abolition of slavery. But just as Franklin’s artful persona masked a smart politician, Greeley’s idealism went hand-in-hand, sometimes unpredictably, with his prejudice toward capitalism. With the support of Whig power brokers, he marketed their party of industry and finance to the working class. His famous cry of “Go west, young man!” sends the ragged boy westward to meet his Manifest Destiny, equally likely to become a factory owner as a farmer. Like Franklin, Greeley promoted socialist public projects – the Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad, and land-grant colleges – at the same time as conservative causes like protective tariffs, tough bankruptcy laws, and a national bank. Greeley’s New YorkTribune supported Whigs and Republicans and vilified Democrats, but he was no party hack. Tribune editorials took all politicians to task, and relentlessly needled Lincoln during the war. An American, Greeley believed, should be neither neutral nor slavishly partisan, neither radical nor conservative, but able to freely speak his mind and adopt the most reasonable course of action. Alger’s stories never tell the hero’s whole life, and Greeley’s was, in the end, bitterly disappointing. He lost control of his paper, was publicly reviled as a traitor and lunatic, and died after a hopeless campaign for president. However, his funeral was better-attended than Lincoln’s. Processions of government officials, businessmen, and working people filled the streets of New York, a living tribute to his influence. Over a century later, Greeley’s legacy survives in our expectation that the free press, amplifying the voice of the ideal American, is independent, informed, and principled. Perhaps we also owe him that optimistic and crusading streak in our national character: our continued conviction, for better or worse, that in making a better life for ourselves, we can make the world a better place.
DAVID FENIMORE David Fenimore is Director of Undergraduate Studies in English at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he has taught since 1989. In addition to Horace Greeley, he has portrayed western writer Zane Grey, California settler John Sutter, Donner Party survivor Lewis Keseberg, and folk musician Woody Guthrie. He recently returned from a semester teaching at the University of the Basque Country in San Sebastián, Spain, and is glad to be back home on the Truckee River in California, where in his spare time he plays the piano about as well as Woody Guthrie played the guitar. SIGNIFICANT POINTS ABOUT HORACE GREELEY
HORACE GREELEY QUOTES
RECOMMENDED READING Greeley, Horace. An Overland Journey: From New York to San Francisco in the Summer of 1859. Charles T. Duncan, ed. New York: Knopf, 1963. [1859] New YorkTribune. 1841-72. (Available on microfilm in major reference libraries.) Van Duesen, Glyndon. Horace Greeley: Nineteenth-Century Crusader. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953. Williams, Robert C. Horace Greeley: Champion of American Freedom. New York: NYU Press, 2006. HORACE GREELEY TIMELINE 1811: Born February 3 in Amherst NH 1826: Apprenticed to East Poultney VT printer 1831: Arrives in New York City with $10 in pocket; works as odd-job typesetter and printer 1834: Launches the New-Yorker, a weekly literary and political digest. Favorably reviews Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America; pans James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pathfinder 1836: Marries Mary Cheney, whom he met at Dr. Sylvester Graham’s vegetarian boarding house 1841: Starts the New York Tribune and a few months later the national Weekly Tribune 1844: Transcendentalist writer Margaret Fuller hired as literary critic 1846: Opposes war with Mexico; labeled “traitor” by rival editors 1848: Serves 90-day term as replacement US congressman. Introduces reform measures, censured by House, gleefully reports proceedings in Tribune 1851: Publishes first Tribune dispatches from Karl Marx in London 1854: Takes lead role in formation of Republican Party from Abolitionists, anti-slavery Whigs, and other splinter groups 1859: Travels overland to California in support of Land Reform and transcontinental railroad, publishes regular reports in Tribune 1860: As delegate to Republican National Convention in Chicago, helps engineer Lincoln’s nomination after the candidate he favors loses support 1861: Abandons pacifism, urges military action against South 1862: Publishes open letter to Lincoln, “Prayer of Twenty Millions,” urging Emancipation Proclamation; Lincoln replies in his own letter 1867: With Cornelius Vanderbilt and others, puts up bail for defeated Confederate president Jefferson Davis; vilified by rival press 1872: Nominated for U.S. president by Liberal Republican and Democratic parties; within one month, his wife is dead and he loses election to Grant; dies November 29 |
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