Journalism

This Nashville newspaper traces its origins to the Nashville Whig, begun by Joseph and Moses Norvell in 1812, when the city had a population of twelve hundred. The Whig survived more than a dozen mergers and consolidations to eventually become…

Chartered in 1896 by Richard H. Boyd and a group of black businessmen and fully operational by 1898, the National Baptist Publishing Board grew in the twentieth century to be the largest black publishing enterprise in the United States. Located…

Successful and controversial antebellum Democratic politician A. O. P. Nicholson was born in the Carter Creek area near Spring Hill in 1808. He received private tutoring before attending Woodward Academy in Columbia. In 1823 he entered the University of North…

Adolph S. Ochs, along with Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, helped lay the foundation of modern American journalism. He was born March 12, 1858, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Bavarian immigrants. His father, an abolitionist, and his mother,…

A Williamson County native, Edith Drake Pope worked as the business secretary (1893-1913) and editor (1914-32) of Confederate Veteran for the magazine's entire forty-year history. As editor, she faced mounting financial problems caused by increased death rate among Confederate veterans,…

Born in Maury County on April 1, 1900, James Percy Priest went to county public schools before attending classes at the teacher's college in Murfreesboro (now Middle Tennessee State University), George Peabody College for Teachers, and the University of Tennessee…

In 1875 Mark Twain published "Journalism in Tennessee," a delightful sketch about his experiences as associate editor of a newspaper called the Morning Glory and Johnson County War-Whoop. He had come south, he said, to improve his health, but soon…

Grantland Rice, the most widely read and respected American sports writer of the first half of the twentieth century, was born in Murfreesboro and named for his maternal grandfather, Henry Grantland. He was later called "Grant" and "Granny" by personal…

Theotis Robinson Jr. first gained statewide attention in 1960 when the University of Tennessee refused to admit him due to his race. The previous spring Robinson, who graduated in June from Austin High School, had participated in sit-in demonstrations to…

Carl T. Rowan, journalist, government worker, media personality, and author, broke racial barriers throughout his career. He was born on August 10, 1925, to Thomas David and Johnnie Bradford Rowan and grew up in White County and then McMinnville. Challenged…

Born August 27, 1906, and raised in Wartrace, Tennessee, Fred McFerrin Russell was known to thousands of readers for his “Sidelines” column in the Nashville Banner. Russell first entered Tennessee sports pages, however, as an athlete. He came to Nashville…

Sequoyah, the originator of the Cherokee syllabary, was born in the Cherokee town of Tuskegee (or Taskigi) on the Little Tennessee River in what is now Monroe County. The son of Nathaniel Gist (or Guess), a Virginia fur trader, and…

Rutledge Smith enjoyed careers in journalism, banking, and railroads. He was called "Major" by most people and was best known for his role in preparing the state for mobilization in both World War I and World War II. Born in…

The short-lived Southern Citizen was a pro-slavery newspaper in the heart of antislavery East Tennessee; its editor, an Irish nationalist hero of 1848, worked in the midst of anti-immigrant Know Nothings. In October 1857 Knoxville mayor William Swan cofounded the…

James G. Stahlman was publisher of the Nashville Banner from 1930 until 1972, when he sold the newspaper to the Gannett Corporation. He inherited part of the newspaper from his grandfather, Major Edward Bushrod Stahlman, when he died in 1930;…

Born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1787, Wilkins Tannehill came to Nashville in 1808; he was involved in politics, intellectual pursuits, Masonic activities, journalism, and publishing in the city for the rest of his life. Tannehill's political interests led him to…

Robert L. Taylor, three-term governor and one-term U.S. senator, was born into a political family in Carter County, July 31, 1850. At the time, his uncle Landon Carter Haynes, a Democrat, was serving as Speaker of the Tennessee House of…

Published by Elihu Embree at Jonesborough in 1820, the Emancipator was the first newspaper in the United States solely devoted to the abolition of slavery. Embree had previously published a weekly newspaper, the Manumission Intelligencer, in 1819, and it was…

Lucille Thornburgh, union organizer and labor newspaper editor, was born in 1908 in Strawberry Plains, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Thornburgh. After graduating from Rhea County High School in Dayton she lived in Denver, then Los Angeles, and…

The first Methodist publishing efforts began as the Methodist Book Concern in Philadelphia in 1789 with a loan of $600. Its publications were delivered by traveling preachers known as circuit riders. The Concern later relocated to New York City and…