Louisiana Journalism, 1836-1922

General Overview

Journalism in Louisiana developed slowly and its establishment occurred after the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory. By 1820, newspapers appeared across Louisiana in English, French, and Spanish. During the years leading up to the Civil War, a Pro-Southern, pro-slavery Democratic newspapers far outnumbered Republican viewpoints among the Louisiana press. Many newspapers went out of business between 1861-1865 due to the Civil War, paper shortages, the occupation of New Orleans, and the eventual fall of the Confederacy. Republican newspapers emerged during this period and Democratic newspapers censored themselves for fear of the Union shutting them down. In 1877, Federal troops withdrew from Louisiana and the press witnessed a war of words that targeted both southern Republicans and African-Americans. By the 1880s, emotions waned and other topics such as sports, literature, health, and gossip made their appearance in the newspapers.

Louisiana newspapers drastically altered in layout and content during the first twenty years of the 20th century. The newspapers’ issues presented unique imagery in the form of photographs and cartoons and provided readers with a front row seat to the development of the advertising industry. The Louisiana press gave more attention to the exposure of corrupt politics and business practices and less attention to the social issues of segregation and suffrage. By the 1920s, Louisiana newspapers provided significant international reporting due to World War I as well as Louisiana businessmen venturing into Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Selection of Significant Events Reported

Antebellum Period (1830-1859)

• 1831 - The Pontchartrain Railroad, Louisiana's first railroad and the first west of the Alleghenies, built

• 1834 - Medical College of Louisiana (now Tulane University) founded

• 1836 - New Basin Canal is completed

• 1836 - Texans besieged at the Alamo

• 1837 - New Orleans Picayuneis established

• 1837 - Shreveport founded

• 1838 - First Mardi Gras parade held in New Orleans

• 1838 - St. Charles, a Jesuit institution, opens in Grand Cocteau

• 1838 - Cherokees forced to walk the "Trail of Tears"

• 1838 - Henry Miller Shreve removes the Great Raft, a 160-mile logjam that blocked navigation of the Red River

• 1840 - Thanks to overwhelming steamboat traffic, New Orleans becomes the second largest port in the U.S.

• 1840 - Theatre de la Renaissance opens in New Orleans with an all-black cast

• 1845 - Louisiana Constitution is rewritten

• 1846 - Mexican-American War begins; New Orleans becomes important staging ground for the U.S. troops

• 1847 - Construction of the state capitol in Baton Rouge begins

• 1847 - The Medical College of Louisiana (now Tulane University) becomes the University of Louisiana

• 1847 - The Feliciana Female Collegiate Institute opens in Jackson

• 1848 - Zachary Taylor, a Louisiana planter, elected U.S. President

• 1849 - Baton Rouge becomes the capital city of Louisiana

• 1850 - Compromise of 1850 passed; Fugitive Slave Act is strengthened

• 1850 - John McDonogh bequeaths $750,000 to establish public schools in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish

• 1851 - Jenny Lind performs in New Orleans under the management of P.T. Barnum

• 1852 - Louisiana Constitution revised again

• 1852 - Mansfield Female College founded; Silliman Collegiate Institute, a girls school, opens in Jackson

• 1853 - Yellow fever epidemic kills 11,000 in New Orleans

• 1854 - Republican party formed

• 1856 - Hurricane strikes Last Island (Isle Dernière) killing more than 200

• 1857 - First formal Mardis Gras carnival organizations established

• 1857 - Emancipation of slaves is prohibited in the state

• 1857 - Dred Scott Case ruled upon in the U.S. Supreme Court

• 1858 - Know-Nothings riot in New Orleans

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Civil War and Reconstruction (1860-1877)

• 1860 – Louisiana State Seminary (now Louisiana State University) opens

• 1861 – Louisiana votes for secession

• 1862 – New Orleans captured by Union navy; city subjected to military rule

• 1862 – Confederate troops fail to recapture Baton Rouge

• 1863 – Siege and surrender of Port Hudson

• 1864 – Battles of Pleasant Hill and Mansfield

• 1864 – Slavery abolished in Louisiana

• 1865 – Confederate state capital briefly located in Shreveport

• 1866 – Race riots following constitutional convention in New Orleans

• 1868 – African-Americans granted social and civil rights; Louisiana readmitted to Union

• 1870 – Steamboats Robert E. Lee and Natchez race from New Orleans to St. Louis

• 1873 – Rail service from New Orleans to Chicago inaugurated

• 1873 – Race riot in Colfax, Louisiana, leaves at least 63 African Americans dead

• 1874 – The White League organized to drive carpetbaggers out of the state

• 1877 – Federal troops withdrawn from Louisiana, ending Reconstruction

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Industrial Development (1878-1900)

• 1878 – Yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans kills at least 3,800

• 1879 – State Constitution amended, neutralizing black vote

• 1879 – Thousands of African Americans leave Louisiana in the “Kansas Fever” exodus

• 1879 – James Eads’ jetty system at mouth of Mississippi River improves navigation

• 1880s – Opelousas receives 2,000 orphans from New York via the Orphan Trains

• 1880 – Southern University, now the largest historically black university in the U.S., opens in New Orleans

• 1882 – State Capital moves back to Baton Rouge from New Orleans

• 1883 – Rail service from New Orleans to California inaugurated

• 1884 – Louisiana State Normal College (now Northwestern State University) founded

• 1884‐86 – World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition held in New Orleans

• 1887 – Blue Laws passed, closing saloons on Sundays

• 1890 – Prize fighting legalized

• 1891 – First “Jim Crow” law passed

• 1893 – Hurricane kills 2,000 people in Louisiana and Mississippi

• 1894 – One of only two U.S. hospitals for treatment of leprosy opened in Carville, Louisiana

• 1895 – Louisiana Lottery, the largest lottery in the United States, outlawed

• 1896 – Fusion Populist‐Republican gubernatorial ticket, representing north Louisiana dirt farmers and south Louisiana sugar planters, defeated by Bourbons in fraudulent election

• 1896 – U.S. Supreme Court rules “separate but equal” is constitutional in Plessy v. Ferguson, a case that originated in Louisiana

• 1897 – New Orleans’ red‐light district, Storyville, formally established

• 1898 – Poll tax and illiteracy test enacted to disqualify black voters

• 1898 – Louisiana troops, considered immune to yellow fever, sent to fight in Cuba

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Modern Development (1901-1922)

• 1901 – Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now University of Louisiana at Lafayette) founded

• 1901 – First oil well in the state is drilled in Jennings, Louisiana

• 1901 – Fire destroys a large portion of Jennings, Louisiana

• 1901 – Grambling College (precursor to Grambling State University) opened in Lincoln Parish

• 1902 – Jelly Roll Morton claims to have invented jazz

• 1902 – State mental hospital established at Pineville

• 1904 – Loyola Academy (now Loyola University of New Orleans) founded

• 1904 – Drainage of swamp around New Orleans begins

• 1905 – Last yellow fever epidemic

• 1909 – New locks on the Mississippi open the Atchafalaya Basin (Acadiana) to navigation

• 1909 – Standard Oil Company builds facility in Baton Rouge

• 1910 – International aviation tournament held in New Orleans

• 1912 – Air mail route opened between New Orleans and Baton Rouge

• 1914 – Southern University moves to Baton Rouge

• 1915 – Hurricane hits New Orleans

• 1916 – Natural gas discovered in north Louisiana; State Federation of Labor organized

• 1919 – French Opera House in New Orleans, symbol of Creole culture, destroyed by fire

• 1920 – Red Scare destroys Socialist Party in Louisiana

Louisiana Front Pages

During the 19th century, many Louisiana newspapers were homegrown productions owned by local community members. Local newspapers often circulated among small communities where information, goings-on, and gossip spread quickly, and therefore, rarely appeared in the newspapers. In general, the front page of a 19th century Louisiana newspaper contains advertisements, legal announcements, poetry, and/or serial fiction. News headlines, feature articles, and anecdotes tend to appear alongside advertisements within the newspapers’ interior pages. Newspapers from this period provided few, if any, images or visual content among the columns of mostly uninterrupted text.

Louisiana newspapers drastically altered in layout and content during the first two decades of the 20th century. The newspapers’ issues presented unique imagery in the form of photographs and cartoons and provided readers with a front row seat to the development of the advertising industry. By the 1920s, the newspapers had evolved greatly due to the Associated Press, population growth, and advanced technology.

The following images highlight the evolution of Louisiana newspapers’ front-page appearance and structure. This showcase exhibits 28 newspaper titles representing the seven geographic regions of Louisiana including Acadiana/Cajun Country, Crossroads, Florida Parishes, Greater New Orleans Area, North-central, Northeast, and Northwest. To provide a wide scope of front-page evolution, the front pages selected also represent each calendar month as well as the decades covered in the Digitizing Louisiana Newspapers Project. For indentification and historical information about the titles featured below, go to the Newspaper Histories page.
For a closer inspection of each front page, click on the images to open the newspaper issue in Chronicling America.

Calendar

October | 1830s

True American (1838)

True American (1839)

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November | 1840s

Planters' Banner (1849)

Planters' Banner (1849)

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December | 1850s

The Opelousas Courier (1853)	Houma Ceres (1855)
The Feliciana Democrat (1858)	New Orleans Daily Crescent (1859)

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January | 1860s

The Carrollton Sun (1861)	The Constitutional (1861)
Shreveport News (1865)	Natchitoches Spectator (1868)

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February | 1870s

The Morning Star & Catholic Messenger (1874)

The Claiborn Guardian (1878)

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March | 1870s

The Daily Telegraph (1871)

West Feliciana Sentinel (1877)

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April | 1880s

The People's Vindicator (1880)

Concordia Eagle (1883)

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May | 1880s

Louisiana Capitolian (1881)

The Ouachita Telegraph (1888)

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June | 1890s

The Feliciana Sentinel (1892)

The Progress (1894)

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July | 1890s

The Banner-Democrat (1894)

The Louisiana Democrat (1895)

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August | 1900s

The True Democrat (1909)

The Comrade (1910)

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September | 1900s

The Jennings Daily Record (1902)

The Lower Coast Gazette (1909)

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October | 1910s

The Caldwell Watchman (1912)

The Era-Leader (1914)

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November | 1910s

The Voice of the People (1913)

The Rice Belt Journal (1916)

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December | 1920s

Abbeville Progress (1920)	The Concordia Sentinel (1920)
Woman's Enterprise (1921)	The Madison Journal (1920)

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Editorial Cartoons, 1914-1922

Editorial cartoons portray opinions on a mixture of social, popular, economic, and political events. Dating as far back as the Reformation (1517-1555), editorial cartoons were, and remain, a popular method to visually share ideologies to large audiences regardless of literacy. Over the centuries improvements to the printing press and engraving processes have allowed cartoonists to reproduce their work more efficiently and for a lower cost to extended audiences.

In the United States, editorial cartoonists have used metaphor and caricature to comment on a variety of political and social issues. Widely regarded as the first American editorial cartoon, Ben Franklin published his iconic “Join or Die” cartoon in his Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754. This popular image depicts a snake cut into eight pieces, representing the division of the colonial governments. The cartoon was well-received by likeminded colonists and has been reprinted and reproduced in countless newspapers years after its original publication. Despite the popularity of this image, the American editorial cartoon did not become an established newspaper feature until the 1890s with the addition of Sunday editions, increased coverage of heated political debates, and most importantly, the development of the syndicated cartoon. These syndicated cartoons are provided from external organizations which allow reproduction in multiple newspapers throughout the country.

The following editorial cartoons highlight significant themes and events that occurred during the volatile years 1914-1922. These include the U.S. becoming the world’s dominant agricultural and industrial power; the explosive growth of U.S. armed forces during its involvement in the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and the Great War (1914-1918); the spread of nationalism and xenophobia; the presidencies of Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) and Warren G. Harding (1921-1923); the escalating conflict between labor groups and capitalists; escalating international conflict; and the climax of the woman’s suffrage movement with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. These themes and events foreshadowed the culturally dynamic Roaring Twenties and the subsequent Great Depression.

For a closer inspection of each cartoon, click on the images to open the newspaper issue in Chronicling America.

Topics

Agriculture

The Madison Journal (1919)	The Herald (1920)
The Herald (1921)	The Herald (1922)

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Anti-Idling Law

The Herald (1918)

The Herald (1918)

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Armistice Day

The Herald (1920)

The Herald (1922)

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Conservation

The Lower Coast Gazette (1914)	The Herald (1917)
The Herald (1917)	The Herald (1917)

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Deportation

Concordia Sentinel (1919)	The Herald (1919)
The Era-Leader (1920)	The Madison Journal (1920)

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Economy

The Herald (1920)	The Madison Journal (1921)
The Madison Journal (1921)	The Herald (1922)

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Great War

The Herald (1918)	The Herald (1918)
The Herald (1918)	The Herald (1918)

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Harding Political Campaign

The Herald (1921)	The Herald (1921)
The Herald (1921)	The Herald (1922)

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Labor Vs. Capitalists

The Voice of the People (1914)	The Voice of the People (1914)
The Madison Journal (1919)	Abbeville Progress (1921)

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League of Nations

The Herald (1919)

The Herald (1919)

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Liberty Loans

Abbeville Progress (1915)	The Herald (1917)
The Herald (1918)	The Herald (1918)

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Louisiana

The Donaldsonville Chief (1917)

The Donaldsonville Chief (1917)

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Mexican Revolution

Abbeville Progress (1914)	The Voice of the People (1914)
Abbeville Progress (1916)	The Madison Journal (1920)

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Peace Terms

The Herald (1918)	The Tensas Gazette (1918)
The Herald (1919)	The Rice Belt Journal (1919)

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Political Issues

The Concordia Sentinel (1920)	The Herald (1920)
The Herald (1922)	The Herald (1922)

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Political Parties

Abbeville Progress (1915)	The Herald (1920)
The Herald (1920)	The Herald (1922)

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Rail Strike/ Coal Strike (1922)

The Herald (1922)	The Herald (1922)
The Herald (1922)	The Herald (1922)

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Railroads

The Herald (1918)	The Era-Leader (1920)
The Herald (1921)	The Herald (1922)

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Sport

The Lower Coast Gazette (1914)	The Rice Belt Journal (1915)
The Herald (1920)	The Herald (1921)

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Taxes

The Madison Journal (1920)	The Madison Jounal (1921)
The Herald (1921)	The Herald (1921)

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War Debt

The Herald (1915)	The Herald (1918)
The Bienville Democrat (1919)	The Madison Journal (1921)

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K-12 Resources

The Digitizing Louisiana Newspapers Project (DLNP) at LSU Libraries presents this curriculum packet as part of a pilot project with the Louisiana State University Laboratory School. Focusing on Louisiana newspapers, this curriculum development project intends to demonstrate the versatility and historical value of the newspapers to Louisiana’s educators by highlighting their compatibility with Louisiana’s Academic Standards and Grade Level Expectations. The activities in this project are intended for use with the Louisiana newspapers available on Chronicling America. The DLNP project team appreciates any and all feedback from educators who bring these historical Louisiana newspapers into their classroom.

Acknowledgements: For their time and efforts, the DLNP team would like to specially thank the Louisiana State University Laboratory School, their educators, and librarian Charity Cantey.

K-12 Curriculum Packet:

The K-12 Curriculum Packet contains activities for select primary and secondary education levels.

The activities included correspond with the Louisiana Department of Education's Grade Level Expectations (GLEs).

Click to download complete K-12 Curriculum Packet.

Curriculum Activities: Primary Education

These activities are the same as those found in the K-12 Curriculum Packet. For information about the development of the curriculum packet and a brief summary of the topics covered by the newspapers, download the complete Curriculum Packet.

The activities included correspond with the Louisiana Department of Education's Grade Level Expectations (GLEs).

Click to download the Curriculum Activities: Primary Education

Curriculum Activities: Secondary Education

These activities are the same as those found in the K-12 Curriculum Packet.

For information about the development of the curriculum packet and a brief summary of the topics covered by the newspapers, download the complete Curriculum Packet.

The activities included correspond with the Louisiana Department of Education's Grade Level Expectations (GLEs).

Click to download the Curriculum Activities: Secondary Education

Search Tips & Help

Access to the digitized Louisiana newspapers is provided by the Library of Congress's Chronicling America database. Chronicling America provides access to newspapers from over 30 states. To browse or search Louisiana newspaper titles, "Louisiana" must be selected from the state list on the search screen and/or one or more Louisiana newspaper titles must be selected from the title list. Specific years or data ranges can also be selected to limit your search. See examples of these search options below as well as a keyword sample search.

Additional instruction on searching Chronicling America is available on the Library of Congress's website or via the Ohio State Historical Society's podcast series.

Search by State(s):

Search by Newspaper(s):

Search by Year(s) or Date Range:

Keyword Sample Search

The newspapers are full-text searchable. Keywords found in the newspapers are highlighted in pink, and after selecting a page, the zoom option allows for a closer look at the words highlighted. Altering search terms and word combinations can yield richer results. When searching more than one term, try the different combinations of search boxes. Searching for a specific subject can be achieved in different ways with very different results. See the example below showing different search strategies and results for "Yellow Fever".

Search "yellow fever" as a phrase

...returns 2031 results.

Altering the keywords by using different search bars will provide different results. This can be a useful strategy if the search by phrase option does not result in many hits.

Search "yellow" within 5 words of "fever"

...yields 2123 results.

Combining different search terms in different search bars allows users to develop more robust and precise searches.

Searching "orleans" as any of the words and "yellow fever" as a phrase

...yields 1596 results.

Additional help on searching Chronicling America is available on their website.

About the Digitizing Louisiana Newspaper Project

The LSU Libraries is pleased to announce the list of historical Louisiana newspapers that will be digitized as part of a grant funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Based on input from an Advisory Board of historians, educators, and archivists, project staff have selected 128 titles representing the main regions of Louisiana, rich with articles on historical events, interesting advertisements, and much more contained in newspapers published from 1836 through 1922.

The project is part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the NEH and the Library of Congress (LC) launched in 2004 to provide enhanced access to United States newspapers. Currently NDNP has 36 state and U.S. territory partners. Louisiana is one of seven added in 2009, to digitize 100,000 newspaper pages. In 2011, Louisiana was awarded a renewal grant to digitize an additional 100,000 pages. And in 2013, Louisiana was awarded a third and final grant to digitize yet another 100,000 pages. Visit the Chronicling America website to explore newspapers from Louisiana and across the country.

History

Since 1986 LSU has been actively involved with the United States Newspaper Program (USNP). During the first phase of the Louisiana Newspaper Project (LNP), a survey was conducted by Dr. Elsie Hebert of the Manship School of Journalism. The second and third phases (cataloging and microfilming) of LNP have been conducted by the LSU Libraries, beginning in the Fall of 1987 and continuing to the present.

The purpose of USNP is to preserve and make accessible newspapers printed in the fifty states and in the trust territories. USNP is supported financially by the National Endowment for the Humanities, with technical assistance provided by the Library of Congress.

During the cataloging phase of the LNP, LSU Libraries staff members cataloged all extant Louisiana newspapers they could locate in the state. They also compiled detailed information on all issues (both original and on film) held by repositories throughout the state. This information is updated and currently available online via FirstSearch WorldCat and OCLC Connexion Local Holdings Maintenance. All information compiled to 2000 is in the 3rd edition of The Louisiana Newspaper Project Printout (1999) available from the LSU Libraries. Records for Louisiana newspapers held by the LSU Libraries can be found in the online catalog.

"Family trees" have also been created for some newspapers with complicated publishing histories to help users trace changing titles and editions through time.

• Louisiana Newspaper Project Printout (How to Order)
• Directory of OCLC Members
• Official Louisiana Parish Journals List

DLNP Faculty & Staff

• Gina Costello, Project Director 
• Laura Charney, Project Manager
• Gabe Harrell, Digitization Support 
• Hans Rasmussen, Cataloger
• Michael Taylor, Historical Essays Writer

Advisory Board Members for 2011-2013 and 2013-2015 Grant

• Michael Fernandez, Ph.D., Professor of History at Loyola University New Orleans
• Ron Garay, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Media History at Louisiana State University
• Emmitt Glynn, III, Adjunct Professor of History at Southern University & History Teacher at Zachary Community Schools
• Jean Kiesel, Librarian/Archivist at University of Louisiana at Lafayette
• Africa Price, Executive Editor for Shreveport Times
• Judy Riffel, Professional Genealogist & Historian
• Sam Shepherd, Ph.D., Professor of History at Centenary College of Louisiana
• V. Elaine Thompson, Ph.D., Professor of History at Louisiana Tech University
• Cynthia Ann Trappey, History Teacher at Kentwood High School
• Mary Linn Wernet, C.A., Librarian/Archivist at Northwestern State University

Advisory Board Members for 2009-2011 Grant

• Charles Elliot, Instructor of History at Southeastern Louisiana University
• Mary J. Farmer-Kaiser, Ph.D., Professor of History at University of Louisiana at Lafayette
• Ron Garay, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Media History at Louisiana State University
• Emmitt Glynn, III, Adjunct Professor of History at Southern University & History Teacher at Zachary Community Schools
• Florence Jumonville, Ph.D., Chair of the Louisiana and Special Collections Department at University of New Orleans
• Jean Kiesel, Librarian/Archivist at University of Louisiana at Lafayette
• Laura L. McLemore, Ph.D./C.A., Head Archivist at Louisiana State University in Shreveport
• John C. Rodrigue, Ph.D., Professor of History at Stonehill College
• V. Elaine Thompson, Ph.D., Professor of History at Louisiana Tech University
• Cynthia Ann Trappey, History Teacher at Kentwood High School
• Mary Linn Wernet, C.A., Librarian/Archivist at Northwestern State University

DLNP in the Press

The Advocate | 07/12/2011	The Advocate | 08/22/2009	The Daily Reveille | 09/14/2009
The Daily Reville | 10/12/2012	Southwestern Archivist | 08/2009	Tiger Weekly | 01/14/2010

Available Online

LSU Press Release | 08/13/2013LSU Libraries Granted Additional Funding for Digitizing Louisiana Newspapers

The Daily Reveille | 10/12/2012 Century-old Louisiana Newspapers Now Available on Digital Database

Sun Herald | 08/29/2012 The First Draft of History is Going Online in Louisiana

The Advocate | 08/22/2011 Our Views: Putting La. Past Online

NBC33 News | 08/17/2011 LSU Libraries Granted Funding for Digitizing Louisiana Newspapers

Leesville Daily Leader | 12/9/2010 LSU Gets Newspaper Grant

The Advocate | 10/10/2010 Researchers Have New Source in Digitized Newspapers at LSU

Avoyelles Today | 10/6/2010 Researchers Have New Source in Digitized Newspapers at LSU

Jennings Daily News | 07/22/2009 Grant to Help Digitize Louisiana Newspapers

Deseret News | 06/17/2009 Digital Newspaper Archive Reaches a Milestone: A Million Pages Online

The Advocate | 2009 LSU Wins Grant to Digitize Newspapers

Outreach Events

Chronicling America & Newspapers in the Classroom

July 18, 2013 at Hill Memorial Library in Baton Rouge for the WBR Museum Teachers Institute

Searching for Past Lives with the Digitizing Louisiana Newspapers Project and Chronicling America: A Presentation for Genealogists and Family Historians

May 18, 2013 at the Southwest Louisiana Genealogical and Historical Library in Lake Charles

The Future of Historical Headlines: Digitizing Louisiana Newspapers Project, Chronicling America, and free access to Historical Louisiana Newspapers

March 7, 2013 at the Louisiana Libraries Association Annual Conference 2013 in Baton Rouge

Resurrecting the Past: DLNP, Chronicling America, and Digitized Historical Newspapers in Genealogical Research

October 18, 2012 at South Regional Library in Lafayette

Exploring Historic Local News through the Digitizing Louisana Newspapers Project

October 11, 2012 at Loyola University New Orleans Monroe Library in New Orleans

Effective Search Strategies for Chronicling America

October 11, 2012 at Loyola University New Orleans Monroe Library in New Orleans

Past, Present, and Future of Louisiana's Historical Newspapers

October 9, 2012 at Hill Memorial Library’s Lecture Hall in Baton Rouge

Searching for Past Lives

September 23, 2012 at GENCOM, Genealogical Computer Society of North Louisiana in Shreveport

An Introduction to the Digitizing Louisiana Newspapers Project

August 22, 2012 at Jones Creek Regional Parish Libary in Baton Rouge

Finding your Roots in Chronicling America: Employing Digitized Historical Newspapers in Genealogical Research

May 31, 2012 at Bluebonnet Regional Branch Library in Baton Rouge

Out of the Library on Your Laptop: The Digitizing Louisiana Newspaper Project Brings Historical Louisiana Newspapers to You

March 23, 2012 at LSU Shreveport's Noel Memorial Library in Shreveport

Extra, Extra, Read All About It: Historical Louisiana Newspapers go Digital on Chronicling America

March 22, 2012 at the Louisiana Library Association Annual Conference 2012 in Shreveport

From the Library to Your Laptop: The Digitizing Louisiana Newspaper Project Brings Historical Louisiana Newspapers to You

March 21, 2012 at Natchitoches Parish Library in Natchitoches

Yesterday's Louisiana News...Today!: Digitizing Louisiana Newspapers Project

September 18, 2011 at Le Comite des Archives de la Louisiana Annual Meeting in Baton Rouge

Copyright Information

Contents of the Digitizing Louisiana Newspapers Project (DLNP) are available to the public for noncommercial use, research and education. U.S. Copyright and intellectual property laws apply to all digital resources available through this site and Chronicling America. DLNP is not aware of any copyrights or other rights associated with this material. Any material printed after January 1, 1923 copyrights remains the property of the copyright owner.

All items may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). More information about copyright is available through the United States Copyright Office and the Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center.

Louisiana Newspaper Project Printout

Collections and Centers

he 3rd edition of the Louisiana Newspaper Project Printout represents the records of the Louisiana Newspaper Project (LNP) as of October 1999. Additions made from October 1999 to December 2000 are included in Appendix A. Over 1900 individual newspaper titles and over 6,400 holdings records are included for repositories throughout Louisiana.

What is in the printout

The Printout consists of bibliographic and holdings records for issues of Louisiana newspapers located during the project and retained on a permanent basis by Louisiana libraries and repositories. Current issues of newspapers that are discarded after a set time (for example, several months or a year) are not listed in this printout. As lagniappe, bibliographic records and holdings are listed for Mississippi newspapers held by the LSU Libraries.

This printout is derived from the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) national online United States Newspaper Program Union List Database. All records from the USNP, including those from other states, are available online to libraries that have access to OCLC Union List. LNP records include bibliographic information such as newspaper title, place of publication, publisher, beginning and ending dates of the newspaper when known, frequency of publication, OCLC numbers, and related newspaper titles. They also include holdings information such as the codes of libraries that have issues, the dates held, and the format of the holdings.

The LSU Libraries are committed to maintaining this file by adding or deleting information on Louisiana newspapers as it is reported to them. As always the online OCLC file represents the most current information on the location of newspapers listed in the USNP.

Arrangement of the records in this printout

LNP records in this printout are arranged alphabetically by title of newspaper. Newspapers located and cataloged between October 1999 and December 2000 are listed in the Appendix. The printout includes indexes by state/city and ethnic/national group. For Parish index and Chronological index please see Louisiana Newspaper Project Parish and Chronological Indexes which were prepared by LNP staff.

Access to newspapers listed in this printout

Newspapers included in this printout are available for general use at the libraries or repositories listed as holding institutions. For specific information on the use and/or loan of the papers and microfilm, please contact the institution directly, as each institution has its own policies regarding the use of its materials.

How to get this printout

This printout is distributed to libraries and repositories throughout Louisiana by LSU Libraries. Patrons wishing to acquire a copy of The Louisiana Newspaper Project Printout, October 1999, third edition, should forward a signed written request by fax (225-578-9425) or by surface mail (Special Collections, LSU Libraries, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-3300).

• Libraries and Repositories with OCLC Codes
• List of Libraries and Repositories by OCLC Code

East Feliciana Parish

Located about 30 miles north of Baton Rouge, the town of Clinton, Louisiana, was founded in 1824 and named after New York governor DeWitt Clinton. It is the seat of East Feliciana Parish, a rural, farming parish that was settled in the late 18th century as part of the colony of British West Florida and then governed by Spain (1783-1810). In the early 19th century, the region attracted predominantly Anglo-American settlers and was one of the few areas in south Louisiana where French culture never took root. Its economy was based on cotton in the antebellum period, and Clinton developed into a commercial and legal center of some note at that time. The parish was the site of two important early educational institutions: Centenary College in Jackson, which in 1845 took over the campus of the defunct College of Louisiana, and Clinton’s Silliman Collegiate Institute, a girls’ school, founded in 1852.

The American Patriot was first issued in December 1854 by J.B. Harris. In June 1855, W.H. Green and C.T. Dunn, editors and proprietors of the Feliciana Whig [LCCN: sn86053702], purchased the paper, maintaining its association with the American or Know-Nothing Party and advocating for the reform of naturalization laws, particularly in regard to Catholic immigration to the United States. Political reporting increased in late 1855, an election season. Some articles discuss immigration in the context of other contemporary issues. For example, the Patriot called its readers’ attention to an article published in a Michigan German-American paper about immigrants’ strong opposition to slavery. Another article refuted rumors of ties between the northern Know-Nothing Party and the abolitionist movement.

Published weekly in four pages, the Patriot’s front page typically carried fiction, poetry, and short general-interest articles reprinted from various sources. The paper carried a small number of obituaries, as well as ads, notices of probate sales, and announcements of public entertainments, such as a visit by Mabie’s Menagerie, a traveling zoo. At present, the last extant issue is dated January 12, 1856.

Avoyelles Parish

The first European settlers came to what is now Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, in the mid-18th century, taking advantage of its location near the intersection of the Red, Atchafalaya, and Mississippi Rivers. Parish government was formed around 1817. Cotton and livestock have been the area’s most lasting industries. In the 19th century, cypress milling was another important local industry, but by the early 1900s, most of the parish’s forests had been converted to farmland. The parish seat is Marksville, named after Marc Eliche, an Italian Jew who established a trading post there in the 1790s.

The Avoyelles Pelican is thought to have begun publication in 1859. At present, the earliest recorded surviving copy of this newspaper dates from October 1861, when it was being edited by Prudent d’Artlys, the pseudonym of Hippolyte-Prudent de Bautte (1821-1861). A native of Normandy, de Bautte was imprisoned in France during the political turmoil of the 1840s for writing incendiary pro-republican articles. After his release, de Bautte emigrated to Louisiana, where he wrote for the magazine La Revue Louisianaise before becoming editor of the newspaper Le Meschacébé [LCCN: sn86079080]. He sold this enterprise in 1857 to fellow political exiles Ernest Le Gendre and Eugene Dumez, then eventually made his way to Marksville.

After de Bautte’s death in October 1861, the Pelican was taken over by Adolphe Lafargue (1818-1869). Born in the town of Orthez in the French Pyrenees, Lafargue worked as a schoolteacher in Natchitoches Parish, professor of French and mathematics at Jefferson College in St. James Parish, and then superintendent of schools in Avoyelles Parish, where he founded Marksville High School and published a newspaper, the Villager [LCCN: sn85034327], in the late 1850s. From 1863, he was assisted in managing the Pelican by his son Arnaud Denis Lafargue (1845-1917), who would later publish the Marksville Bulletin [LCCN: sn88064213].

Extant issues of the Avoyelles Pelican focus on the Civil War, with common topics of discussion including military enlistment, town meetings, home defense, and the Ladies’ Relief Society. The Pelican also carried a mix of general war news, letters from correspondents, and proclamations of military commanders and politicians. Obituaries, legal notices, and advertisements made up a large portion of each issue. Unlike many newspaper editors of his day, Lafargue tried to avoid political disputes, writing in one editorial that “The energies of the Pelican will be devoted to the labor of harmonizing the conflicting elements of parochial politics, so that feuds may sink down in the depths of oblivion’s wave and leave a placid surface for the admiration of society.”

The Pelican was originally published weekly in four pages, with two in English and two in French. In October 1862, it was reduced to two pages on account of wartime paper shortages. By 1863, most issues, as well as occasional supplements, were being printed on wallpaper. Currently, the last known extant copy is dated January 16, 1864. In August 1865, Adolphe Lafargue revived the Villager after a suspension of five years. No copies of this paper are known to survive, but it may have replaced the Pelican.

East Carroll Parish

The Banner-Democrat, a four-page Democratic weekly published in Lake Providence, Louisiana (the seat of East Carroll Parish), was formed in 1892 by the merger of the Carroll Banner and the Carroll Democrat. It was owned and published until 1941 by James Nelson Turner (1859-1943).

David Llewellyn Morgan (1820-1893) was the paper’s first editor. Born in Swansea, Wales, Morgan began working as a levee contractor in Louisiana around 1850. During the presidential election of 1859-60, he published a campaign newspaper, the True Issue, which supported Constitutional Union Party candidate John Bell, a former Whig who sought to avoid disunion over the issue of slavery. In the mid 1870s, Morgan was the secret editor of James Turner’s True Republican, a “conservative” (i.e., moderate) Republican newspaper formed to oppose George C. Benham, an Ohio carpetbagger and publisher of a Radical Republican newspaper, the Elton Eagle. As editor of the East Carroll Democrat, Morgan was perhaps the most outspoken proponent of the economic development of northeast Louisiana, a role he continued to play as editor of the Banner-Democrat. Upon Morgan’s death, Turner himself served as editor from 1893 to 1899, when he engaged the services of Samuel Blakely Kennedy (1867-1935), formerly of the Carroll Banner. Kennedy remained editor until 1901.

The Banner-Democrat called for moderation in politics, sought to expose vice and corruption in all parties, and promoted a progressive political and social agenda. Civic improvement was a major topic of discussion. Much of Lake Providence was destroyed during the Civil War by vandalism, fires, and unchecked flood waters. It was rebuilt in the late 19th century, but in general the population of East Carroll Parish--a rural, cotton-producing parish located along the Mississippi River fifty miles north of Vicksburg, Mississippi--had fallen into a slow decline. The Banner-Democrat encouraged immigration to the region and advocated construction of roads and railroads. An agricultural column offered practical advice to farmers, while almost every issue carried articles on the construction and improvement of levees, without which the parish’s farms would have been regularly inundated by floodwaters.

The paper’s front page carried a mix of domestic and international news, brief articles on art, science, and literature, and a mix of fiction and religious material. By about 1900, women’s and children’s columns had appeared. Also of interest are the minutes of the East Carroll police jury (the governing body of the parish) and the proceedings of the Lake Providence town council.

The Banner-Democrat i

East Baton Rouge Parish

Founded as a French trading post in the early 18th century, Baton Rouge was part of the British and later Spanish colony of West Florida from 1763 until 1810, when, as part of the short-lived Republic of West Florida, it was annexed by the United States. Located on the east bank of the Mississippi River and surrounded by sugar and cotton plantations, it developed into the main commercial center between New Orleans and Natchez. In 1846, through the influence of rural planters, the state capital was moved from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, even though its population at that time was less than 3,000.

The first issue of the Baton-Rouge Gazette appeared in February 1819. Its editors and proprietors changed frequently but included Theodore Devalcourt, William Grivot, Louis Sheppers, Hugh Alexander, Henry A.S. Mussenden, Albert P. Converse, Francis G. Henderson, John Dufrocq, William Adams, and Mayhew G. Bryan. In 1843, Editor John Hueston was killed in a duel with Alcee Labranche, a candidate for Congress, whom Hueston had insulted in the Gazette. Although initially nonpartisan, by the 1840s the paper’s political sympathies lay with the Whig Party.

A four-page weekly, the Gazette was originally issued with two pages in English and two in French. By the 1840s, French-language content had virtually disappeared. Each issue typically contained miscellaneous news items related to politics and commerce, as well as advertisements for local businesses, schools, and entertainment venues, including horse racing, for which Baton Rouge was then well known. The paper also carried a large number of runaway slave notices.

Publication continued until 1856, when the Gazette merged with the Baton Rouge Weekly Comet [LCCN: sn86053662] to form the Weekly Gazette and Comet [LCCN: sn85038555]

East Baton Rouge Parish                                                     

On the eve of the Civil War, Baton Rouge had a population of approximately 5,500 people and was one of the most important shipping centers on the lower Mississippi River. It had served as the capital of Louisiana since 1848. In 1862, one year after the war’s outbreak, the town was abandoned by the state legislature (which would not officially return until 1882) and occupied by Federal troops. Although spared the level of destruction experienced by other Southern cities, its economy was severely affected.

Among the businesses that suffered were newspapers. Before the war, the Gazette and Comet had been issued in both a daily [LCCN: sn88083120] and weekly [LCCN: sn85038555] edition. These were consolidated in 1865 to form the Baton Rouge Tri-Weekly Gazette and Comet. Owned and edited by Joseph C. Charrotte, Thomas B. R. Hatch, and George A. Pike, it was published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays in four pages.

The paper consisted mostly of advertisements and thus provides a snapshot of the former capital’s business life in the aftermath of the Civil War. Brief editorials and other articles discuss a wide range of topics, from Reconstruction, universal suffrage, and labor, to railroads, road building, sanitation, yellow fever, and the repatriation of soldiers’ remains. A recurring subject of discussion was Southern immigration to Mexico and other parts of Latin America. The paper also reported on proposals to improve the navigation of Bayou Manchac, which would have provided Baton Rouge with more direct access to the Gulf of Mexico via Lake Pontchartrain.

By the 1870s, the paper had come under the ownership of William C. Annis and was being published as the Tri-Weekly Gazette-Comet [LCCN: sn88064484]. It appears to have gone out of business around 1873.

Bienville Parish

Bienville Parish is an agricultural and timber-producing parish in rural northwestern Louisiana. It is best known as the site of the capture and killing of outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in 1934. Beginning in the 1880s, Bienville Parish profited from the burgeoning north Louisiana lumber trade.  Cotton growing and the production of cotton byproducts were other important local industries. In 1893, the parish seat was moved from Sparta to Arcadia after Sparta was bypassed by the Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railroad. Arcadia was briefly the home of two institutions of higher education, the Arcadia Male and Female College and the E. and A. Seminary.  The population of Bienville Parish peaked around 1910 with 21,766 residents, but declined in the following decade as a result of depleted timber resources and migration of African Americans to urban areas and the North. 

Although no early copies of the paper are known to have survived, publication of the Bienville Democrat appears to have begun in 1904. By 1919 it was being edited by Seaborn Arledge Cook (1892-1971), who remained at the helm until 1928 when he moved to Oklahoma. A typical country newspaper, the six-page weekly reported social and personal news from towns throughout Bienville Parish, including Arcadia, Gibsland, Ringgold, Sparta, Saline, Lawhon, and Liberty Hill. The north Louisiana oil boom of the early twentieth century is well documented, as is the progress of the Good Roads movement throughout the region. Agriculture was covered in a “Farm and Stock News” column, which reported on topics such as the growth of the local farm bureau and the advancement of agricultural education. Household tips and recipes were printed for women readers, together with a fashion column.

News of local Methodist and Baptist churches is combined with announcements of religious revivals, traveling preachers, and visiting orators affiliated with the Chautauqua adult education movement. Also of interest is news related to the aftereffects of World War I, including returning soldiers, the sale of war bonds, and the activities of the American Red Cross.

As the official journal of Bienville Parish, The Bienville Democrat published the minutes of the parish school board and police jury (the governing body of the parish). Publication continued until 1980, when the paper was consolidated with the Ringgold Record to form the Bienville Democrat Ringgold Record.

Washington Parish

Incorporated in 1914, Bogalusa is one of the youngest towns in Louisiana. It was founded by Frank Henry Goodyear and Charles Waterhouse Goodyear, lumber barons of Buffalo, New York. In 1906, the Goodyears formed the Great Southern Lumber Company to harvest the rich and largely untapped timber resources of southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi. They also ordered the construction of the ninety-mile New Orleans Great Northern Railroad to provide access to this region and transportation for processed timber. Known as “Magic City” because of its rapid growth, Bogalusa had about 20,000 residents by 1920 and promoted itself as one of the most progressive cities in the South. The rapid depletion of the area’s timber resources, however, led to the closing of the Great Southern mill in 1938 and the town’s subsequent decline.

The Bogalusa Enterprise, an eight-page independent weekly, was founded and edited Clyde S. Moss (1880-1949). Moss’s career began at his father’s newspaper office in Linton, Indiana. He later worked as a journalist in Tennessee, Texas, New Orleans, and Baton Rouge before moving to Bogalusa in 1914. A tireless booster of his adopted town, Moss reported on Bogalusa’s growth and the ups and downs of the timber trade. Discussions of significant social and economic issues included the debate over prohibition in Louisiana, the need to diversify agriculture, and the growth of the Good Roads movement. News briefs from other towns of Washington Parish are available, including Franklinton, Varnado, Angie, Rio, Bush, and Zona. There are frequent announcements of local clubs, fraternal lodges, and the Bogalusa YMCA, a cultural center that hosted musical performances, literary events, and traveling lecturers. Education was discussed at length in a series of articles by Professor J. F. Peters, founder of the Bogalusa public school system. Bogalusa was one of the earliest small towns in Louisiana to acquire a movie theater, which advertised its schedule of shows in the Enterprise. Also of interest is the paper’s special “anniversary number” of July 1, 1915. Commemorating Bogalusa’s first year as an incorporated town, this issue contains biographical sketches of prominent town leaders and businessmen as well as photographs of public buildings, residential neighborhoods, lumber yards and paper mills.

In 1918, Moss purchased the Bogalusa American, the official town journal, and consolidated it with the Bogalusa Enterprise to form the Bogalusa Enterprise and American. It was published until 1954.

Washington Parish

Incorporated in 1914, Bogalusa is one of the youngest towns in Louisiana. It was founded by Frank Henry Goodyear and Charles Waterhouse Goodyear, lumber barons of Buffalo, New York. In 1906, the Goodyears formed the Great Southern Lumber Company to harvest the rich and largely untapped timber resources of southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi. They also ordered the construction of the 90-mile New Orleans Great Northern Railroad to provide access to this region and transportation for processed timber. Known as “Magic City” because of its rapid growth, Bogalusa had about 20,000 residents by 1920 and promoted itself as one of the most progressive cities in the South. The rapid depletion of the area’s timber resources, however, led to the closing of the Great Southern mill in 1938 and the town’s subsequent decline.

In 1918, Clyde S. Moss (1880-1949), editor and publisher of the Bogalusa Enterprise [LCCN: sn88064054], purchased the Bogalusa American and consolidated the two papers to form the weekly, eight-page Bogalusa Enterprise and American. Moss’s career began at his father’s newspaper office in Linton, Indiana. He later worked as a journalist in Tennessee, Texas, New Orleans, and Baton Rouge before moving to Bogalusa in 1914. A tireless booster of his adopted town, Moss reported on Bogalusa’s growth and the ups and downs of the timber trade.

The earliest issues of the Enterprise and American focused on World War I. Topics of discussion included the war’s effect on local industry and agriculture, the registration of unnaturalized German-born residents, plans for a “vigilance corps” to counteract spies and saboteurs, and activities of the Red Cross. The paper carried news of Louisiana soldiers in Europe, original war-related poetry, and anti-German propaganda, such as “The Secrets of the Hohenzollerns,” a multi-issue exposé.

Miscellaneous local news was also reported, much of it related to lumber mills and entertainment venues. The November 25, 1920 issue was a special edition devoted to profiling Bogalusa’s leading businessmen and civic leaders. It also contains many photographs of the town.

Publication of the Bogalusa Enterprise and American continued until 1954.

Bossier Parish

The Bossier Banner was a four-page weekly newspaper founded in Bellevue, Louisiana, in 1859 by William Henry Scanland (1842-1916). Born in Mississippi and orphaned at a young age, Scanland, along with his brother John, went to work for the Caddo Gazette [LCCN: sn83016488] in Shreveport, Louisiana, at the age of 11. In 1858, the Scanland brothers briefly published the Caddo Gazette, Junior, in their free time. William Henry then worked as a compositor for the Bossier Times [LCCN: sn88064461] before taking it over in July 1859, at age 17, and reissuing it as the Bossier Banner. Except for a period of service in the Confederate army during the Civil War, he would manage it until his death in 1916.

Now unincorporated, Bellevue served as the first seat of Bossier Parish from 1843 until 1888, when the parish government, along with the Banner, moved to Benton, which, unlike Bellevue, had not been bypassed by the railroad and was better connected to Shreveport, the commercial hub of northwest Louisiana. 

As a “home” newspaper, the Banner’s content was of a miscellaneous nature, ranging from local, national, and international news, to anecdotal stories, fiction, and poetry (including some written in the Lost Cause style). Many issues consisted heavily of advertisements and announcements of tax sales. The paper frequently carried religious stories and scripture, as well as sermons by Thomas De Witt Talmage, a popular late 19th-century American preacher. The discovery of oil in north Louisiana in 1908 and Bossier Parish’s subsequent transition from a cotton- to petroleum-based economy initially received little attention; the Banner did, however, carry the charters of local oil companies. The local Good Roads movement of the early 20th century was covered in some detail.

The September 27, 1900 issue of the Bossier Banner was a special souvenir edition, published as The Free State of Bossier. It contains profiles of prominent local men and a history of the parish, including a sketch of journalism.

From 1904 onward, Scanland was assisted by his son Abney Downs Scanland (1876-1950), who took over the paper after his father’s death. Publication of the Banner continued until 1952, when it was consolidated with the Plain Dealing Progress [LCCN: sn88064398] to form the Bossier Banner-Progress [LCCN: sn88064083].

Caldwell Parish

Located in rural northeastern Louisiana, Caldwell Parish is divided into two distinct geographical regions by the Ouachita River. The parish’s flat eastern half, lying in the river’s floodplain, has traditionally been devoted to cotton production. The western half, in contrast, is hilly and densely forested; intensive logging operations began there around 1900. In the nineteenth century, Caldwell Parish was populated primarily by subsistence-level white farmers. Lacking a large class of slaveholding planters, it was one of the few parishes in Louisiana that did not support southern secession in 1861. The parish seat is Columbia.

In November 1885, A. B. Hundley and J. O. Williams purchased the Columbia Herald from Charles Smith, brother of its former owner, the late John A. Smith, a native of London, England. The paper was renamed the Caldwell Watchman. By 1894, Samuel D. S. Walker was editing thefour-page weekly. Later editors included Samuel Pearce Walker, H. A. Turner, H. C. Baker, W. P. Watson and Roy M. Hundley. Reporting covered both local and national news. Proceedings of the town council and parish school board, the minutes of the police jury (the governing body of the parish), and reports on other official bodies such as the parish levee board were combined with personal briefs, news of entertainment venues, and announcements of public sales. In addition to supporting the Good Roads movement, the paper endorsed a “Clean up Columbia” campaign. Agricultural reporting was progressive and included a regular column on the activities of the Farmers’ Education and Co-Operative Union of America. A garden and household tips section appealed to housewives, while young readers found a weekly Sunday School lesson and serialized fiction. The Watchman strongly supported the temperance movement and reported on the social effects of Caldwell Parish being declared “dry” in 1905, fourteen years before the beginning of nationwide prohibition in 1919.

Although it was nominally a Democratic newspaper, proprietor Samuel P. Walker stated in 1915 that the Watchman would continue its policy of remaining neutral in local politics. This changed after Roy Hundley bought complete control of the paper in 1917, whereupon it became outspokenly Democratic. Publication continued under various owners until 1946, when the Watchman was reorganized under new management as the Caldwell Watchman and Progress.

Orleans Parish

The Carrollton Sun was the official journal of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. Extending from the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain to the former resort community of Grand Isle on the Gulf of Mexico, Jefferson Parish now contains some of New Orleans’ largest suburbs. In the nineteenth century, however, it consisted mostly of sugar plantations and unsettled coastal marsh. Carrollton, the parish’s former seat, was laid out in 1833 at a bend in the Mississippi River a few miles west of New Orleans. Its ethnic makeup was predominantly Anglo-American, Irish, and German. In 1874, Carrollton was annexed by Orleans Parish and is now part of the affluent neighborhood known as Uptown New Orleans.

The editor of the Sun was M. G. Davis (1800-1865). A native of Philadelphia, Davis worked as a manager at the New Orleans Picayune in the early 1840s. In 1845, he left the Picayune and co-founded the Daily Delta, a Democratic newspaper, with other members of the Picayune staff. Following a factional dispute in 1849, the Daily Delta split into two new papers. One of these, the Daily True Delta, Davis published until 1853 in partnership with John Maginnis. By about 1858, Davis had moved to Jefferson Parish and begun publishing the Sun. Its earliest extant issue (vol. 3, no. 2) is dated June 30, 1860.

Published twice a week under the motto “The ‘Sun’ Shines for All,” the first page of the four-page paper was usually devoted to fiction, poetry, and miscellaneous world news. Interior pages contained state and local briefs, reports from throughout the South (with a focus on the neighboring states of Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi), proceedings of the town council and police jury (the governing body of the parish, akin to county councils in other states), city and parish ordinances, and announcements of sheriff’s sales and public auctions. The Sun offered a small amount of commentary on slavery and abolition, and its commercial section occasionally carried notices for runaway slaves.

Davis initially opposed secession and favored compromise on the issue of slavery, supporting pro-Union Democrat Stephen Douglas in the election of 1860. The Federal attack on Fort Sumter appears to have altered Davis’ views, and by the spring of 1861, he had come out in full support of secession and was using the Sun to call attention to the need for large-scale military enlistment and improved defenses of New Orleans and the Mississippi River.

The last extant issue of the Sun was published on June 1, 1861.

Rapides Parish

The Caucasian of Alexandria, Louisiana, was founded in April 1874, one year after the infamous Colfax Massacre (or Colfax Riot) in neighboring Grant Parish, a political conflict that resulted in the death of as many as 150 African Americans. Bearing the motto “Truth Crushed to Earth Will Rise Again,” the Caucasian reported on the prosecution of the massacre’s white participants and is thought to have been the first newspaper dedicated to the White League, a Reconstruction-era paramilitary organization founded to drive Republicans out of office and intimidate black voters.

The paper’s founder, George Waters Stafford (1844-1890), was an ex-Confederate soldier and commander of the Rapides Parish paramilitary company at the Colfax Massacre. It was co-owned and edited by lawyers Wilbur Fisk Blackman (1841-1923) and Robert Persifer Hunter (1847-1917); the latter became full owner in November 1874 when Stafford was elected to the state legislature. As a campaign paper for the local White Man’s Party, the Caucasian sought to unify white voters and disenfranchise African Americans. Editorials, essays, and excerpts from political speeches repeat much of the anti-black rhetoric of the day. The paper also criticized white Republican leaders both in Louisiana and elsewhere.

Other topics of discussion included immigration and agriculture. There are numerous advertisements for local businesses, as well as occasional marriage notices and obituaries. The first page typically carried literary essays and fiction, some of which was politically or racially charged, such as “The Origin of Man,” a satire on the theories of Charles Darwin, set in the jungles of Africa.

The Caucasian ceased publication in March 1875.

Caddo Parish

Considered the “second city” of Louisiana until being surpassed in population by Baton Rouge in the late 20th century, Shreveport was founded on the banks of the Red River in 1836 by steamboat captain Henry Miller Shreve of Pennsylvania. The city quickly became an important cotton shipping center and staging point on the route to Texas. In the early 20th century, Shreveport gradually moved from an agricultural to an industrial economy and from a river shipping center to a railroad hub. Its population nearly doubled between 1900 and 1910. In 1911, the region’s first oil well was drilled, marking the beginning of Shreveport’s rise as an oil center.

In 1889, the Shreveport Daily Democrat [LCCN: sn88064502] was renamed and subsequently issued as the Daily Caucasian [LCCN: sn88064468] and Weekly Caucasian [LCCN: sn88064467]. The name change reflected its support for black disfranchisement and white control of Louisiana’s state government. The weekly edition also became the official state organ of white Populists. The papers’ owner was Victor Grosjean (1844-1928), a native of New Orleans and a veteran of the Civil War. Grosjean had previously worked for two Shreveport newspapers and managed the Heptasoph [LCCN: sn94058012], a New Orleans newspaper published by the Order of Heptasophs, a national fraternal benevolent association. In 1900, he issued the Caucasian for the first time as a biweekly. It changed to a triweekly in 1903 with four pages dedicated to its mid-week issues and eight to its Sunday issue. The paper was issued once again as the Daily Caucasian [LCCN: sn88064470] in April 1927, shortly after Grosjean’s retirement. Ward Delaney managed it for about a year before it was discontinued.

Designated the “Official Journal of the Parish of Caddo,” the Caucasian was devoted to the interests of Shreveport’s white population and supported the prevailing views of its time regarding black participation in government and society. It published miscellaneous international, national, and local news. A “Report of vital statistics of Shreveport” recorded marriages, births, and deaths. Because of Shreveport’s location, the paper included news items from east Texas and southern Arkansas. The Caucasian was a “home” newspaper that carried fiction, poetry, essays, children’s stories, sermons, and sports news. Fashion and housekeeping sections were included for women. Of related interest are biographical sketches and other stories about leading women from around the globe, printed in columns such as “Feminine Snapshots,” “Notable Women” by Dora Bella Denison and Marcia Willis Campbell, and “The New Woman” by New York journalist Eliza Archard Conner.

Claiborne Parish

In 1877, Adolphus McCranie (1831-1878) and James Hardyman Simmons (1832-1907) purchased William Jasper Blackburn’s Homer Iliad, a controversial north Louisiana newspaper that had spoken out against secession in 1860-61 and worked to obstruct the Confederate cause during the Civil War. Reorganizing the paper as the Claiborne Guardian, McCranie and Simmons leased it to Benjamin D. Harrison (1824-1889), founder in 1851 of Claiborne Parish’s first newspaper, the Claiborne Advocate. Drayton B. Hayes (ca. 1848-1885), a lawyer, served as Harrison’s editor from 1877 to 1882, when he was succeeded by attorney John Edwin Hulse (1854-1908). The paper was sold to D. W. Harris in 1886. In October 1888, it was renamed the Homer Guardian upon coming under the ownership and editorship of Charles W. Seals (1861-1929) and John R. Phipps (ca. 1849-1916).

Founded in the wake of the highly contentious presidential election of 1876, the Claiborne Guardian was a Democratic newspaper that covered many of the leading political issues of the post-Reconstruction era. Immigration to north Louisiana was a frequent topic of discussion, as was migration out of the region, particularly the so-called Exodus of 1879, in which large numbers of African Americans left Louisiana in search of a better life in Kansas. Other subjects discussed included the construction of roads and railroads, the organization of farmers’ unions, and the need to diversify agriculture (in the 1870s cotton was still Claiborne Parish’s chief industry, but lumbering and timber processing was becoming increasingly important). Reports on the advancement of rural education were combined with news on the activities of two local educational institutions, Homer Male College and Homer Female College, founded separately in the 1850s and combined into a single college in 1885. Also available is news of churches, clubs, and societies, and brief reports from small towns throughout Claiborne Parish, including Haynesville, Lisbon, Dykesville, Langston, and Arizona (site of a large cotton factory). News from south Arkansas and northeast Texas was occasionally reported as well. As the official organ of Claiborne Parish, the Claiborne Guardian published the minutes of the parish police jury, the governing body of the parish. It also carried the proceedings of the Homer town council.

Associate editor Oscar P. Ogilvie (1864-1927) purchased John Phipps’ share of the business in 1889 and became full owner in June 1890, whereupon he consolidated the paper with the late Benjamin Harrison’s Louisiana Weekly Journal to form the Guardian-Journal.

Grant Parish

In 1876, the Colfax Chronicle was established as a four-page, independent weekly, serving as the official journal of Grant Parish, Louisiana. Divided from neighboring parishes in 1869 to give Radical Republicans greater power in the state legislature, Grant Parish and its seat, Colfax, were named after Republican President Ulysses S. Grant of Illinois and Vice President Schuyler Colfax of Indiana. The cotton-producing parishes of north Louisiana had been devastated economically by the Civil War. In the 1870s, economic upheaval led to political tensions both within Grant Parish and with neighboring parishes, culminating in the 1873 Colfax Massacre, one of the worst instances of Reconstruction-era political and racial violence, in which at least 125 African Americans were killed.

James M. Sweeney, the Colfax Chronicle’s first editor and proprietor, advertised the paper as “An Independent Journal, devoted to Local and General News, Literature, Science, Agriculture, etc.” Political reporting covered both the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as the repercussions of the Colfax Massacre. A weekly letter from New York reported on miscellaneous political subjects, including “Boss” Tweed and New York’s Democratic machine. Considerable space was devoted to General George Armstrong Custer and the Great Sioux War of 1876-77.

Publication was suspended in January 1877 due to a paper shortage, and from February through April, the journal was issued in two pages. Sweeney appears to have been unpopular in Colfax, and in November 1877, he sold the enterprise to Howard Garrett Goodwyn (1850-1920), a native of St. Mary Parish who had previously worked on various newspapers in Louisiana and Arkansas. Goodwyn emphasized that under his management, the Colfax Chronicle would be “a new paper with an old name.” It threw its support behind the Democratic Party, and, to emphasize its change in ownership, reset its numbering system.

Goodwyn’s reporting was progressive, especially in the twentieth century. He regularly printed articles on new farming techniques, agricultural organizations such as corn clubs, the Good Roads movement, and the activities of Louisiana reformer and one-time Populist leader Hardy L. Brian. Efforts to diversify local agriculture and move away from a strictly cotton-based economy were also discussed, together with the growth of the timber industry in Grant Parish.

Upon Goodwyn’s death in 1920, the Colfax Chronicle was taken over by his son Alfred Merrill Goodwyn (1883-1930). It remained in the Goodwyn family until 1942. In 1981, the paper was renamed the Chronicle. It is still in publication as of 2010.

Winn Parish

Approximately fifty Populist newspapers were printed in Louisiana in the 1890s. One, the Winnfield Comrade, claimed to be the first Populist newspaper in the South. Its founder was Hardy L. Brian (1865-1949), Louisiana’s most prominent People’s Party leader. Brian sold his interest in the paper in 1893, became editor of the Louisiana Populist in Natchitoches Parish, and ran unsuccessfully for office as a Populist candidate.

Brian’s successor at the Comrade was Bryant W. Bailey (1868-1961), formerly an employee of the local Farmers Union Cooperative Association. Bailey ran unsuccessfully for Congress on the People’s Party ticket in 1894, but was elected sheriff of Winn Parish in 1900. He edited the Comrade until 1907, when he sold it to William L. Smylie (b. 1844), a veteran newspaperman. Henry Clay Riser (1874-1937) and Joel T. Payne (1868-1919) purchased the Comrade in 1914 and reorganized it as the Winnfield Times.

Winnfield, the seat of Winn Parish in rural north-central Louisiana, is located in the middle of what was once one of the largest pine forests in the United States. The golden years of the timber trade there were 1903 to 1915, a period triggered by the arrival of the Arkansas Southern Railroad in 1901, the Louisiana & Arkansas Railroad in 1902, and the Tremont & Gulf Railway in 1904. The parish’s population doubled during this period, reaching its historic high around 1910. Cotton, salt mining, and limestone quarrying were other important local industries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Politically, Winnfield is significant as the birthplace of Huey P. Long and Oscar Kelly “O. K.” Allen, an important figure in Long’s political machine. 

Although few copies of the Comrade have survived from the 1890s, the paper appears to have focused chiefly on politics in this decade. Following the demise of the People’s Party in 1908, the Socialist Party attracted a large following in Winn Parish and sympathetic coverage in the Comrade, which devoted much space to farm and labor news. The eight-page weekly’s local and personal column reported news briefs from Winnfield and surrounding towns. As the official journal of Winn Parish, it also printed the proceedings of the police jury (the governing body of the parish) as well as ordinances and petitions. Editor William Smylie was an advocate of the Good Roads movement and frequently reported on civic improvements. Also reported were the activities of local clubs and organizations, including literary societies, sports teams, and the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. A column entitled “The Kitchen Cabinet” targeted housewives, while fiction and a weekly Sunday School lesson were included for young readers.

Concordia Parish

Founded in 1873 under the motto “Equal Rights to All Men,” the Concordia Eagle was a four-page Republican weekly published in Vidalia, Louisiana, a small agricultural community located on the west bank of the Mississippi River, opposite Natchez, Mississippi. The paper’s founder was a black state legislator and political boss, David Young (b. 1836). Born in Kentucky, Young was captured as a runaway slave and eventually taken to Louisiana, where, after the Civil War, he became a prosperous farmer, businessman, minister, and officeholder. Although accused of political corruption, as editor of the Concordia Eagle (the official journal of Concordia Parish) he supported various civic projects, including the improvement of the Mississippi River. During the so-called Exodus of 1879, in which thousands of former slaves left north Louisiana in search of greater economic opportunities and more social freedom in Kansas, he dissuaded much of Concordia Parish’s large black population from leaving.

Young was succeeded by James Presley Ball, Jr. (1851-1923), son of a prominent black Cincinnati photographer and abolitionist. In the 1880s, Ball and his father operated a photography studio in Concordia Parish. He also served as clerk of the district court. Around 1885, Ball left Louisiana, possibly for Minneapolis, where his father is known to have owned a studio. In 1894, he edited the first black newspaper in Montana, theHelena Colored Citizen. Ball later practiced law in Honolulu and Seattle and worked for a time at the Seattle Republican, one of the most successful black newspapers of its era.

In 1885, the Concordia Eagle came under the editorship of Love S. Cornwell (1811-1888). Born in Kentucky and raised in Missouri, Cornwell moved to Kansas at the height of the Free Soil controversy of the 1850s, was elected to the Kansas territorial legislature in 1859, and participated in important votes on the issue of slavery. At the start of the Civil War, he was assaulted and driven out of Kansas by the famous “Jayhawker” Charles Jennison. At war’s end, he moved to Natchez, where he eventually became a prominent businessman.

Only scattered issues of the Concordia Eagle have survived. Of particular interest are reports on the devastating floods of 1882 and 1883, information on parish schools, news of elections, agricultural advice, a “ladies’ department,” and personal briefs from both Concordia Parish and Natchez. A small number of obituaries and marriage notices are available, as are minutes of the police jury, the governing body of the parish. Publication appears to have ceased in 1890.

Concordia Parish

The Concordia Sentinel was founded in 1882 in Vidalia, Louisiana, the seat of Concordia Parish in rural northeast Louisiana. Located in the agriculturally rich bottomlands of the Mississippi River, the parish was closely tied to the cotton-based economy of nearby Natchez, Mississippi, during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its population at that time was more than three-fourths African American.

Published weekly in eight pages, the Concordia Sentinel was the official journal of Concordia Parish. It reported a mix of local, national, and international news. Local reporting covered the advent of Prohibition in Louisiana, the establishment of farmers’ cooperative unions, activities of the Concordia Progressive League and district levee board, the social and economic effects of the boll weevil blight on the region, and the north Louisiana oil boom. News from the nation’s capital was highlighted in a “Washington Sidelights” column. Other columns featured short essays on miscellaneous social issues. Fiction, including condensed classics, was printed for readers of all ages, while a fashion column appealed to women.

The Concordia Sentinel’s founder was Josiah L. Rountree, patriarch of a family of north Louisiana newspaper publishers. Upon returning from World War I, Rountree’s son Percy Rountree, Sr., took over as manager and editor. In 1966, Percy Rountree, Jr., sold the paper to Sam Hanna, a well-known local journalist, who moved its operations from Vidalia to the neighboring town of Ferriday. It is still in publication as of 2010.

Rapides Parish

Owned by Benjamin Turner (1839-1916) and edited by Turner’s brother-in-law Charles W. Boyce (1827-1871), the Constitutional was a campaign newspaper founded in August 1860 to support the Constitutional Union Party and its presidential and vice presidential candidates, John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. It was published in Alexandria, the seat of Rapides Parish, an important cotton- and timber-producing parish in central Louisiana.

As publisher of the Red River American from 1857 to 1860, Boyce had opposed southern secession. He spoke out even more strongly in the Constitutional, attacking prominent secessionists, including Louisiana Senator John Slidell. The paper also criticized abolitionists, despite the fact that a biographical sketch of Boyce written in 1914 claimed that he “was a great admirer of Lincoln, and was always a staunch republican.”

In the months leading up to the 1860 election, the weekly four-page paper, which was published under the motto “The Union--Esto Perpetua” (“May It Endure Forever”), carried speeches of Bell and Everett and their Democratic opponents John C. Breckinridge and Joseph Lane. In addition to reporting on political rallies and Unionist activity in Louisiana, the Constitutional documented southern responses to Lincoln’s election and South Carolina’s subsequent withdrawal from the Union.

Alexandria initially showed little enthusiasm for secession, but despite the Constitutional’s efforts, the majority of the city’s voters ultimately supported Breckinridge. Following Louisiana’s own secession in January 1861, the paper dropped its “May It Endure Forever” motto and, while continuing to hope for reconciliation, reluctantly supported the state’s new government. The Federal response to the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861 brought about a marked change in editorial tone. From then on, Lincoln was portrayed as an aggressor. Calls for military enlistment in defense of the South also appeared at this time.

Advertised as a “family newspaper,” the Constitutional carried a small amount of news unrelated to the election of 1860. An agricultural column and “Ladies’ Department” were printed alongside marriage notices, obituaries, advertisements, and the proceedings of the Rapides Parish police jury (the governing body of the parish). The Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy (now Louisiana State University) was located at Pineville, near Alexandria, from 1860 to 1869. The Constitutional occasionally printed news of the school and its first superintendent, William Tecumseh Sherman.

Publication of the paper appears to have ceased in June 1861. Benjamin Turner raised an infantry regiment and served extensively throughout the war with the Confederate Army. After the Civil War, Charles Boyce served as pro tempore president of the Louisiana state senate under the administration of Republican governor James Madison Wells of Alexandria. In November 1868, he was beaten by a mob when he announced he had voted for Ulysses S. Grant (two days earlier the same mob had destroyed the press and stoned the editor of the Rapides Tribune, a Republican newspaper).

East Baton Rouge Parish

Founded as a French trading post in the early 18th century, Baton Rouge was part of the British and later Spanish colony of West Florida from 1763 until 1810, when, as part of the short-lived Republic of West Florida, it was annexed by the United States. In the 19th century, the town developed into the main commercial center on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Natchez, Mississippi. Surrounded at that time by sugar and cotton plantations, Baton Rouge became the state capital in 1846 through the influence of rural planters desiring a more central location, even though its population was then less than 3,000, many times smaller than the state’s former capital, New Orleans.

Issued in daily and weekly editions, the Comet was one of Baton Rouge’s leading newspapers prior to 1856, when it merged with its competitor, the Baton-Rouge Gazette [LCCN: sn82003383], to form the Daily [LCCN: sn88083120] and Weekly Gazette and Comet [LCCN: sn85038555]. George A. Pike, brother of prominent Baton Rouge landowner and businessman William S. Pike, founded the Daily Comet in 1850. It and its successor the Morning Comet were published Tuesday through Saturday in four pages and consisted primarily of advertisements that serve as a record of Baton Rouge’s commercial life during the antebellum period. The Weekly Comet, issued on Sundays, was ad-free and offered editorial viewpoints on various political, social, and commercial topics, as well as a wide selection of essays, literature, and poetry. By the mid 1850s, Pike was promoting the anti-Catholic, nativist Know Nothing Party. In the growing sectional crisis between North and South, he opposed calls for secession. Other content included news of the Louisiana state legislature and state elections, reports on miscellaneous topics from around the world, and marriage notices and obituaries.

Orleans Parish

The Daily Crescent, established in May 1848, took its title from New Orleans’s nickname, the Crescent City. Founders Alexander H. Hayes and J. E. “Sam” McClure had formerly worked for the New Orleans Daily Delta [LCCN: sn82015774], one of the South’s leading journals.

The Crescent is best remembered today for its association with co-editors Walt Whitman and William Walker. Whitman, not yet known as a poet, lost his position at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Kings County Democrat [LCCN: sn83031149] on account of his opposition to the expansion of slavery. He then moved to New Orleans, which despite its notoriety as a slave market, appealed to Whitman. Hayes and McClure may have hired him to build connections with the Northeastern journalistic establishment. In addition to compiling news from other papers, Whitman wrote original articles and poetry, including “The Mississippi at Midnight” (May 6, 1848) and a series of New Orleans impressions, “Sketches of the Sidewalks and Levees.” Whitman resigned from the Crescent just a few weeks after the paper began publication for reasons that are unclear, though possibly related to his antislavery views or a disagreement over money.

Another famous writer for the Crescent was William Walker. Born in Tennessee and educated as a medical doctor in the United States and Europe, Walker was a nephew of John Norvell, co-founder of the Pennsylvania Inquirer [LCCN: sn86079113], which later became the Philadelphia Inquirer [LCCN: sn86081050]. During his time at the Crescent, Walker wrote relatively liberal editorials, opposing the expansion of slavery and supporting women’s rights. He also commented on the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe. Walker left the Crescent after a short time and went to San Francisco with the Gold Rush to work as a journalist. There, his views on slavery and American territorial expansion changed dramatically. In the mid 1850s, backed for a time by business tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, Walker led several filibustering expeditions to Mexico and Central America in an attempt to establish an independent, slaveholding empire. Walker was executed for his actions by the Honduran government in 1860.

Published daily in four pages, the Crescent carried local, national, and international news of a miscellaneous nature. It claimed to be independent of political parties, but its editors were outspoken in their personal views. Though the Crescent would eventually become strongly proslavery, in the 1840s its discussions of slavery were moderate. Commentary on the recent Mexican-American War was printed, along with regular news from Mexico, Cuba, and other parts of Latin America, with which New Orleans carried on a busy trade in the 19th century. Other content included reports on New Orleans’s entertainment scene, from the opera and theater to horse races and social clubs; advertisements for local businesses and institutions; shipping news; financial reports; and fiction, poetry, and general-interest essays.

Published concurrently with the Weekly Crescent [LCCN: sn86079008], the Daily Crescent was acquired in 1850 by John Wesley Crockett, a son of Davy Crockett, and reorganized in 1851 as the New Orleans Daily Crescent [LCCN: sn82015753].

East Baton Rouge Parish

In December 1856, George A. Pike’s Morning Comet and George C. McWhorter’s Baton Rouge Daily Gazette were consolidated to form the Daily Gazette and Comet, which Pike edited with Rev. William H. Crenshaw. The brother of prominent Baton Rouge landowner and businessman William S. Pike, George Pike had been an outspoken member of the anti-Catholic, nativist Know-Nothing Party, which he promoted as editor of the Morning Comet and its predecessor the Daily Comet. By 1856, the party had split over the issue of slavery, whereupon Pike, now editor of the Daily Gazette and Comet, shifted his focus to the growing sectional crisis between North and South.

Pike opposed southern secession and called for compromise on the issue of slavery. In the presidential election of 1860, he supported Constitutional Union Party candidate John Bell of Tennessee and his running mate Edward Everett of Massachusetts. However, he also spoke favorably of pro-Union Democrat Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. Louisiana secessionists whom Pike criticized included Senator John Slidell and Governor Thomas Overton Moore. In the months leading up to the election, the Daily Gazette and Comet reported on the activities of Unionists in and around Baton Rouge and on meetings of Bell and Douglas clubs. (The city ultimately cast the majority of its votes for Bell.) After the election, the paper reported local and regional responses to Lincoln’s victory. Pike himself disagreed with Republican ideology in regard to slavery but considered Lincoln to have been fairly elected and encouraged southerners to adopt a “wait and see” attitude.

Published Tuesday through Saturday in four pages, the Daily Gazette and Comet consisted primarily of advertisements and thus helps document Baton Rouge’s commercial life on the eve of the Civil War. Although the city’s population was then only about 5,500, it was one of the most important shipping centers on the lower Mississippi River and had served as Louisiana’s capital of for eleven years. In addition to business news, Pike reported on sessions of the state legislature. Also of interest is news related to other local institutions, including the Louisiana Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind and the newly founded Louisiana Historical Society, which Pike served as secretary.

Publication of the Daily Gazette and Comet was suspended for about two months during the Civil War and appears to have ceased entirely by war’s end in favor of a weekly edition with which it had been published concurrently since 1856.

Ouachita Parish

On September 18, 1865, George William McCranie (1838-1895), a former Confederate army captain, published the first issue of the Weekly Telegraph in Monroe, Louisiana. Located along the Ouachita River in the fertile farm country of northeast Louisiana, Monroe (the seat of Ouachita Parish) was then in a period of growth following its connection to Vicksburg, Mississippi, a key cotton port, by rail in 1855, and then to Shreveport and areas farther west in 1860. Cotton and timber formed the basis of the local economy.

McCranie expanded the Weekly Telegraph from two pages to four in December 1865 and changed its title to the Ouachita Telegraph. Publication of an additional four-page daily version, the Daily Telegraph, commenced in 1870. As Democratic newspapers, the Ouachita Telegraph and Daily Telegraph opposed Radical Republican rule and the empowerment of black voters in Louisiana. In the months leading up to the presidential election of 1868, McCranie published a series of original cartoons in the Ouachita Telegraph ridiculing presidential candidate Ulysses S. Grant, Republican officeholders, and their supporters, especially African Americans. He frequently spoke out against the most prominent Republican newspaper in north Louisiana, William Jasper Blackburn’s Homer Iliad. In July 1868, McCranie announced that he would publish a Democratic campaign paper, the Bastrop Saxon, in neighboring Morehouse Parish. He then briefly turned over editorship of the Ouachita Telegraph to Samuel D. McEnery (1837-1910), a Catholic and future governor of Louisiana, while McCranie assisted with the Democratic campaign. McCranie was also on close terms with and often published articles about S. D. McEnery’s brother John McEnery, a controversial Reconstruction-era politician.

Although the Ouachita Telegraph and Daily Telegraph were primarily concerned with politics, other topics reported included immigration to north Louisiana and Texas, the cotton trade, railroads, bridge construction, river improvements, and the growth of local schools and academies. McCranie viewed the temperance movement with skepticism, but he faithfully reported developments in this field, both local and national. The Ouachita Telegraph contained many articles related to former Confederate soldiers and political leaders. It also reported at some length on the so-called Exodus of 1879, in which large numbers of African Americans left Louisiana in search of a better life in Kansas. Coverage of religious issues related mostly to the Baptist church, though McCranie occasionally reported the activities of other denominations, including Monroe’s small Jewish community, some members of which advertised heavily in his newspapers.

McCranie served as the first president of the Louisiana Press Association when it was founded in 1880. In July 1886, Charles Henry Trousdale (1858-1921) succeeded McCranie as editor of the Ouachita Telegraph and terminated publication of the Daily Telegraph. Trousdale expanded the paper’s fiction and “society” sections and began publishing more articles on agricultural and household topics. In matters of politics, Trousdale largely maintained McCranie’s racist views. The last issue of the Ouachita Telegraph was published on December 28, 1889, after which it was consolidated with the Monroe Bulletin to form the Telegraph-Bulletin.

Ascension Parish

The area around Donaldsonville, Louisiana, was settled between the 1760s and 1790s by French Acadians and Spanish Isleños (Canary Islanders). Planning of the town itself began around 1806, and it briefly served as the capital of Louisiana in 1830-31. Located along the Mississippi River at the heart of Louisiana’s sugar-growing district, much of Donaldsonville was destroyed by the Union navy during the Civil War. Although sugar continues to be an important part of the local economy, today the area is mainly known for its petrochemical industry.

The Donaldsonville Chief was founded in 1871 by Linden E. Bentley (1852-1944). Born in Ohio, Bentley came to Louisiana with his father, a surgeon in the Union army. After the Civil War, the family settled near Donaldsonville. In 1868, at the age of 16, Bentley and a brother published the short-lived St. Landry Progress in Opelousas. He also cofounded the St. James Sentinel at Convent in 1871 before moving to nearby Donaldsonville, the seat of Ascension Parish, later that year and founding the Donaldsonville Chief.Bentley was assisted in editing the paper by his wife, Ella Donnaud Bentley (1858-1900), with whom he founded the Louisiana Press Association in 1880. She served as its first vice president and was one of the state’s most respected literary women. The couple’s daughter, Ella Bentley (1881-1959), who would later marry Stanley Clisby Arthur, a well-known writer on Louisiana history and culture, also contributed to the paper’s management, as did their son, Granville Donnaud Bentley (1882-1966). He sold the paper in 1919 to James Von Lotten and went to work for the Texas Oil Company, eventually becoming general manager of its South American operations.

Founded as a Republican newspaper under the motto “Amicus Humani Generis” (“A Friend of the Human Race”), the Donaldsonville Chief supported federal Reconstruction policy in Louisiana. In the presidential election of 1872, however, Bentley endorsed fellow newspaper publisher Horace Greeley of the Liberal Republican Party, which opposed the reelection of Ulysses S. Grant and sought to end the Radical Republican agenda. In the 1870s, the paper was chiefly political in tone. Other topics of reporting included public education and the construction of railroads and levees. Regular letters from New York, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans reported on events in those cities.

Sports reporting began in the 1880s. At the same time, biographical profiles of national and world figures began to appear on the paper’s front page. Originally published as a four-page weekly, the Chief expanded to eight pages in the early 1900s when it started carrying fiction, cartoons, a farm and garden column, stories for women, and district court news. It was also around this time that a “Sugar Squibs” column began carrying news of interest to local sugar planters. Beginning in 1903, the paper reported on the damming of Bayou Lafourche, an outlet of the Mississippi River which up to that time had served as an important transportation artery for much of southeast Louisiana. Designed to control flooding, the project had unintended consequences for local water quality.

During World War I, the Chief reverted to four pages. It reported at length on Louisiana’s involvement in the war, carrying a regular “Red Cross Notes” column, and recording wartime paranoia (the article “No Masking on Mardi Gras,” for example, hinted at fears of espionage and intrigue). Other items of interest during this time period include charters of local businesses, “letters from the people,” and front-page announcements of “photoplays” (silent films).

The Donaldsonville Chief is still in publication as of 2012.

Washington Parish

In 1910, the Era-Leader of Franklinton, Louisiana, was formed by the merger of the Washington Leader and the New Era (the first newspaper in the parish, founded in 1887 as the Franklinton New Era). The Era-Leader’s editor was J. Valentine “Vol” Brock (1873-1954), a native of Mississippi who, with Prentiss B. Carter, had edited the short-lived Washington Progress around 1900.

Prior to World War I, Brock reported almost entirely local news. In addition to news from Franklinton (the seat of Washington Parish, an agricultural and timber-producing parish in southeastern Louisiana), the four-page weekly carried regular reports from nearby towns, including Bogalusa, the largest town in the parish and the operations center of one of its largest employers, the Great Southern Lumber Company. Farm and forestry news was combined with personal notices, biographies of political candidates, announcements of public sales, and proceedings of the local school board, court, and police jury (the governing body of the parish).

In 1912, Brock, a lawyer, was elected district attorney for Washington and St. Tammany Parishes and turned over the editorship of the Era-Leader to his wife, Henrietta “Henri” McClendon Brock (1873-1948), who edited the paper for the next twenty-five years. A graduate of Whitworth College in Brookhaven, Mississippi, Mrs. Brock was an educational leader in Washington Parish for many years. In 1916, she was elected the first woman president of the Louisiana Press Association, an honor recognized by one journal as “a milestone in the progress of women in the State.”

The Era-Leader is a rich source of information on the impact of World War I on southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi. Many articles trace the war’s impact on local agriculture and forestry.

Also of interest are articles on military enlistment (including enlistment of African American troops), rationing, efforts to reduce waste, and a series of six “war talks” by “Uncle Dan” (Howard H. Gross of the Universal Military Training League). Reporting on the Red Cross was in depth and continued after the war, focusing on its campaign to eradicate tuberculosis.   

The Franklinton Era-Leader was the official journal of Washington Parish, a role it continues to fill in 2010.

East Feliciana Parish

Located about 30 miles north of Baton Rouge, the town of Clinton, Louisiana, was founded in 1824 and named after New York governor DeWitt Clinton. It is the seat of East Feliciana Parish, a rural, farming parish that was settled in the late 18th century as part of the colony of British West Florida and then governed by Spain (1783-1810). In the early 19th century, the region attracted predominantly Anglo-American settlers and was one of the few areas in south Louisiana where French culture never took root. Its economy was based on cotton in the antebellum period, and Clinton developed into a commercial and legal center of some note at that time. The parish was the site of two important early educational institutions: Centenary College in Jackson, which in 1845 took over the campus of the defunct College of Louisiana, and Clinton’s Silliman Collegiate Institute, a girls’ school, founded in 1852.

Published at the height of the sectional crisis of the 1850s, the Feliciana Democrat was owned and edited by George Wilson Reese (b. 1817), a native of Pennsylvania. Bearing the motto “The Constitution—State Rights,” it supported the Democratic Party and spoke out strongly against Know-Nothings and abolitionists. In the presidential campaign of 1856, the paper endorsed Stephen A. Douglas but threw its support behind James Buchanan when he received the Democratic nomination. Douglas, however, continued to be a popular subject of discussion. Other topics reported included the Kansas-Nebraska controversy and the Dred Scott decision. In 1858-59, Reese ran a series of editorials in support of slavery and the slave trade.

Initially published twice a week, the four-page paper soon became a weekly. Although chiefly of interest for political commentary, it contains advertisements of local businesses, a small number of obituaries and marriage notices, and occasional news items related to Centenary College and the Silliman Collegiate Institute. In 1865, the Feliciana Democrat was renamed the East Feliciana Democrat and as such was published until 1872, when it was consolidated with the East Feliciana Patriot to form the Semi-Weekly Patriot-Democrat.

West Feliciana Parish

The West Feliciana Sentinel, a four-page Democratic weekly that was published as the Feliciana Sentinel beginning in 1877, was established in 1876 as the official journal of West Feliciana Parish and the towns of St. Francisville and Bayou Sara. Located on the Mississippi River between Natchez and New Orleans, these towns were an important cotton shipping center for one of the wealthiest plantation districts in the nineteenth-century South. Settled in the late eighteenth century as part of the colony of British West Florida and then governed by Spain (1783-1810), West Feliciana Parish attracted predominantly American settlers in the early nineteenth century and lacked the strong French cultural influence found in neighboring parishes. The second Protestant church in Louisiana, Grace Episcopal, was founded in St. Francisville in 1827 and became one of the more prominent Episcopal churches in the state. 

Except for the years 1884 to 1887, when the Feliciana Sentinel was edited by the attorney Hunter C. Leake (1859-1946), the paper’s founders, George Wilson Reese (b. 1817) and John Dawson Austen (1840-1892), took turns serving as its editor. Reese, a native of Pennsylvania, also edited the East Feliciana Democrat in Clinton, Louisiana. Austen, a Catholic, moved with his family from Philadelphia to St. Francisville as a child. Educated by the Jesuits in St. Louis, he worked as a telegrapher before going into partnership with Reese.

Discussions of Reconstruction-era politics are the focus of the Feliciana Sentinel’s early issues. Of particular local interest were the activities of three prominent carpetbaggers and Republican officeholders, James E. Anderson and brothers Don and Emile Weber. In 1876, they manipulated local election returns to give Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes a majority over Democrat Samuel Tilden. The fraud was discovered and reported in the Feliciana Sentinel, causing such outrage that upon returning to St. Francisville in 1877, Don Weber was shot dead in the middle of the street by a band of assassins.

Declining political tensions following the end of Reconstruction led the Feliciana Sentinel to devote an increasingly large amount of space to topics other than politics. Recognizing the local significance of agriculture and popularity of gardening, the paper carried regular columns on these subjects. Fiction, poetry, and “literary notes” were another major focus. Sensationalist reporting on current events was mixed with substantive commentary on subjects such as temperance reform, sanitation, the improvement of Mississippi River navigation, and the impact of railroads on river traffic and the local economy.

The paper was rich in advertisements, especially for imported luxury goods. Advertisements placed by St. Francisville and Bayou Sara’s small but significant community of Jewish merchants are of interest, as is news of public auctions and sales, traveling circuses and other entertainments, local organizations and clubs, and the West Feliciana police jury, the governing body of the parish. The Feliciana Sentinel carried a small number of obituaries and marriage notices, as well as news from neighboring towns and parishes. In 1884, it became the official organ of the parish school board.

Publication of the Feliciana Sentinel ceased in December 1892 following the sudden death of its editor, John Dawson Austen.

Iberville Parish

The Gazette and Sentinel of Plaquemine, Louisiana, was formed in 1858 by the merger of the Southern Sentinel and the Iberville Gazette. It was owned and edited by William P. Bradburn (ca. 1815-1864) and Joseph H. Balch (1822-1869).

Bradburn, a native of Tennessee, began his newspaper career as an apprentice at the National Banner and Nashville Daily Advertiser. He ran away from this position in 1832, eventually joining the navy. In 1842, he purchased the Ibervillian from John Dutton in Iberville Parish, Louisiana, a wealthy parish known for its sugar plantations. By the terms of the sale, Bradburn was required to supply present subscribers until 1848. In 1844, having unsuccessfully attempted to claim the Mexican estate of his late uncle Juan Davis Bradburn (a general in the Mexican army), Bradburn began publishing the La Grange Intelligencer in what was then the Republic of Texas. Three years later, he returned to Louisiana and edited several New Orleans newspapers before settling permanently in Iberville Parish, where he became the managing editor of the Southern Sentinel in 1848.

Joseph Balch was born in Lancaster, New Hampshire, and came to Louisiana around 1845 as a teacher. In 1852 he founded the Iberville Gazette with Peter Elmore Jennings (b. ca. 1823), a New Yorker who served as mayor and postmaster of Plaquemine. Jennings replaced Balch at the Gazette and Sentinel in 1859 but sold his share of the business in August 1860. Bradburn, Balch, and Jennings were all Catholics. In 1860, Bradburn owned four slaves, Balch five.

Slavery was the Gazette and Sentinel’s most frequent topic of debate. Early issues discuss the Kansas-Nebraska Act, popular sovereignty, and the activities of southern filibusters in Central America. The paper’s editors strongly opposed Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, calling him a “traitor” who was “playing into the hands of abolitionists.” There are a few reports on the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. Notices for runaway slaves accompany discussions of slaves as property and calls for imposing restrictions on free people of color. In the election year of 1860, the paper supported secession and endorsed Democratic presidential candidate John C. Breckinridge, who carried Iberville Parish in the fall election. Frequent supplements featured speeches and sketches of Democratic candidates, news of public meetings, and miscellaneous articles on slavery and secession, including articles on those subjects by religious writers. Post-secession issues report on the formation of the Confederate government, the mobilization of southern military forces, and news of early battles of the Civil War. Other issues discussed include education, the construction of roads and levees, and news related to Louisiana’s sugar industry.

The Gazette and Sentinel was published weekly in four pages and semiweekly from May 15 to June 8, 1861. It is not certain when publication ceased, although it may have been at the time of Bradburn’s death in July 1864.

Orleans Parish

The Herald was founded in 1893 as the Algiers Herald by Harry L. Sease (1857-1904), a former steamboat clerk and railroad telegrapher. Upon Sease’s death, ownership of the paper passed to his son-in-law and fellow New Albany, Indiana native Charles Victor Kraft (1871-1949).

Published on Thursdays in eight to fourteen pages, the Herald served Algiers, a neighborhood of New Orleans located on west bank of the Mississippi River opposite the French Quarter and central business district. In the late nineteenth century Algiers became known for its railroad yards and shipbuilding facilities. Since 1901 it has been the site of a U.S. Naval base.

Stating in its masthead that it was “Devoted to the Upbuilding of the West Side of the River,” the Herald frequently reported on civic improvements. In the 1910s, charters of Algiers businesses were printed in each issue, often taking up two or more full pages. By the 1920s, a page entitled “Of Interest to Labor” had appeared.
In addition to society news and news of clubs and churches, the paper reported at length on the local entertainment scene. Particular attention was given to the New Orleans theater, with most issues devoting an entire page to the programs of the Tulane, Crescent and Orpheum theaters. Around 1920, reporting was expanded to include silent movies. Kraft held a medical degree from the Kentucky School of Medicine in Louisville and occasionally offered advice on medical and sanitary issues, including the 1918 influenza epidemic. Also of interest is a “Woman’s World” column, reports on American aid to Europe during World War I, and coverage of the great New Orleans hurricane of 1915. 

The Herald came under new ownership in 1953 and was renamed the West Bank Herald. It appears to have ceased publication around 1960.

Union Parish

Farmerville is the seat of Union Parish, Louisiana, a rural, agricultural parish that forms part of the state’s northern border with Arkansas. Founded in 1839, the parish had grown in population to about 15,000 by 1885, when the Home Advocate was founded by Thomas Charles Lewis (1838-1900). A well-known lawyer and judge, Lewis had formerly edited the Union Record [LCCN: sn85034337]. Around 1879, a political dispute with a rival editor, the northern-born judge James Etherington Trimble of the Farmerville Gazette [LCCN: sn88064076], became so heated that Lewis feared for his life. He left the parish, not returning until 1884, when he purchased the printing equipment of the North Louisiana Appeal and began publishing a new paper, the Home Advocate. The feud with Trimble was soon reignited and only ended when Trimble and Lewis’s friend James Ramsey, an attorney, killed each other in a duel in 1887.

In addition to expressing Lewis’s Democratic political views and promoting the development of Union Parish, the Home Advocate, a four-page weekly, typically carried domestic and agricultural advice, fiction, essays, news of fraternal organizations, school notices, and advertisements for local businessmen, many of whom were Jewish. Letters to the editor range in topic from state politics to prohibition of alcohol.

The last extant issue of the Home Advocate dates from June 1887, but publication is thought to have continued until 1890, when Lewis moved to Ruston to assist his son Savory Lewis with the publication of a newspaper there.

Claiborne Parish

In 1877, Adolphus McCranie (1831-1878) and James Hardyman Simmons (1832-1907) purchased William Jasper Blackburn’s Homer Iliad, a controversial north Louisiana newspaper that had spoken out against secession in 1860-61 and worked to obstruct the Confederate cause during the Civil War. Reorganizing the paper as the Claiborne Guardian, McCranie and Simmons leased it to Benjamin D. Harrison (1824-1889), founder in 1851 of Claiborne Parish’s first newspaper, the Claiborne Advocate. Drayton B. Hayes (ca. 1848-1885), a lawyer, served as Harrison’s editor from 1877 to 1882, when he was succeeded by attorney John Edwin Hulse (1854-1908). The paper was sold to D. W. Harris in 1886. In October 1888, it was renamed the Homer Guardian upon coming under the ownership and editorship of Charles W. Seals (1861-1929) and John R. Phipps (ca. 1849-1916).

Founded in the wake of the highly contentious presidential election of 1876, the Claiborne Guardian was a Democratic newspaper that covered many of the leading political issues of the post-Reconstruction era. Immigration to north Louisiana was a frequent topic of discussion, as was migration out of the region, particularly the so-called Exodus of 1879, in which large numbers of African Americans left Louisiana in search of a better life in Kansas. Other subjects discussed included the construction of roads and railroads, the organization of farmers’ unions, and the need to diversify agriculture (in the 1870s cotton was still Claiborne Parish’s chief industry, but lumbering and timber processing was becoming increasingly important). Reports on the advancement of rural education were combined with news on the activities of two local educational institutions, Homer Male College and Homer Female College, founded separately in the 1850s and combined into a single college in 1885. Also available is news of churches, clubs, and societies, and brief reports from small towns throughout Claiborne Parish, including Haynesville, Lisbon, Dykesville, Langston, and Arizona (site of a large cotton factory). News from south Arkansas and northeast Texas was occasionally reported as well. As the official organ of Claiborne Parish, the Claiborne Guardian published the minutes of the parish police jury, the governing body of the parish. It also carried the proceedings of the Homer town council.

Associate editor Oscar P. Ogilvie (1864-1927) purchased John Phipps’ share of the business in 1889 and became full owner in June 1890, whereupon he consolidated the paper with the late Benjamin Harrison’s Louisiana Weekly Journal to form the Guardian-Journal.

Terrebonne Parish

Houma, the seat of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, was founded in 1834 near a former settlement of the Houma Indians. The surrounding area was first settled in the mid 18th century by French and Spanish colonists and then in the early 19th century by Anglo-Americans. By the time of the Civil War, it had become a leader in the cultivation of sugar cane and was at the heart of one of the most prosperous districts in the United States.

Taking its name from the Roman goddess of agriculture, the first issue of the Houma Ceres appeared on July 19, 1855. The paper was founded by 27-year-old Eugene William Blake (1827-1890) in partnership with Jonathan Church White and Louis F. Anderson, proprietors of the Thibodaux Minerva in the neighboring town of Thibodaux. The earliest issues of the Ceres may have been printed on the Minerva’s press. Blake, a lawyer by training, announced that he would be independent in matters of politics, later adopting the motto “Independent in All Things, Neutral in None.” However, his affiliation with the Know-Nothing or American Party was apparently well known, and in 1855, the paper carried news of nativist meetings in and around Houma.

In addition to politics, editorials discussed civic improvements and the impact of the newly constructed New Orleans and Opelousas Railroad, which passed through Houma. The growing sectional crisis impacted discussions of topics such as education, with Blake advising Southern families not to send their children to school in the North, believing they would be indoctrinated “with principles at war with Southern institutions.” The Ceres also reported on slave rebellions, slavery in the western territories, and what it saw as the dangers of a free black population (see, for example, the article “Free Nigger Insolence”). Additionally, it covered some of the activities of William Walker, an American adventurer and one-time editor of the New Orleans Daily Crescent who led several private military expeditions to Central America in the 1850s in an attempt to establish an English-speaking, slaveholding empire.

The Ceres originally doubled as an agricultural newspaper and ran articles on topics such as sugar cultivation in Asia, the introduction of new plants, and the study of natural history. Announcements and minutes of planters’ meetings were also printed. Within a few years, however, agricultural reporting had dwindled.

Blake acquired full ownership of the Ceres in December 1855, but in June of the following year, he returned it to Louis F. Anderson and left the newspaper business. Two months later, Anderson reported on the famous Last Island Hurricane, which destroyed a nearby seaside resort, killing more than 200 people, including members of the plantation elite.

Few copies of the Ceres survive from after 1857. In the presidential election of 1860, it endorsed secessionist candidate John C. Breckinridge and criticized the Thibodaux Gazette, a supporter of John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party, which sought to avoid disunion over the issue of slavery. The paper also published a letter by Dr. Stephen Duncan, a prominent planter of Natchez, Mississippi, in support of Bell, followed by a letter attacking Duncan’s position written by Terrebonne Parish planter Robert Ruffin Barrow. The Ceres probably went out of publication in 1862. In May of that year, Editor Thomas Albert Woods (1833-1889) is thought to have led an ambush of Union soldiers near Houma. In retaliation, federal troops burned the Ceres office.

Terrebonne Parish

The town of Houma, Louisiana, was founded in 1834. It is the seat of Terrebonne Parish. The area’s main industry in the 19th and early 20th century was sugar. The railroad reached Houma in 1872, facilitating the transportation of sugar to New Orleans and beyond. Other major early industries included fish, shrimp, and oysters (Terrebonne Parish was once known as the “Oyster Capital of America”). Petroleum was discovered near Houma in 1917. Large-scale drilling began there in the 1920s, and today, Houma is a center of Louisiana’s oil industry.

The weekly Houma Courier was founded in 1878. Andrew F. Chanfreau edited it until 1896 and was succeeded by Easton Duval and T. B. Duval. The paper was originally issued in four pages, with two in English and two in French. By the 1880s, articles were mostly in English, with scattered French content. Politically, it supported the Democratic Party.

As a typical 19th-century “home” newspaper, the Courier carried a mix of news, general-interest essays, and fiction, largely copied from other sources, plus short local news items, advertisements, and the minutes of the parish police jury (similar to county councils in other states). After about 1910, the paper reported almost entirely local news, especially topics related to agriculture, education, politics, and entertainment. In September 1906, the Courier issued an illustrated “magazine edition” that profiled local businesses and civic leaders and gave a brief history of Terrebonne Parish.

The Houma Courier was published until 1939, when it became the Houma Daily Courier [LCCN: sn88064123].

Catahoula Parish

Harrisonburg, Louisiana, the seat of Catahoula Parish, is located about 30 miles west of the historically significant cotton port of Natchez, Mississippi. In the 1850s, when the Harrisonburg Independent was being published, Catahoula Parish had a population of about 8,000 and was much larger in area than it is today, portions of it having been carved away over the years to form new parishes; the most recent division occurred in 1908, when La Salle Parish was formed from Catahoula Parish’s western half. The area’s principal crops in the 19th century were cotton and corn, which farmers shipped to market via numerous local waterways, including the Ouachita, Tensas, Black, Red, and Little Rivers.

At present, the earliest recorded issue of the Independent dates from November 1853, when the paper was being edited by William A. Bryan. Politically neutral, Bryan printed news reports from around the world, editorials on miscellaneous topics (including the debate over slavery), advertisements, obituaries, marriage notices, and a large selection of poetry, fiction, and literary essays copied from other sources.

By October 1856, Bryan had sold the Independent to James Govan Taliaferro (1798-1876). Born into an old Virginia family, Taliaferro (pronounced Tolliver) moved with his parents to Mississippi in 1806 and then to Catahoula Parish in 1815, where they were among the first white settlers. Taliaferro was educated as a lawyer at Transylvania College in Lexington, Kentucky, and eventually became a devoted follower of Kentucky senator Henry Clay and other prominent members of the Whig Party.

Although a wealthy slave owner, Taliaferro strongly opposed secession. For the Independent, which he published with his son John Quincy Adams Taliaferro (1827-1865), he selected a motto from a speech by Cicero: “Defendi rempublicam juvenis; non deseram senex” (“I defended the republic in my youth; I will not desert it as an old man.”) Taliaferro commented in his editorials on slavery and the free-soil movement as well as related topics such as Southern filibuster and former New Orleans Daily Crescent [LCCN: sn82015378] editor William Walker, a “petty marauder,” in Taliaferro’s words, who led several private military expeditions to Latin America in an attempt to establish his own slaveholding empire.

Because of his Unionist sympathies, Taliaferro became so disliked among his neighbors that they threatened him with violence. In January 1861, he was one of the few delegates to the Louisiana secession convention to vote against the state leaving the Union. His scathing protest was published as a broadside after the convention refused to print it in its journal. On May 8, 1861, stating that he was “no longer able to conduct the paper in conformity with its title,” Taliaferro ceased publication of the Independent, adding: “There is not on God’s green earth a more odious restriction upon the freedom of the press than that which prevails in the Confederate States at this time.”

Taliaferro remained in Louisiana during the Civil War and was imprisoned for a time in Alexandria; two of his sons joined or collaborated with the Union Army. After the war, he reentered politics, running unsuccessfully in 1865 for lieutenant governor on the Conservative Union party ticket, which supported Reconstruction but opposed black suffrage. In 1868, various factions, including the Pure Radicals (led by Louis Roudanez, African-American publisher of the New Orleans Tribune [LCCN: sn83016710]), persuaded Taliaferro to run for governor as a less divisive alternative to the election’s winner, Radical Republican carpetbagger Henry Clay Warmoth. Taliaferro served as a justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court from 1866 until his death in 1876, participating in important Reconstruction-era cases.

Jefferson Davis Parish

The town of Jennings, Louisiana, was named after Jennings McComb, a contractor for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Its first settler, A. D. McFarlain, arrived there from St. Mary Parish in 1881. Most of its earliest settlers were Midwestern wheat farmers who had been lured to the fertile prairies of southwest Louisiana in the 1880s by land agents and agricultural promoters. These farmers applied their knowledge of grain production to a crop that was well suited to the region’s geography and climate—rice. 

The North American Land and Timber Company promoted the area  further around 1900. Much of Jennings burned in 1901, just one year after it was officially incorporated and the same year that it became the site of the first oil well drilled in Louisiana. Now the seat of Jefferson Davis Parish, Jennings was part of Calcasieu Parish until 1912.

The Jennings Daily Record was published by Nelson L. Miller (1860-1934).Born in Iowa, Miller moved to Cameron Parish in 1891 and began publishing a newspaper, the Lakeside Review, with his father C. F. Miller. In 1896 he moved to Jennings and published the Southern Record a weekly. The Daily Record, founded in 1900, billed itself as an independent newspaper and the “unofficial organ of the town of Jennings.” It was published Monday through Friday in four pages and on Saturday in eight pages.

Reporting covered a wide variety of domestic and international topics. Local news focused on the Jennings oil boom and the developing rice market. Agriculture was discussed throughout the paper, but also in special columns such as “Dairy and Poultry” and “Road and Farm Improvement.” Social issues were covered in some detail, including the international labor movement, strikes at local rice mills, and the nationwide temperance crusade. Fiction was printed for readers of all ages, together with illustrated stories on subjects ranging from art and science to sports, fashion, and theater. The Record offered stirring accounts of the Jennings fire of November 4, 1901, and chronicled the subsequent rebuilding of the town. Also of interest are accounts of oil well blowouts and fires, both in Louisiana and the neighboring state of Texas.

In 1903, the Jennings Daily Record merged with the Daily Times of Jennings to form the Jennings Daily Times-Record.

Lafayette Parish

The Lafayette Advertiser was founded in 1865. At that time, the newspaper’s title referred to Lafayette Parish, not the city of Lafayette, which was called Vermilionville until 1884. Located 15 miles west of the Atchafalaya Swamp and 35 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, Lafayette is part of Acadiana, a region settled in the 18th century by French colonists driven out of Nova Scotia during the French and Indian War. In the 19th century, most immigrants to the region came directly from France or other parts of the United States. The population of Lafayette was about 3,000 in the 1890s. By 1910, this had more than doubled, due in part to the opening in 1900 of the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette). Several sugar factories appeared around the turn of the century, contributing further to the town’s growth. Natural gas was discovered at nearby Breaux Bridge in 1899, followed by oil at Anse La Butte in 1902.

William B. Bailey (1839-1896), a Lafayette native who had trained as a printer with his brother Abijah Bailey at the bilingual Echo of Lafayette, became a partner at the Advertiser on his return from the Civil War. He was its sole editor and proprietor from 1868 until 1893, when he accepted a political appointment. The paper was then edited briefly by Alfred C. Ordway before coming under the management of its associate editor, Henri A. Vander Cruyssen (ca. 1859-1903). Born in Ghent, Belgium, Vander Cruyssen trained and worked as an architect in his native country, but switched to the drug business prior to immigrating to New Orleans in 1884. He later settled in Breaux Bridge, near Lafayette, where he ran an apothecary shop and edited a newspaper, L’Union de Pont Breaux, before taking over the Lafayette Advertiser . The paper changed hands again in 1903, when it was purchased by Wesley A. LeRosen (ca. 1864-1935) and A. James Alpha (1880-1948). It continued as a weekly, then as a semiweekly, and after 1914 as the Daily Advertiser.

Democratic in its political leanings, the Advertiser spoke out against Radical Republican rule during the era of Reconstruction but maintained a “conservative” (i.e., moderate) political view and discouraged political violence. Bailey devoted much space to promoting local businesses and resources, advocating for internal improvements and immigration to the region. In the 1870s, the paper featured articles in both English and French, usually with entirely different content for each language. The French articles were often of high literary quality and focused on topics such as the instruction of girls, the use of the French language in Canada, the legacy of the Revolution of 1848, the Franco-Prussian War, and Jefferson Davis in Paris. Many were reprinted from La Renaissance Louisianaise, L’Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orléans, and other French-language journals. The Advertiser had become English-only by the late 1880s, but French content was fully restored during the ten years that Henri Vander Cruyssen served as editor.

Under Bailey’s management, the Advertiser’s English-language articles tended to be brief editorials and personal announcements from throughout Lafayette Parish. The balance of the paper was cobbled together from other sources. Local reporting increased dramatically in the 1890s and early 1900s, due in part to the opening of the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute and the Texas-Louisiana oil and gas boom. LeRosen, at one time the principal of Lafayette High School, was an especially outspoken advocate of education in Lafayette Parish.

Lafayette Parish

The Lafayette Gazette was a weekly, four-page Democratic newspaper published in Lafayette, Louisiana, from 1893 to 1921. Located fifteen miles west of the Atchafalaya Swamp and thirty-five miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, Lafayette is at the heart of Acadiana, a region settled in the eighteenth century by French colonists driven out of Nova Scotia during the French and Indian War. In the nineteenth century, most immigrants to the region came directly from France or from other parts of the United States. The population of Lafayette (the seat of Lafayette Parish) was about 3,000 in the 1890s.
By 1910, the population had more than doubled, due in part to the opening in 1900 of the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette). Several sugar factories appeared around the turn of the century, contributing further to the town’s growth. Natural gas was discovered at nearby Breaux Bridge in 1899, followed by oil at Anse La Butte in 1902; these resources, however, were not fully exploited until the mid twentieth century.

Homer J. Mouton (1870-1903), a son of former Louisiana lieutenant governor Charles Homer Mouton, founded the Lafayette Gazette in 1893 with Charles A. Thomas. Within year, Mouton had purchased Thomas’s share of the business and become its sole proprietor. Like his father (an officer in the White League, a Reconstruction-era paramilitary group formed to intimidate Republicans and black voters), Mouton strongly supported the doctrine of white supremacy. On economic issues, particularly during the election of 1896, he admitted the soundness of Republican over Democratic policy, but on account of his racist views could not bring himself to support the party of Lincoln. Outside of politics, Mouton’s reporting was moderately progressive. He showed great interest in the advancement of education in Lafayette, frequently reporting on the growth of the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute, local high schools, and the Chautauqua adult education movement. He supported Sunday (or blue) laws, which prohibited the conducting of business on the Sabbath, and devoted a column to the activities of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. An agricultural column sought to educate farm workers. While reporting on the local sugar industry (the mainstay of Lafayette Parish’s economy), Mouton also encouraged farmers to diversify their crops. After 1900 he printed occasional reports on oil exploration in south Louisiana.
A “Town and Country” column carried social news from Lafayette and nearby towns, including Carencro, Duson, Broussardville (now Broussard), and Royville (now Youngsville). The United Confederate Veterans, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Attakapas Literary Society, and the Lafayette Baseball Club were among the many social organizations reported on.

Upon Mouton’s death in 1903, the Lafayette Gazette came under the management of his brothers Jerome (1876-1919) and Philip Mouton (1873-1962). In 1921, having been issued as a daily for three years, the paper was absorbed by the Lafayette Daily Advertiser.

Calcasieu Parish

Located in coastal southwest Louisiana near the state’s border with Texas, Lake Charles is one of Louisiana’s youngest cities. The first large influx of settlers to the region came in the 1860s and consisted mostly of Northerners and European immigrants. Lumbering was an important early industry. In the 1880s, the region’s agricultural potential began to be recognized. Lake Charles Mayor J. B. Watkins, a native of New York, embarked on an intensive advertising campaign in 1887 aimed largely at Midwestern farmers, who had experience growing grains. His efforts, together with those of Seaman A. Knapp, president of Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University), led to southeast Louisiana’s rapid growth as an agricultural producer, particularly of rice.

The Lake Charles Commercial was founded in 1881 by John McCormick (d. 1892). At that time, the town had a population of just over 800. A four-page Democratic weekly, the Commercial carried a mix of local, national, and international news. McCormick focused on promoting agriculture and industry, as well as schools such as Lake Charles College, founded in 1890 by New England Congregationalists. Much of the paper consists of advertisements placed by local merchants, many of whom were Jewish. Despite the large number of ads for local saloons, in the 1890s the Commercial carried a Women’s Christian Temperance Union column as well as other articles on the temperance movement.

Shortly before his death in 1892, John McCormick turned over the paper to his son Charles Michael McCormick (1866-1900). The Commercial continued until 1898, when it merged with the Lake Charles Tribune and American [LCCN: sn88064579] to form the Lake Charles Weekly American [LCCN: sn88064580].

Calcasieu Parish

Located in coastal southwest Louisiana near the state’s border with Texas, Lake Charles is one of Louisiana’s youngest cities. It is the seat of Calcasieu Parish, which in the 19th century was about four times larger in area than it is today. Neighboring Cameron Parish was formed in 1870 from part of Calcasieu Parish; another division in 1912 led to the formation of Allen, Beauregard, and Jefferson Davis Parishes. Though a few Europeans settled in this remote area in the late 18th century, it did not attract significant numbers of immigrants until after the Civil War, when grain farmers from the Midwest were lured to the region, largely through the promotional efforts of Northern land agent and railroad developer Jabez Bunting (J. B.) Watkins. Southwest Louisiana quickly became a significant producer of rice. The older lumber industry was also important, but by the 20th century the region’s principal source of wealth was oil and sulfur mining. Today, Lake Charles is the site of major refineries and offshore drilling companies.

David J. Read and Louis S. Leveque established the Weekly Echo in 1868, the same year Lake Charles was officially incorporated. The Echo’s first editor was Bryant Hutchins, who began his career at the age of 13 as an apprentice at the Opelousas Gazette [LCCN: sn83016696]. Hutchins moved frequently and left the Echo after about a year to work as a newspaperman in nearby Galveston, Texas, but later returned to Lake Charles and resumed his post at the Echo. The paper dropped the word “weekly” from its title in 1876, becoming the Lake Charles Echo, though it continued to be published once a week. John W. Bryan, Lake Charles’s first mayor, was the Echo’s most long-lasting editor; others included George W. Wrigley, C. W. Felter, Thad Mayo, Simeon O. Shattuck, and J. B. Marshall.

Neatly printed in four to eight pages, the Echo was a Democratic newspaper that in the aftermath of the Civil War supported the restoration of the Union but opposed Radical Republican rule. In addition to news of Democratic Party meetings and articles on Reconstruction-era politics, the Echo carried miscellaneous reports from around the world, minutes of the Calcasieu Parish police jury (similar to county councils in other states), ads for local and regional businesses (including Galveston, Texas), agricultural and domestic advice, and information on the lumber and rice industry, as well as a wide selection of general-interest essays and fiction. In 1883, the paper adopted a handsome masthead depicting the port of Lake Charles, a lumber mill, and grain harvesters.

Publication of the Lake Charles Echo ceased in 1898.

Vernon Parish

Vernon Parish, on Louisiana’s western border with Texas, was formed from portions of Natchitoches, Rapides, and Sabine Parishes in 1871. Leesville, the parish seat, had a population of 1,300 when it was incorporated in 1900. In the 1890s, the area was a Populist/agrarian stronghold and was at the center of a lumber boom until the late 1920s, by which time the parish had been almost completely deforested and turned over to farmland.

For more than 20 years, Vernon Parish was the site of one of the largest experiments in socialist communal living in U.S. history. In 1914, Job Harriman, the unsuccessful Socialist Party candidate for Vice President of the United States in 1900, founded the Llano del Rio Cooperative Colony in the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles, California. Water shortages, transportation problems, and personal conflicts led to the colony’s dissolution, but in 1918, it was reestablished under the name of New Llano (sometimes spelled Newllano) on a 20,000-acre tract of cut-over land near Leesville, Louisiana. Largely self-sufficient, New Llano soon had several hundred residents, and satellite colonies were eventually set up in Texas and New Mexico. Internal disputes and financial difficulties, however, led to its decline, and the colony was abandoned in 1939.

The Vernon Parish Democrat, founded in 1917, was published weekly in four to eight pages under the motto “If We Cannot Say Anything Good, We Say Nothing.” The earliest surviving issues date from 1919, when it was being edited by Ernest S. Wooster, a member of the Llano del Rio and New Llano colonies who would later chronicle their history in Communities of the Past and Present (1924). Wooster returned to California in 1920, turning the paper over to George T. Pickett, one of the original Llano del Rio colonists. Later that year, Pickett was elected New Llano’s general manager, whereupon George E. Cantrell took over the editorship of the Democrat.

The Democrat carried a mix of local, national, and international news, but is chiefly of interest for its reports on the New Llano Colony. Regular columns with titles such as “Colony Notes,” “The Colony Diary,” and “One Minute Chats with Colonists,” contain information on socialist ideology, daily life at New Llano, its various business enterprises (including a hotel, ice plant, rice farm, and print shop), and interactions between colonists and other residents of Vernon Parish, such as community entertainments and use of the colony’s public library, one of the best in the state.

In April 1921, the New Llano Colony began publishing a second newspaper, the Llano Colonist, after which the Vernon Parish Democrat shifted its focus to other topics. However, the Democrat continued to report on labor issues and by 1931 had been renamed the Industrial Democrat [LCCN: sn88064279]. It survived until 1937, when it was absorbed into the Leesville Leader [LCCN: sn84009669].

The Llano Colonist was nearly identical to the early Vernon Parish Democrat. In 1922, it was being edited by Carl Gleeser. Born in Germany, by the 1890s Gleeser was publishing the German-language Kansas Staats-Zeitung [LCCN: sn85066982] in Kansas City, Kansas. During World War I, as owner of its successor, the Missouri Staats-Zeitung [LCCN: sn85032368], he criticized American involvement in the war. This led to a U.S. Supreme Court trial in which Gleeser was convicted of violating the 1917 Espionage Act. After his release from the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, Gleeser moved to the New Llano Colony in Leesville, where he continued to publish articles, either by himself or others, on socialist and antiwar topics.

Like its predecessor, the eight-page weekly Llano Colonist contained regular columns, including “The Colony Diary: Being a Daily Report of Colony Life at Llano”; “Meanderings,” by Robert K. Williams, an assortment of brief remarks on socialism and cooperative philosophy; “The Junior Colonist,” written by various women of the community; and “Leesville and Louisiana Items.” The first page typically carried poetry on socialist themes. News from abroad included reports on socialism in Russia.

Publication of the Llano Colonist continued until 1937, two years before the New Llano Colony was abandoned. In 1947, , ex-colonists briefly revived the paper in Los Angeles under the same title [LCCN: sn93050662], publishing 14 issues.

East Baton Rouge Parish

In 1862, fearing capture by Union forces during the Civil War, the Louisiana state legislature abandoned Baton Rouge, the state capital, and moved first to Opelousas, a more isolated and easily defended town sixty miles to the west, and then to Shreveport in the far northwest corner of the state. At war’s end, the capital was established at New Orleans, the seat of Federal forces in Louisiana, but by the end of Reconstruction in 1877, there was talk of moving the capital once again.

The Louisiana Capitolian was founded in 1879 in part to campaign for returning the capital to Baton Rouge. The paper’s founder was Leon Jastremski (1843-1907). Born in France to Polish parents, Jastremski immigrated with his family to Vermillionville (now Lafayette), Louisiana, as a child. Jastremski worked as an apprentice at the Abbeville Meridional before serving in a Confederate regiment during the Civil War. Elected mayor of Baton Rouge in 1876, Jastremski was one of the founders of the National Press Association and served for ten years as president of the Louisiana Press Association. He was an outspoken supporter of formal education for journalists.

Jastremski’s reporting initially focused on the debate over where to locate the state capital. After Baton Rouge was officially chosen in late 1879, the paper began to report on preparations being made for the legislature’s move. This included rebuilding the old state capitol, which had burned during the Civil War while being used as a barracks by Federal troops.The Capitolian combined news of state government with proceedings of the town council and the East Baton Rouge Parish police jury, the governing body of the parish. Civic improvements in Baton Rouge had been much neglected during Reconstruction and became one of the paper’s main topics of discussion. It also reported in depth on local educational institutions, including Louisiana State University, the Louisiana Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind, and Centenary College in nearby Jackson, Louisiana. Among other topics reported were the activities of local members the Greenback Party, which opposed a shift from paper money to a bullion-based monetary system; the so-called Exodus of 1879, in which large numbers of African Americans left Louisiana in search of a better life in Kansas; and proposed railroad connections between Baton Rouge and other towns throughout the state. Original fiction, some of it by the Louisiana Capitolian’s publisher William A. LeSueur, offers a snapshot of southern literary life in the late nineteenth century.

The Louisiana Capitolian was published on Tuesdays and Thursdays in four pages and on Saturdays in eight pages. In January 1882, it was issued for two weeks as the Daily Louisiana Capitolian. Later that month, on condition that he be designated state printer, Jastremski agreed to a merger with the Baton Rouge Daily Advocate. The resulting paper, the Daily Capitolian-Advocate, became the official state journal.

Lafayette Parish

Vermilionville, Louisiana (renamed Lafayette in 1884) is the seat of Vermilion Parish. Located 15 miles west of the Atchafalaya Swamp and 35 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, it struggled after the Civil War because of the destruction of the state’s plantation economy. The town received a boost in the 1870s when two major railroads intersected there, facilitating the transport of local crops (particularly cotton and sugar) and cattle.

Among Vermilionville’s promoters at that time was John Young Gilmore (1838-1900). Born in Pennsylvania, Gilmore went to work as a printer at the New Orleans Commercial Bulletin [LCCN: sn86079017] in 1859. During the Civil War, he served in an Alabama regiment and was severely wounded. Afterwards, he returned to journalism, founding the Louisiana Sugar-Bowl [LCCN: sn85034338] in New Iberia in 1870 and the Louisiana Cotton-Boll two years later in nearby Vermilionville. He eventually moved the Sugar Bowl to New Orleans, where it became the Sugar Planters’ Journal [LCCN: sn89059258], one of the American sugar industry’s most important early publications.

Published weekly in four pages, the Cotton-Boll was originally half English, half French, the latter printed under the title Le “Cotton-Boll” de la Louisiane or Le Grabot de Coton de la Louisiane. By 1878, French-language content had virtually disappeared. Gilmore announced that the paper was “devoted to the cotton planting interest, immigration, education, and internal improvements.” The Cotton-Boll largely avoided politics, although in the presidential election of 1876, it endorsed Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden of New York and his running mate Thomas Hendricks of Indiana.

The paper’s content was miscellaneous, ranging from digests of local, national, and international news to general interest articles on various topics. Reports on agricultural developments are abundant, along with market reports and advertisements for local businesses. As a “home” newspaper, the Cotton-Boll also carried a selection of fiction, poetry, anecdotes, domestic advice, and religious reading, largely copied from other publications.

At present, the latest surviving copy of the Louisiana Cotton-Boll is from December 18, 1879, but the paper is thought to have continued publication until at least 1883.

Rapides Parish

The Louisiana Democrat was founded as the Western Democrat in 1845 in Alexandria, the seat of Rapides Parish, a cotton- and timber-producing parish in central Louisiana. Its first editor was David Martin. Although no early copies survive, as a partisan newspaper the Louisiana Democrat would have opposed the Whig Party and its leader, Henry Clay, whose attempts to block the acquisition of Texas angered many Louisianans. The earliest extant copies, dated 1859, continue to discuss westward expansion, with particular attention given to the activities of the Free Soil Party and abolitionists.

By 1859, E. W. Halsey had become the paper’s editor. He was succeeded in 1860 by Mercer Canfield (1828-1864), who remained editor for only a few months, and then by Eugene Rene Biossat (1819-1880). Few copies of the Louisiana Democrat survive from the Civil War era, but publication appears to have continued without interruption until 1864 when Alexandria was occupied and burned by Union forces during the Red River campaign. At least two issues from this period were printed on ledger paper or wallpaper.

Regular publication had resumed by June 1865. Biossat changed the four-page weekly (and briefly biweekly and tri-weekly) paper’s motto from “The Love of Country is the Love of God” to “The World is Governed too Much.” He frequently reported on the Louisiana State Seminary (the forerunner of Louisiana State University), which was located at Pineville, near Alexandria, from 1853 to 1869. A regular “Letter from New Orleans” reported on various topics, including fashion, art, and industry, as well as town gossip. Politics, however, was Biossat’s chief focus. He supported the disenfranchisement of black voters and strongly opposed President Ulysses S. Grant’s Reconstruction agenda. In the election of 1872, the Louisiana Democrat endorsed Horace Greeley, a turncoat Republican who called for the end of Radical Reconstruction. Biossat also reported on the post-war activities of former Confederate leaders, the education of freedmen, and race riots such as the 1873 Colfax Massacre, in which many white citizens of Rapides Parish took part.

Biossat retired as editor in 1880 and was succeeded by James R. Waters, who promptly announced that the Louisiana Democrat, the official journal of Rapides Parish, would expand its coverage of non-political topics. The paper began carrying a “Town and Vicinity” column and reported news of schools, social organizations, churches, the local Jewish community, and Alexandria’s growth as a railroad hub and timber processing center. Waters left the paper after just a few months, turning it over to the former editor’s son, Henry L. Biossat. Agricultural, personal and sports columns appeared around 1882, followed by serialized novels, a “youth’s department,” and an increasing amount of sensationalist news items from around the world. Warren Guice Mobley (1842-1921) and his son Henry Hoover Mobley (1871-1941) purchased the Louisiana Democrat in 1891. The elder Mobley served as its editor from 1895 to 1915. Unable to compete with the popular Alexandria Town Talk , H. H. Mobley sold the paper in 1918.

Natchitoches Parish

The People’s (or Populist) Party in Louisiana was founded in October 1891 to represent the interests of farmers and laborers in rural communities and to encourage pro-labor legislation. In addition to supporting national monetary reform (“free silver”), Louisiana Populists also called for reform of the state’s electoral and political system, which was then dominated by the so-called Bourbon Democrats.

One of the leaders of the People’s Party in Louisiana was Hardy L. Brian (1865-1949) of Winnfield.  In 1890, Brian began publishing the Winnfield Comrade , one of the first Populist newspapers in the South. Four years later he established a second paper, the Louisiana Populist, in Natchitoches, a small town near the Texas border. Founded in 1714 as a French trading post, Natchitoches in the 19th century developed into an important center of Louisiana’s cotton industry. It was also located near a heavily forested region of Louisiana. The close proximity of farm and timber workers made Natchitoches an especially appropriate choice for Brian’s base of operations.

The Louisiana Populist, which replaced W. L. Shackelford’s Montgomery Mail as the official organ of the People’s Party in Louisiana, became one of the most important third-party newspapers in the state. The first issue, published on August 24, 1894, bore the motto: “Equal Rights to All, Special Favors Where Justice Demands.” Its editor declared that the paper would be “devoted to the education of the people upon the great economic issues of the day.” Brian reported on key elections of the mid-1890s, both local and national, as well as on major events in the labor movement. As with other Populist newspaper editors across the nation, Brian’s rhetoric was strongly opposed to banks and the gold standard. However, the Louisiana Populist also reflected how the People’s Party platform was modified to increase its appeal to white voters in rural Louisiana. In the paper’s very first issue, for example, Brian sought to cause defections from the Democratic Party by asserting that northern Democrats no longer favored white supremacy and encouraged bringing African American voters into the party. He also accused Louisiana Democrats of stuffing the ballot boxes with black votes despite the party’s entrenched policy of black disenfranchisement.

Although the Louisiana Populist dealt chiefly with politics, by 1895 it was reporting some local news, including activities of the Louisiana State Normal School, established at Natchitoches in 1884. In 1895, Brian reported on the movement to prohibit the sale of alcohol in Natchitoches, which he supported. That same year, the Louisiana Populist began to carry more advertisements, political cartoons, and fiction, plus a small number of marriage notices and obituaries.

Despite Brian’s efforts, the People’s Party never found much support in Louisiana. Abandoning his hopes for a political career, Brian published the final issue of the Natchitoches Populist (the title of which he had changed the previous year) on March 9, 1899. He returned to Winn Parish and became a civic and church leader. In 1916, Brian purchased the Winnfield Times, which he edited for two years.

St. James Parish

Le Louisianais was published from 1865 to 1883 in Convent, a small community in St. James Parish, Louisiana, located about halfway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. In the 19th century, this area was known for its large, affluent sugar plantations.

Jean Sylvain Gentil (1829-1911) founded Le Louisianais. Born near Blois, France, Gentil was imprisoned and exiled in 1850 by Emperor Napoleon III for writing incendiary articles in the republican journal Le Courrier de Loir-et-Cher. He lived briefly in London before immigrating to the United States in 1852, eventually settling in Convent, where he taught French, Spanish, Latin, and Greek at Jefferson College, a small Catholic school. At the end of the Civil War, Gentil began publishing Le Louisianais in partnership with Armand Victor Romain (1835-1872), a math professor at Jefferson College. The first issue appeared on August 12, 1865. By November of that year, it was the official journal of St. James Parish.

Le Louisianais was initially published weekly on a single double-sided sheet; in 1877 it expanded to four pages. Primarily in French, it had varying amounts of English-language content. Each issue typically carried miscellaneous news from around the world; political commentary, with an emphasis on race relations, suffrage, and the post-Civil War recovery of the South; advertisements and announcements; essays on science, history, art, and literature; and an assortment of poetry and fiction. A unique aspect of the paper were its regular “feuilletons,” serialized stories by Gentil that were often autobiographical in nature and covered topics ranging from “Les Gaulois en Amérique” (French Americans) and thoughts on freemasonry (controversial in Catholic Louisiana), to personal stories about Gentil’s imprisonment, a youthful love affair, and his favorite hobby, gardening.

A critic of the Catholic Church, Gentil used Le Louisianais to antagonize the local clergy. In 1880, Father Onézime Renaudier organized another newspaper, Le Foyer creole [LCCN: sn88064694], partly to counteract Gentil’s influence. Gentil also caused controversy in race relations. Though he supported black education and acknowledged the need for racial cooperation, in November 1869, he criticized the election of an African American, Oscar Dunn, to the post of Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. Le Louisianais consequently lost its official printing contract.

In 1881, Gentil sold Le Louisianais to André Roman and Paul Grima. It was published until 1883. After leaving the paper, Gentil owned La Démocratie française [LCCN: sn88064080] of New Orleans and wrote articles for various other publications in his spare time, including his old enemy, Le Foyer creole, as a charity to its publisher, Estelle Jourdan Dicharry, widow of former publisher Florian B. Dicharry.

New Orleans Parish

The Louisianian was founded in New Orleans in 1870 by P. B. S. Pinchback (1837-1921), a black legislator who in 1872 was elected governor of Louisiana. Published under the motto “Republican at all times, and under all circumstances,” it was one of the few nineteenth-century African American newspapers that sought both black and white readers.

William G. Brown (1832-1883) served as the paper’s first editor. Born in New Jersey and raised in Jamaica, Brown, like Pinchback, was of mixed race. He resigned as editor in 1872 to become the Louisiana state superintendent of education. His successor, Henry A. Corbin (1845-1878), was a graduate of an Ohio college. Corbin died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 and was succeeded by George Thompson Ruby (1841-1882), a free-born black who had worked in New England and Haiti as a correspondent for the abolitionist James Redpath’s Pine and Palm. Ruby settled in Union-occupied Louisiana in 1864 but was driven out two years later after trying to establish a school for white and black children. Before returning to the state in 1874 to edit the Louisianian, he published the Galveston (TX) Standard and served one term in the Texas state senate. In 1878, Pinchback himself became editor-in-chief but delegated most of the work of producing the paper to graduate students from Straight University, a black institution that merged with New Orleans University in 1934 to form Dillard University.

The education of African Americans was a major subject of reporting in the Louisianian. The paper reported at length on Straight University, but also took an interest in other black schools such as Howard University in Washington, D.C. It also encouraged desegregation of school systems throughout the United States. Recognizing the urgent need to educate black readers in politics, the Louisianian devoted special attention to coverage of the Louisiana state legislature and various Republican committees. Also of interest are biographical sketches of black politicians, social leaders, and educators.

Other subjects reported included immigration to the South, African missions, the activities of black Masons, and the New Orleans entertainment scene. Originally issued on Thursdays and Sundays in four pages, the Louisianian (renamed the Semi-Weekly Louisianian in 1871) was published as the Weekly Louisianian from 1872 until its demise in 1882.

Plaquemines Parish

Located fifty miles south of New Orleans, Pointe a la Hache, the seat of Plaquemines Parish, is the southernmost town on the east bank of the Mississippi River. The French established an outpost there in the early 1700s. In the nineteenth century, the majority of the population still claimed French ancestry, but by then many Anglo-Americans and German-Americans had moved into the parish. Nearly two-thirds of Plaquemines Parish is either swamp or sea marsh; the other one-third is located on a partly natural, partly manmade levee along the Mississippi River. The local economy was agricultural in the early twentieth century, the major crops being sugar cane, rice, and citrus fruits. Fishing and oyster canning were also important industries and enjoyed an international market.

The Lower Coast Gazette, founded in 1909,was published by Frank C. Mevers (1859-1937), the Plaquemines Parish sheriff, and edited by John Dymond (1836-1922). Born in Canada, Dymond established a sugar and cotton brokerage business in New Orleans in 1862. After the Civil War, he purchased two sugar plantations in Plaquemines Parish and became active in agricultural experimentation as well as state politics. When one of his plantations burned in 1907, Dymond moved to New Orleans and entered the newspaper business, publishing numerous journals (including the Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer) and serving at one point as president of the Louisiana Press Association. For a number of years Dymond also headed the National Editorial Association, an organization founded in New Orleans in 1885 to serve the interests of small-town newspapers throughout the United States.

A four-page weekly, the Lower Coast Gazette was the official organ of the Plaquemines Parish school board and various drainage and levee districts. Reporting focused heavily on agriculture. Of particular interest were efforts to grow figs in Plaquemines Parish and to reinvigorate the local rice industry, which had been in decline for many years. Also of interest are editorials on the use of shells, an abundant local resource, as a substitute for gravel in the construction of roads throughout Louisiana. News briefs from around the state were combined with a local personal notes column and news from nearby towns, including Buras, Empire, Diamond, Bohemian, Pilottown, Venice, Tropical Bend, and Happy Jack. Although the Lower Coast Gazette was an English-language journal, for several months in 1913 it carried a serialized French novel about life in antebellum Louisiana--Alfred Mercier’s L’Habitation Saint-Ybars, ou Maîtres et Esclaves en Louisiane.

No copies of the paper are known to exist from 1915 through 1923. Thus none of its accounts of the 1915 New Orleans Hurricane, one of the most destructive natural disasters in Louisiana’s history, are available. In August 1925, the Lower Coast Gazette was absorbed by the Plaquemines Protector.

Rapides Parish | Orleans Parish

The Lumberjack was founded in January 1913 in the midst of a protracted labor strike by the Brotherhood of Timber Workers (B.T.W.) in Merryville, Louisiana. Published by the Southern District of the National Industrial Union of Forest and Lumber Workers, the weekly paper was edited by Covington Hall (1871-1952), a member of the radical wing of the Socialist Party in New Orleans.

Hall had previously served as assistant editor of Oscar Ameringer’s Labor World, which Ameringer moved from Columbus, Ohio, to New Orleans in 1907. As editor of the Lumberjack, Hall called for the formation of timber workers’ unions in western Louisiana and east Texas and reported at length on the activities of the International Workers of the World (I.W.W.), with which the B.T.W. had affiliated itself at its annual convention in Alexandria, Louisiana in 1912. In addition to news of local strikes and labor movements, the paper carried news of timber workers’ strikes elsewhere in the United States together with editorials on general topics such as child labor and the Ku Klux Klan, which Hall commented on from a socialist viewpoint. Also of interest is Hall’s original poetry on labor-related subjects.

In July 1913, timber industry leaders persuaded the Lumberjack’s printer in Alexandria to stop printing the paper. Publication resumed in New Orleans under a new title, the Voice of the People. The Lumberjack’s motto, “An Injury To One Is An Injury To All,” was retained, as was its four-page, three-column format. The focus of reporting initially remained the same; by 1914, however, having grown frustrated with largely unsuccessful efforts to organize southern timber workers, Hall was devoting greater attention to the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest and Montana, as well as to labor disputes associated with the United Fruit Company in Central America and the Caribbean.

Vol. 2, no. 46 was published concurrently, but with completely different contents, in New Orleans and Portland, Oregon. In July 1914, lack of support in the South finally led Hall to transfer publication of the paper in full to Portland, where he served as editor for two months before turning the job over to B. E. Nilsson and returning to New Orleans. The Voice of the People appears to have found no more of an audience in the Northwest than in the South, and its last issue was published on December 3, 1914.

Madison Parish

The Madison Journal was established in 1845 by John Marble (b. ca. 1822) and Ezra Blake Towne (1821-1883). Nothing is known of Marble except that he was born in Mississippi and was living in Madison Parish by 1850. According to the Journal’s centennial issue, Towne, a northerner, worked at one time for Horace Greeley, founder of the influential New York Tribune. He originally published the Journal in Delta, Louisiana, a village on the west bank of the Mississippi River opposite Vicksburg, Mississippi, and at that time the seat of Madison Parish. Publication appears to have ceased during the Civil War, in which Towne, a planter and slaveowner, served as a Confederate colonel. The paper was reestablished in 1870 in Tallulah, which replaced Delta as the seat of Madison Parish in 1883. By 1880 it had been acquired by H. C. White and was being published under the motto “Equal and Exact Justice to All.”

In 1884, the Journal battled with a rival paper, the Madison Times, in a local election, lost its political patronage, and suspended publication. Jeff B. Snyder and P. W. Hickey revived the paper in 1888. In 1891, it was being published by William F. Marschalk, a descendant of Andrew Marschalk, the first printer in Mississippi Territory. George Spencer served as editor from 1898 to 1920. The paper was purchased in 1912 by Josiah Petit Scott, publisher of the Tensas Gazette. One year later, Scott sold the business to his cousins Percy and William Lyle Rountree, members of a prominent family of north Louisiana newspaper publishers. W. L. Rountree managed the Journal until his death in 1968. It is still in publication as of 2010.

Only scattered issues survive from before 1912. Copies of the Journal from this period were typical of their day, containing a mix of local, national, and international news combined with fiction, poetry, reprints from other newspapers, and advertisements. A farm and garden column is of some interest, as is an article dated April 15, 1889, which announced that women were eligible to vote in a local election. By 1913, when the Rountree brothers acquired the paper, it had grown from a four- to an eight-page weekly. As the official journal of Madison Parish, an agricultural parish with a historically large African American population, the paper contained the minutes of the parish school board and police jury (the equivalent of county councils in other states), as well as the proceedings of the local levee board. Reporting in the 1910s focused on Prohibition and “blue” laws, the control of the Mississippi River, the Good Roads movement, and the effects of the boll weevil blight on the southern cotton crop. Local reporting was expanded around 1916. One of the most attractive features of the Journal in this period was a full-page photographic section, with photos from national and international sources, titled “News of the Week as Caught by the Camera.”

Madison Parish

The Madison Times was a weekly, four-page Democratic newspaper published in Tallulah, Louisiana, from 1884 to 1889. Located in extreme northeastern Louisiana, Tallulah is the seat of Madison Parish. In the nineteenth century, the area was at the heart of the “Cotton Kingdom.” The Civil War and the abolition of slavery devastated the local economy, and by 1870, the population of Madison Parish, which had had one of the largest prewar black populations in the state, had dropped by forty percent. The 1880s saw an almost total recovery, thanks in part to the further development of railroads. However, according to Biographical & Historical Memoirs of Louisiana (1892), “Madison Parish has no town of any importance. Tallulah, the parish site, is the largest, having a population of 225.” Vicksburg, Mississippi, fifteen miles to the east of Tallulah, was the region’s commercial center.

The Times’s founder was Richard Coxe Weightman (1845-1914). A native of Washington, D.C., Weightman was the grandson of Roger Chew Weightman, an early Washington bookseller, printer, and mayor. Weightman and his parents moved to Kansas at the height of the free-state controversy. His father joined a Confederate regiment during the Civil War and was killed in August 1861 in Missouri. Richard Weightman himself served under general P. G. T. Beauregard of Louisiana. At the end of the war, he moved to New Orleans and by the 1870s was working on the staff of the Times-Democrat . Weightman may have done nothing more than contribute occasional editorials to the Madison Times, for according to a later biographical sketch, he went to Washington the same year the paper was founded to serve as the Times-Democrat’s capital correspondent. The following year, he became a writer for the Washington Post , a position he occupied until 1898.

The Madison Times was established as a factional newspaper in support of Bourbon Democratic governor Samuel D. McEnery and other members of the New Orleans “Ring,” particularly U.S. Senator James B. Eustis. Weightman’s initial enthusiasm for President Grover Cleveland later became lukewarm, in part because Cleveland ignored calls (outlined in the Democratic Party platform) for the improvement of the Mississippi River, an issue of great importance to Louisiana. Other significant topics discussed include the 1884 New Orleans World’s Fair (also known as the World Cotton Centennial), immigration to the South, and the growing debate over gold versus silver coinage. The paper is rich in advertisements for businesses in both Madison Parish and nearby Vicksburg. In-depth news from Washington, D. C., was printed in columns titled “Washington Waifs” and “Capitol Cullings.” Practical advice was also available on subjects such as farming and housekeeping.

At the time of the paper’s founding, it was powerful enough to drive another Tallulah newspaper, the Madison Journal, out of business. However, in 1888, having backed the losing candidate in a local election, the Times lost its public printing contract. It was purchased by J. B. Sulder  of the Madison Item and consolidated with the Madison Journal.

Vermilion Parish

Abbeville, the seat of Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, was founded in 1843 by the French Capuchin missionary Antoine Désiré Mégret. The town’s population was initially of predominantly French extraction, with a small component of Italian and German Catholics. In the 1880s, Midwestern farmers were attracted to the region by its developing rice and cattle industries and other agricultural opportunities.

Eugene Isidore Guégnon (1819-1877), a native of France, founded the Meridional in 1856. The four-page weekly later claimed to be the oldest newspaper in southwest Louisiana. Guégnon was assisted by Eugene Isidore Addison (1837-1900), son of his late business partner, George W. Addison. After Guégnon’s death, Addison managed the Meridional intermittently until his own death in 1900. Another editor connected with the paper was Dr. Clarence J. Edwards (1858-1920), briefly a state senator in the mid 1890s. Edwards became sole proprietor of the Meridional in 1900.

Initially published in English and French (with different content for each language), the number of French articles dwindled after about 1880 and had completely disappeared by the turn of the century. Recurring article topics included state and local politics, immigration to southwest Louisiana, real estate, rail versus water transport, road improvements, the development of the region’s rice, cattle, and oil industries, and baseball. The paper was one of many that opposed the Louisiana Lottery, a revenue-raising scheme widely regarded as a corrupting influence on state politics. As the official journal of Vermilion Parish, the Meridional published the proceedings of the Abbeville town council and school board and the minutes of the parish police jury (similar to county councils in other states). Judicial notices, announcements of public sales, and charters of local corporations were also published. Describing itself as “A Wide-Awake Home Newspaper,” the Meridional included by the early 1900s fiction, fashion, and farm and garden sections.”

The Meridional was renamed the Abbeville Meridional [LCCN: sn88064004] in 1907. It is still in publication as of 2012.

St. John the Baptist Parish

Le Meschacébé was founded in Lucy, Louisiana, in 1853 by Hippolyte-Prudent de Bautte (1821-1861). A native of Normandy and the son of a former officer of the Imperial Guard, de Bautte wrote for the Parisian newspaper Le Corsaire in the mid 1840s and was imprisoned for publishing incendiary pro-republican articles. After his release, he emigrated to Louisiana. By January 1848, de Bautte was writing for La Revue Louisianaise under the pseudonym Prudent d’Artlys, a name he retained as editor of Le Meschacébé. After working as a journalist in New Orleans, he moved in 1853 to Lucy, a small town along the Mississippi River in St. John the Baptist Parish. In the 19th century, this area was known for its large sugar plantations.

Taking its name from an early French spelling of the word “Mississippi,” Le Meschacébé was originally devoted almost entirely to legal notices, announcements of public sales, and ads for local businesses. Minutes of the parish police jury (similar to county councils in other states) were published in French and English. The first page carried serialized novels, often pirated from French journals but occasionally written by Louisiana authors. Some of the stories were set in Louisiana and dealt with subjects of contemporary importance such as race relations and immigration (see, for example, “Une fille de couleur” and “La femme d’un Know-Nothing”). Although the paper reported on topics of international significance such as the Crimean War and William Walker’s filibustering expeditions to Central America, news items were chiefly local.

De Bautte sold Le Meschacébé in 1857 to fellow political exiles Ernest Le Gendre (ca. 1828-1862) and Eugene Dumez (1824-1878). Le Gendre left the paper the following year to publish the Natchitoches Union. Dumez, once a classmate of Victor Hugo, was exiled from France in 1851 for his role as editor of the Courrier Républicain de la Côte d'Or. After short stays in Belgium, Kansas, and Missouri, he settled in Louisiana.

During the first year of the Civil War, Dumez published articles on the raising of Confederate troops, correspondence from local camps, and reports of battles, as well as selections from La vérité sur l’esclavage et l’union, an anti-abolitionist work by Emile Lefranc of New Orleans. Le Meschacébé’s fiction section at this time carried war-related works. After the fall of New Orleans and the occupation of St. John the Baptist Parish by Federal troops, the paper published military proclamations by Union commanders. A shortage of newsprint compelled Dumez to suspend publication in 1862, shortly after printing accounts of the bombardment of Donaldsonville and the Battle of Baton Rouge. He spent the remainder of the war in France attending to personal matters while also trying to secure French recognition of the Confederacy.

Publication resumed in 1865. Over the next several years, Dumez, who had gone into partnership with his brother-in-law Thomas Bellow (1841-1901), turned out especially long and pensive editorials, many of which compared American society and politics with that of France. Although normally Democratic, in the presidential election of 1872, Le Meschacébé endorsed Horace Greeley of the Liberal Republican Party, which opposed the reelection of Ulysses S. Grant and sought to end the Radical Republican agenda.

Le Meschacébé’s printing office moved many times during the paper’s history and was often located on plantations. English content appeared in 1871, but the paper quickly returned to being mostly French. Following Dumez’ death from yellow fever in 1878, it was purchased by Charles Lasseigne (ca. 1842-1913), who managed it until 1908, when he sold it to Eugene Dumez, Jr. (1874-1955). John Davis Reynaud (1886-1974) became owner in 1914, whereupon French articles virtually disappeared. Le Meschacébé went out of publication in 1942.

St. James Parish

The French-language newspaper Le Messager was founded in July 1846 in the town of Bringier in St. James Parish, Louisiana, an area then known for its prosperous sugar plantations. Its first editor was Charles A. Pieron, formerly associated with the Sentinel in Lafayette (a suburb of Jefferson Parish annexed by New Orleans in 1854), the American Republican in New Orleans, and the Express in Carrollton. By the early 1850s, Charles Moroy and Auguste Lagardere, both natives of France, were editing Le Messager.

The four-page weekly carried miscellaneous local, national, and international news. The recently admitted states of California and Texas received much attention, as did the Crimean War in Russia. Judicial announcements, notices of public sales, advertisements for local businesses, and the minutes of the police jury (the governing body of the parish) occupied a third or more of each issue. The paper’s fiction section was typically pirated from French novels, but works by Louisiana writers were occasionally printed, such as Ernest Le Gendre’s Deux Parisiens en Louisiane (Two Parisians in Louisiana), a comedy in two acts. Politically, Le Messager was affiliated with the Whig Party, and in the mid-1850s it commented on nativist sentiment in Louisiana.

The last known extant issue of Le Messager dates from August 1860.

Morehouse Parish

Morehouse Parish is located in rural northeast Louisiana on the state’s border with Arkansas. European settlement of the area began in the late 1790s under the leadership of the Dutch entrepreneur and Indian agent Philip Hendrik Nering Bögel, who went by the pseudonym Baron de Bastrop. Spanish colonial officials granted Bastrop a large tract of land along the Ouachita River, but he had little success in attracting settlers. The land was eventually sold to Abraham Morehouse, a New Yorker, whose name was given to Morehouse Parish when it was created in 1844. By the late 19th century, the parish’s population had grown to about 18,000. Its economy at that time was based primarily on cotton and lumber.

The Morehouse Clarion was founded in 1874 in the community named after Bastrop.  The Clarion was a typical small-town newspaper that advertised itself as “devoted to politics, agriculture, home interests, and the material development of the country.” Edited for most of its history by Andrew Capers McMeans (1849-1900), it was published weekly in four pages. The front page carried general-interest essays and fiction reprinted from other sources. Political reporting and editorials endorsed the Democratic Party but opposed the New Orleans Democratic political machine, including the Louisiana Lottery, a revenue-raising scheme widely regarded as a corrupting influence on state politics. Other notable topics of reporting included efforts to attract immigrants to the area and the post-Reconstruction exodus of African Americans to the North. The paper carried numerous advertisements for local businesses, as well as church news, occasional obituaries, and the minutes of the police jury, the governing body of the parish.

Publication ceased in 1904.

St. Mary Parish

Morgan City, Louisiana, in coastal St. Mary Parish, was originally named Brashear City in honor of one of the area’s earliest settlers, Dr. Walter Brashear, who arrived there in 1809 from Kentucky. It was renamed in 1876 in honor of Charles Morgan, a railroad tycoon who invested in the struggling town. The 1880s and 1890s saw the rise of two industries that would form the basis of the local economy for decades: lumber and seafood. The cypress industry fell into decline around 1920, and by the 1930s, the area’s oyster beds had virtually disappeared. Shrimp remained, however, and by the mid-20th century, Morgan City would proclaim itself the “Jumbo Shrimp Capital of the World.” Unsuccessful efforts to drill for oil in 1901-02 and 1918-19 deprived Morgan City of the wealth that the petroleum industry was bringing to other parts of Louisiana, but in 1917, during the First World War, the town was awarded a government contract to build warships, a deal that provided several hundred jobs. By 1925, Morgan City’s population was about 6,000.

The Morgan City Daily Review was founded in 1916. A weekly edition, the Morgan City Review [LCCN: sn88064291], had been published since the 1870s. The Daily Review’s managing editor was Charles Edwin King (1882-1969), a native of Missouri who would become one of his adopted city’s most tireless boosters and an early promoter of flood control and waterway improvements, including the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Published in four to six pages, the newspaper was independent in politics. The earliest issues focused mainly on local news. With America’s entry into World War I in 1917, the paper expanded its scope to cover international topics in greater depth, but continued its local focus, reporting in detail on the war’s effect on life in Morgan City and St. Mary Parish. War-related reporting ranged from local shipbuilding, rationing, and Red Cross activities to rumors of German submarines and saboteurs on the Gulf Coast. After the war, the Daily Review did its part to help retain Morgan City’s shipyards, as well as enlist local support for European war relief efforts (the paper was particularly supportive of the Jewish War Relief Society).

Another major focus of the Daily Review was entertainment. Morgan City in the 1910s boasted several movie theaters, and advertisements for films can be found in virtually every issue of the Daily Review. In 1917, the paper reported on one of the first movies filmed in Louisiana, Tarzan of the Apes, which was shot in the swamps near Morgan City as a stand in for the African jungle.

The Review’s weekly and daily editions were consolidated in 1920 to form the daily Morgan City Review [LCCN: sn88064294]. Charles King continued to be associated with the paper until 1960. Three years later, its name was changed to its current title, the Daily Review [LCCN: sn88064295].

East Baton Rouge Parish

Founded as a French trading post in the early 18th century, Baton Rouge was part of the British and later Spanish colony of West Florida from 1763 until 1810, when, as part of the short-lived Republic of West Florida, it was annexed by the United States. In the 19th century, the town developed into the main commercial center on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Natchez, Mississippi. Surrounded at that time by sugar and cotton plantations, Baton Rouge became the state capital in 1846 through the influence of rural planters desiring a more central location, even though its population was then less than 3,000, many times smaller than the state’s former capital, New Orleans.

Issued in daily and weekly editions, the Comet was one of Baton Rouge’s leading newspapers prior to 1856, when it merged with its competitor, the Baton-Rouge Gazette [LCCN: sn82003383], to form the Daily [LCCN: sn88083120] and Weekly Gazette and Comet [LCCN: sn85038555]. George A. Pike, brother of prominent Baton Rouge landowner and businessman William S. Pike, founded the Daily Comet in 1850. It and its successor the Morning Comet were published Tuesday through Saturday in four pages and consisted primarily of advertisements that serve as a record of Baton Rouge’s commercial life during the antebellum period. The Weekly Comet, issued on Sundays, was ad-free and offered editorial viewpoints on various political, social, and commercial topics, as well as a wide selection of essays, literature, and poetry. By the mid 1850s, Pike was promoting the anti-Catholic, nativist Know Nothing Party. In the growing sectional crisis between North and South, he opposed calls for secession. Other content included news of the Louisiana state legislature and state elections, reports on miscellaneous topics from around the world, and marriage notices and obituaries.

Orleans Parish

Founded in 1868 as the official journal of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, the Morning Star and Catholic Messenger was the first Catholic English newspaper in the Old Southwest. Its circulation in the 1870s was approximately 4,000, of which 1,500 copies were distributed throughout Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas. The paper was published by the New Orleans Catholic Publication Company, a joint stock company presided over by the archbishop of New Orleans. Its motto, printed under a large illustration of the Virgin Mary, was “How Beautiful Are the Feet of Them That Bring Glad Tidings of Good Things.”

The paper’s founder, Archbishop Jean-Marie Odin (1800-1870), was inspired by Father Napoléon-Joseph Perché, who had established in 1843 of Le Propagateur Catholique, a French-language periodical that combated nativism and the anti-Catholic Know-Nothing Party, and who would later succeed Odin as archbishop of New Orleans. Odin had planned to establish an English-language newspaper around the time of his election as archbishop in 1861, but was unable to do so until after the Civil War. The Morning Star and Catholic Messenger’s primary audience was Irish Catholic. Miscellaneous news from the United States, Europe, and Ireland was combined with reports on Catholic charities, schools, and missions. Also of interest are announcements of Catholic publications, directories of churches and schools, a weekly calendar of events, pastoral letters of Gulf Coast bishops, and regular reports from the Vatican. The front page typically carried morally instructive fiction. Some issues featured advice columns on housekeeping, agriculture, and the industrial arts, with occasional obituaries and marriage notices.

Although the paper officially avoided politics, at least two of its editors held strong political opinions that were sometimes evident in their reporting. The first editor-in-chief, the Irish-born Rev. Richard Kane (1832-1873), had opposed secession and later advocated reconciliation with the North. In February 1872, Kane was succeeded by Rev. Abram Joseph Ryan (1838-1886). The son of Irish immigrants, Ryan had served as a chaplain with the Confederate army. After the war, he founded the Banner of the South, a Catholic religious and political weekly, in Augusta, Georgia. He later moved to Mobile, Alabama, where he lectured and wrote poetry in the “Lost Cause” style. Upon joining the staff of the Morning Star and Catholic Messenger, which he edited by telegraph from his home in Mobile, Ryan refused to endorse what he called “Northern Policy” and vehemently opposed racial integration. His criticism of former Confederate general P. G. T. Beauregard, a popular New Orleans native who supported integration of public schools and reconciliation with the North, won Ryan few friends. He resigned as editor in April 1875. The paper’s third editor was William Blair Lancaster (1826-1897), a cousin of Bishop John Lancaster Spalding, founder of the Catholic University of America.

Rev. P. M. L. Massardier of St. Theresa’s Church in New Orleans purchased the Morning Star and Catholic Messenger when the New Orleans Catholic Publication Company was liquidated in 1882. It was published as the Morning Star until 1930.

Natchitoches Parish

The Natchitoches Enterprise was founded in 1888 in Natchitoches, Louisiana, a small but historically significant town near the state’s western border with Texas. Though few issues survive from before 1913, the Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana (1890) described the Enterprise as a “newsy, spicy sheet.” It was originally one of several newspapers devoted to fighting the Louisiana Lottery, a revenue-raising scheme widely regarded as a corrupting influence on state politics.

Hopkins Payne Breazeale (1856-1893) established the Enterprise. A native of Natchitoches, he was a grandson of William Winter, one of the most prominent early landowners in what is now Arkansas. Before entering the newspaper business, Breazeale held various roles in local government. When he died at the age of 36 in 1893, the Enterprise was taken over by his wife, Cammilla Lachs Breazeale (1866-1956), a child of German Jewish immigrants. She would edit and manage the paper for more than 50 years, almost singlehandedly until 1915, when her daughter, Carmen Breazeale (1889-1980), became business manager. In 1947, around the time of Cammilla’s retirement, an article in the Pelican Press Messenger, the bulletin of the Louisiana Press Association, referred to her as the “Grand Old Lady of the Louisiana Press.”

A Democratic newspaper, the Enterprise was published weekly in four pages. In addition to its anti-Lottery views, it supported the prohibition of liquor; in the 1890s, it carried a Women’s Christian Temperance Union column edited by Mrs. A. P. Douglass and Mrs. L. E. McCook [MLT1] of Natchitoches. Cammilla Breazeale served at one time as district chair of the Woman Suffrage Party of Louisiana and used the Enterprise to report debate over the 19th Amendment. The Breazeales were related by marriage to novelist and short story writer Kate Chopin, best known today for The Awakening, an important early example of Southern feminist writing. Chopin lived on a plantation in nearby Cloutierville. At least one original review of her writing appeared in the Enterprise.

In addition to miscellaneous local, national, and international news, the Enterprise carried general-interest articles copied from other sources, advertisements and charters for local businesses, tax sale announcements, town ordinances, personal notes, agricultural advice, local sports news (mostly baseball), and the minutes of the Natchitoches Parish police jury, the governing body of the parish. During World War I, it published news of the local Red Cross chapter, in which Cammilla Breazeale was active, and other stories related to the war’s effect on Louisiana. The Enterprise is also a source of information on the Louisiana State Normal School (now Northwestern State University).

The Natchitoches Enterprise was published until 1965, when it was purchased by the Natchitoches Times [LCCN: sn82014155].

 [MLT1]No more info on these women.

Natchitoches Parish

The People’s (or Populist) Party in Louisiana was founded in October 1891 to represent the interests of farmers and laborers in rural communities and to encourage pro-labor legislation. In addition to supporting national monetary reform (“free silver”), Louisiana Populists also called for reform of the state’s electoral and political system, which was then dominated by the so-called Bourbon Democrats.

One of the leaders of the People’s Party in Louisiana was Hardy L. Brian (1865-1949) of Winnfield. In 1890, Brian began publishing the Winnfield Comrade, one of the first Populist newspapers in the South. Four years later he established a second paper, the Louisiana Populist, in Natchitoches, a small town near the Texas border. Founded in 1714 as a French trading post, Natchitoches in the 19th century developed into an important center of Louisiana’s cotton industry. It was also located near a heavily forested region of Louisiana. The close proximity of farm and timber workers made Natchitoches an especially appropriate choice for Brian’s base of operations.

The Louisiana Populist, which replaced W. L. Shackelford’s Montgomery Mail as the official organ of the People’s Party in Louisiana, became one of the most important third-party newspapers in the state. The first issue, published on August 24, 1894, bore the motto: “Equal Rights to All, Special Favors Where Justice Demands.” Its editor declared that the paper would be “devoted to the education of the people upon the great economic issues of the day.” Brian reported on key elections of the mid-1890s, both local and national, as well as on major events in the labor movement. As with other Populist newspaper editors across the nation, Brian’s rhetoric was strongly opposed to banks and the gold standard. However, the Louisiana Populist also reflected how the People’s Party platform was modified to increase its appeal to white voters in rural Louisiana. In the paper’s very first issue, for example, Brian sought to cause defections from the Democratic Party by asserting that northern Democrats no longer favored white supremacy and encouraged bringing African American voters into the party. He also accused Louisiana Democrats of stuffing the ballot boxes with black votes despite the party’s entrenched policy of black disenfranchisement.

Although the Louisiana Populist dealt chiefly with politics, by 1895 it was reporting some local news, including activities of the Louisiana State Normal School, established at Natchitoches in 1884. In 1895, Brian reported on the movement to prohibit the sale of alcohol in Natchitoches, which he supported. That same year, the Louisiana Populist began to carry more advertisements, political cartoons, and fiction, plus a small number of marriage notices and obituaries.

Despite Brian’s efforts, the People’s Party never found much support in Louisiana. Abandoning his hopes for a political career, Brian published the final issue of the Natchitoches Populist (the title of which he had changed the previous year) on March 9, 1899. He returned to Winn Parish and became a civic and church leader. In 1916, Brian purchased the Winnfield Times, which he edited for two years.

Natchitoches Parish

The Natchitoches Spectator was founded and edited by John Milton Scanland (ca. 1843-1935). Born in Mississippi and orphaned at a young age, Scanland began his career at the Caddo Gazette in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he and his brother William Henry Scanland, who later rose to prominence as editor of the Bossier Banner, worked as apprentices. After serving in the Confederate army during the Civil War, Scanland edited the Bienville Messenge in Sparta, a small town fifty miles east of Shreveport. There he courted Adele Coleman, daughter of a prominent local planter. Scanland’s reasons for leaving Sparta are not certain but may have stemmed from Coleman’s rejection of him and marriage to the controversial Vermont carpetbagger and Radical Republican leader Marshall Harvey Twitchell. By 1867, Scanland was living in Natchitoches, an important cotton shipping center located on the Red River in northwest Louisiana. On December 5, 1867, he published the first issue of the Natchitoches Spectator.

Taking its name from Joseph Addison’s famous eighteenth-century literary gazette, the weekly four-page paper published a mix of news, literary notes, business reports, advertisements, and announcements of public sales. It frequently contained reports on Generals Philip Sheridan and Winnfield Scott Hancock, the military governors of occupied Louisiana and Texas, as well as commentary on President Andrew Johnson and his plan for reconstruction of the South.

Scanland’s politics were somewhat ambiguous. As an editor, he gave lip service to the Democratic party and strongly opposed Radical Reconstruction. However, he does not seem to have supported voter intimidation. When a congressional committee investigating contested elections and racial violence in Louisiana interrogated Scanland after he had abandoned the newspaper business in Natchitoches, he admitted that the Natchitoches Spectator “may have been democratic, though I don’t consider I was a democrat; I was rather conservative; or, in other words, opposed the radical party.” In June 1868, the virulently Democratic Natchitoches Weekly Times accused Scanland of having Radical sympathies. Although Scanland denied the charges, in September 1868, he sold the Spectator to Major James Cromie, a Republican officeholder and former commissioner of the local Freedman’s Bureau. Cromie immediately began publishing a Republican newspaper, the Red River News.

Scanland eventually found his way to California, where in the 1880s he edited the Ojai Valley View and Santa Paula Graphic. Later he wrote articles on western topics for various magazines and newspapers. In 1908, in El Paso, Texas, where he was probably working as a journalist, Scanland published a biography of the western lawman Pat Garrett, a fellow Louisianan best known for killing Billy the Kid.

Natchitoches Parish

Publication of the Natchitoches Union began in 1859 in Natchitoches, an important cotton shipping center on the Red River near Louisiana’s western border with Texas. Its editor, Ernest Le Gendre (ca. 1828-1862), was a native of Bordeaux, France, who had come to Louisiana as a political exile after the Revolution of 1848. In 1857, he and Eugene Dumez purchased the French-language newspaper Le Meschacébé [LCCN: sn86079080] from fellow exile Hippolyte-Prudent de Bautte. After one year, Le Gendre left the paper to publish the Natchitoches Union.

Printed weekly in two pages, with one in English and one in French, the Union’s earliest surviving issues date from the first year of the Civil War. The paper frequently carried proclamations of Louisiana Confederate governor Thomas Overton Moore, soldier lists, articles on military supplies and civilian organizations such as the Ladies’ Military Aid Society, and miscellaneous war news from throughout the United States. After the fall of New Orleans to Federal forces in 1862, the Union reprinted general orders of Benjamin Butler, head of the occupying army, as well as news of the Federal advance up the Mississippi and Red Rivers toward Natchitoches.  

The Union also published original poetry and songs on war-related themes, some of it by Le Gendre himself: for example, “Gloire et douleur,” “La mère du soldat,” “Napoleon and Moscow” (on the fate of invading armies), and “La Louisianaise,” by Creole poet and playwright Louis Placide Canonge, set to the tune of “La Marseillaise.” In November 1862, the paper carried a long essay on war speculators by “M.E.B.” (Mary Edwards Bryan), the wife of a local planter; Bryan would later co-edit the Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times [LCCN: sn86053712] before going on to a career as a novelist and literary editor in Atlanta and New York.

Ernest Le Gendre died suddenly in February 1862, after which the Union was edited by another French immigrant, Louis Dupleix (1820-1900). In April or May 1864, probably out of anti-Union sentiment, Dupleix changed the title of the Natchitoches Union to the Natchitoches Times (Henry W. Allen, the Confederate governor of Louisiana, wrote to Dupleix in June 1864 listing atrocities committed by Union soldiers and complimenting Dupleix on his paper’s new title). Although a shortage of newsprint compelled the Union/Times to reduce the size of its sheets in May 1862, at war’s end it was able to expand its circulation to twice a week as the Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times [LCCN: sn86053712], which Dupleix published until 1868.

Iberia Parish

The town of New Iberia was founded in 1779 by settlers from Spain. By the 19th century, it was at the heart of Louisiana’s prosperous sugar-growing region. The area is perhaps best known today for its association with Tabasco hot pepper sauce, which has been produced at Avery Island, a few miles from New Iberia, since 1868.

The earliest surviving issue of the New Iberia Enterprise dates from February 1885. Declaring that it was “Devoted to the Advancement of Home Interests,” the paper was originally published twice a week with three pages in English and one in French. The French-language section had disappeared by the 1890s. Readers were offered a mix of local, national, and international news, brief reports related to education, business, agriculture, and economic development, and the minutes of the Iberia Parish police jury (the governing body of the parish, similar to county councils in other states). Generally Democratic, in 1897 the paper carried a regular column titled “People’s Party Department,” edited by Richard A. Pomeroy, a local labor activist.

The Enterprise’s founder, Joseph Benjamin Lawton (1860-1936), had worked as an apprentice at several Louisiana newspapers before starting his own. In 1902, after a political dispute led to an assassination attempt that nearly cost him his life, Lawton sold the paper and moved to Florida to grow pineapples. The Enterprise was consolidated with another paper in 1903 to form the New Iberia Enterprise and Independent Observer [LCCN: sn88064328].

Iberia Parish                                                    

Founded in 1779 by settlers from Spain, the town of New Iberia was at the heart of Louisiana’s prosperous sugar-growing region by the 19th century. The area is perhaps best known today for its association with Tabasco hot pepper sauce, which has been produced at Avery Island, a few miles from New Iberia, since 1868.

The New Iberia Enterprise and Independent Observer was formed in 1902 by the consolidation of the New Iberia Enterprise [LCCN: sn88064327], whose editor, Joseph Lawton, sold out after surviving an assassination attempt, and Melvin W. Fisher’s Observer, the offices of which had recently burned. Fisher (1873-1933), formerly an apprentice at the Enterprise, edited the journal for many years.

The four- to eight-page weekly carried news from around the state, as well as miscellaneous national and international reports. Agricultural columns provide historical information on important local crops, particularly sugar and pecans. Also of interest are stories about the development of the south Louisiana oil industry, as well as articles on efforts to attract filmmakers to the area (see, for example, “Movie Corporation May Take Pictures in City,” May 28, 1921). Film debuts at New Iberia’s popular Elks Theatre were covered in some detail. Other notable topics reported include life in Louisiana during World War I and the activities of conservationist and businessman Edward Avery McIlhenny, president of his family’s Tabasco sauce enterprise at Avery Island.

Also published were marriage notices, obituaries, the proceedings of the New Iberia school board, minutes of the parish police jury (similar to county councils in other states), charters of local businesses, and notices of public sales. The paper dropped the words Independent Observer from its title in December 1944 and continued publication until 1946, when it was consolidated with the Weekly Iberian [LCCN: sn88064323] to form the Daily Iberian [LCCN: sn88064324].

Orleans Parish

The New Orleans Bulletin, published daily in four to eight pages from 1874 to 1876, claimed to have the largest circulation of any newspaper in the city at that time. Reporting covered a mix of local, national, and international topics. “Local color” pieces are of particular interest and include accounts of various New Orleans entertainment venues, from the French opera and horse races to boxing matches and billiard halls. Levees and the improvement of the Mississippi River were often discussed, including the system of jetties constructed by engineer James B. Eads in 1876 to stop the river from silting up. Sections on finance, commerce, and marine and river news are found in most issues, as well as a commercial directory and occasional charters for local businesses. News from Mexico and Cuba, countries with which New Orleans had strong commercial ties in the 19thcentury, was also frequently included.

Editors Daniel C. Byerly (ca. 1826-1874) and Page M. Baker (1840-1910) declared that in politics, the Bulletin would oppose “carpet-baggers, scalawags, and usurpers.” Among the politicians it criticized were governor William Pitt Kellogg and state senator William Jasper Blackburn, formerly editor of the Homer Iliad [LCCN: sn85034320], one of Louisiana’s most contentious pre-Civil War Republican newspapers. The tension finally led to bloodshed on December 26, 1874, when Byerly encountered ex-governor Henry Clay Warmoth on a street in New Orleans and began attacking him with a cane. Warmoth had recently published disparaging comments about the Bulletin in another newspaper. In self-defense, he pulled a knife and stabbed Byerly to death.

Orleans Parish

The New Orleans Crescent was founded in 1848 as the Daily Crescent by Alexander H. Hayes (d. 1866) and J. E. “Sam” McClure, both formerly of the Daily Delta . In 1848, poet Walt Whitman co-edited the paper but was fired after few months because of his antislavery views. He was replaced by William Walker, the famous filibuster who in the 1850s led several private military expeditions to Central America in an attempt to establish an English-speaking, slaveholding empire. Reorganized as the New Orleans Daily Crescent in 1851, the paper was purchased in 1854 by James Oscar Nixon (1822-1891). A native of New Jersey, Nixon moved to Louisiana as a teenager and worked in the clothing business. In 1850, prior to taking over the Daily Crescent, he purchased the militant Weekly Crescent from John Wesley Crockett (son of Davy Crockett), a paper he eventually aligned with the Know-Nothing Party. During the Civil War, Nixon served as lieutenant colonel of a Louisiana cavalry regiment, was taken prisoner, and then paroled to the home of his brother, a prominent banker, in New Jersey. In his absence, publication of the Daily Crescent was suspended by military order following the Federal capture of New Orleans; it did not resume until October 1865. In 1866, the word “daily” was dropped from the title, though the paper continued to be published six days a week in six to twelve pages. A weekly edition, the Weekly Crescent, was also published.

Postwar issues of the New Orleans Crescent were politically moderate but freely criticized political leaders. In the presidential election of 1868, Nixon endorsed Democrat Horatio Seymour of New York and was critical of Republican Ulysses S. Grant. In the late 1860s the paper, which had been strongly proslavery before the Civil War, discussed the social and political implications of a free black population. Other major issues reported include the control of yellow fever, the regulation of prostitution, and the construction of roads, railroads and levees. Much of the paper consisted of commercial news and advertisements. Also available are announcements related to schools, academies, social clubs, and fraternal organizations.New Orleans was one of the few southern cities that played a significant role in the development of American sports; Nixon and his staff were particularly interested in horse racing but also reported on baseball and the activities of sporting organizations such as the elite Southern Yacht Club, of which Nixon was a member. The local theater and opera scene is also well documented.

The New Orleans Crescent was the official journal of the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans. Publication ended in 1869 when Nixon sold the enterprise to Charles A. Weed, a Connecticut businessman and publisher of the New Orleans Times. Founded in 1863 as a Unionist newspaper, the Times had taken over the Crescent’s printing plant during the Civil War.

Orleans Parish

In 1848, Alexander H. Hayes (d. 1866) and J. E. “Sam” McClure, both formerly of the New Orleans Daily Delta, founded the Daily Crescent, a newspaper best known for its association with the poet Walt Whitman, who co-edited the paper but was fired after a few months because of his antislavery views, and William Walker, the famous filibuster who in the 1850s led several private military expeditions to Central America in an attempt to establish an English-speaking, slaveholding empire. Reorganized as the New Orleans Daily Crescent in 1851 under the management of John Wesley Crockett (1807-1852), a son Davy Crockett, the paper was purchased in 1854 by New Jersey native James Oscar Nixon (1822-1891). Nixon had moved to Louisiana as a teenager and worked in the clothing business. During the Civil War, he served as a lieutenant colonel of a Louisiana cavalry regiment, was taken prisoner, and then paroled to the home of his brother, a prominent banker, in New Jersey. In his absence, publication of his newspapers was suspended by military order following the Federal capture of New Orleans; it did not resume until October 1865.

In the 1850s, the Crescent carried local, national, and international news of a miscellaneous nature. Although it discussed politics, including arguments over slavery (it was strongly proslavery), it also advertised itself as a “family paper,” carrying fiction, poetry, and essays. With the outbreak of the Civil War, reporting focused heavily on military matters. Politics constituted the bulk of articles in postwar issues, and though the Crescent adopted a moderate tone, it freely criticized political leaders. Much of the paper consisted of commercial news and advertisements, along with announcements related to schools, academies, social clubs, and fraternal organizations. The local theater and opera scene is well documented.

The word “daily” was dropped from the paper’s title in 1866, becoming the New Orleans Crescent, even though it continued to be published six days a week. A weekly edition, the Weekly Crescent, was also published. Both ceased in 1869 when Nixon sold out to Charles A. Weed, a Connecticut businessman and publisher of the New- Orleans Times. Founded in 1863 as a Unionist newspaper, the Times had taken over the Crescent’s printing plant during the Civil War.

Orleans

The New Orleans Democrat, the official organ of the Louisiana Democratic Party, was established in December 1875 by Robert Tyler (1816-1877), eldest son and former private secretary of President John Tyler. Although he was a leading figure in Pennsylvania politics following his father’s presidency, Tyler’s Southern sentiments earned him enemies, and in 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, he returned to his native Virginia and accepted a post in the Confederate treasury. Tyler later practiced law in Montgomery, Alabama, served as the state’s Democratic chairman, and edited a Montgomery newspaper. His association with the New Orleans Democrat was brief. After going through various owners and managers, in 1876 the paper came under the control of Henry J. Hearsey (1810-1900), a well-known Louisiana journalist.

True to its title, the Democrat’s focus was on state politics. Political speeches, letters, and other reports on Reconstruction-era topics filled many of its pages. The rest of the four-page daily journal consisted of miscellaneous local, national, and international news, together with market news and advertisements. A regular “amusements” column carried news of plays, operas, concerts, and public balls. Serialized fiction and poetry appeared in some issues. Of special interest are original political cartoons by S.W. Bennett.

The New Orleans Democrat was published briefly as the New Orleans Evening Democrat [LCCN: sn88064615] in late 1876 before changing its title again the following January to the New Orleans Daily Democrat [LCCN: sn83026413]. It was eventually consolidated with the New Orleans Times [LCCN: sn83016550] to form the Times-Democrat [LCCN: sn83016709], which by the early 20th century had achieved national prominence, partly for its Latin American reporting.

Orleans Parish

In 1876, Henry J. Hearsey (1810-1900), a well-known Louisiana journalist, was appointed by the state Democratic Party to edit its official organ, the New Orleans Democrat [LCCN: sn88064616], which by 1877 had become the New Orleans Daily Democrat. As editor, Hearsey contributed to the ending of carpetbag rule in Louisiana and criticized the Louisiana Lottery, a revenue-raising scheme widely regarded as a corrupting influence on state politics. In 1879, one of the Lottery’s supporters, State Treasurer Edward A. Burke (1839-1928), conspired to drive the Democrat into bankruptcy and then take control of it. Hearsey and Burke fought a bloodless duel in January 1880, but the latter retained control of the paper; Hearsey went on to found the Daily States [LCCN: sn83016714], one of the major New Orleans newspapers of its day.

The Daily Democrat’s focus was on state politics. Under Hearsey’s management, it was the official journal of the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana and as such published the proceedings of the state legislature, official government and judicial announcements, and news of elections. Miscellaneous local, national, and international news filled the rest of the four- to eight-page paper, together with market news and advertisements. A regular “amusements” column carried news of plays, operas, concerts, and public balls. The paper carried a small quantity of fiction and poetry.

The Daily Democrat’s title reverted to the New Orleans Democrat [LCCN: sn88064443] in 1880. The following year, Burke purchased the New Orleans Times [LCCN: sn83016550] and consolidated it with the Democrat to form the Times-Democrat [LCCN: sn83016709]. While in Honduras in 1889, he was indicted for embezzling up to two million dollars in Louisiana state funds, but because no extradition treaties existed between the United States and Honduras, he was able to remain there for the rest of his life.

Orleans Parish

In its final issue, the editors of the New Orleans Republican looked back on the newspaper's 11-year history. Founded in 1867, two years after the end of the Civil War, its purpose had been "to organize the patriotic sentiment of [Louisiana] into harmonious relations with the Federal government, to reconcile the defeated portion of our population to the changes in institutions and political principles produced by the war, and to readjust in accordance with those changes the relations between the white and colored races in the State-in other words, to develop and express the then latent Republicanism of this community." The editors admitted that they had largely failed in their mission and that though the paper had claimed to have the largest circulation of any Republican newspaper in the South, those who read it risked "social and business ostracism."

Early on, Generals Benjamin Butler and Nathaniel Banks, commanders of Federal forces in New Orleans during Reconstruction, had published a letter vouching for the loyalty of the paper's owner, S. L. Brown & Company. The Republican eventually became one of three newspapers controlled by Michael Hahn. Born in Germany but raised and educated in Louisiana, Hahn had served as governor of Union-occupied Louisiana in 1864-65 and was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1865 but never took office because of factional struggles within the Republican Party and delays in Louisiana being readmitted to the Union. The paper continued to support Louisiana's Radical Republican regime under William R. Fish, who became chief editor in 1872, joined one year later by Thomas G. Tracy.

Most issues consist heavily of editorials, political speeches, news of Republican meetings and clubs, and statements of the party's platform. The text of laws passed in Congress and the Louisiana legislature was often reprinted in the Republican, along with legal notices, city ordinances, and proceedings of the New Orleans city council. Other content included letters from correspondents in Washington, New York, London, Paris, and other cities; news briefs from throughout Louisiana; commercial news and advertisements; articles on popular entertainment venues such as the New Orleans opera; announcements of public sales and auctions; and the U. S. Marshal's monitions, mostly pertaining to the seizure of contraband liquor and trading vessels. Also of interest are articles written in an exaggerated Southern dialect by Petroleum V. Nasby, a fictional character created by Northern political commentator and humorist David Ross Locke to ridicule Democrats and ex-Confederates.

The New Orleans Republican was published six days a week in four to eight pages; in 1877, it became a semiweekly and then, in 1878, a weekly. The last issue appeared on November 10, 1878.

St. Landry Parish

Founded in 1852, the Opelousas Courier / Le Courrier des Opelousas was published in a small but historically significant town on the so-called “Cajun Prairie” of south-central Louisiana. Established in 1720 as a French trading post, Opelousas developed into a regional cattle and farming center. In 1862, during the Civil War, it served briefly as Louisiana’s capital after the state legislature abandoned Baton Rouge. In April 1863, occupying Union forces took over the Courier and edited it for a week. A shortage of newsprint resulted in it suspending publication for short periods during the war; some issues were printed on wallpaper. The 1870s and 1880s in Opelousas were marked by reactionary racial politics and a stagnating economy (according to one editorial in the St. Landry Clarion in 1908, “For a number of years Opelousas was known to the surrounding new towns, that rose like mushrooms on every side, as the ‘peaceful slumber’”). However, largely owing to railroads, the town’s population slowly grew and by 1910 had reached 4,000.

Throughout its existence, the Courier was associated with the Sandoz family. Joel Henri Sandoz (ca. 1817-1878), a native of Switzerland and formerly coeditor of the Opelousas Gazette, founded the paper with André (or Andrew) Meynier, the town mayor, and edited it for many years. He was succeeded by his son Leonce Sandoz (1844-1909). Although originally neutral in politics, in the presidential election of 1860 the Courier endorsed secessionist Democratic candidate John C. Breckinridge. After the war, it remained Democratic. Local reporting focused on politics, railroads, immigration, education, and agriculture. By the 1870s, the paper had become a typical “home journal,” carrying fiction, essays, a farm and garden column, and domestic advice. Articles of a literary nature were dropped around 1908 in favor of more local reporting. French-language content, which originally took up two of the paper’s four pages, had also disappeared by the early 1900s.

Publication appears to have ceased in February 1910, a few months after the death of Leonce Sandoz.

St. Landry Parish

Founded in the early 18th century as a French trading post, the town of Opelousas, Louisiana, had developed into a cattle and farming center of regional importance by the middle of the 19th century. It served briefly as Louisiana’s capital during the Civil War after the state legislature abandoned the more strategically vulnerable city of Baton Rouge, located about 60 miles to the east.

James W. Jackson (b. 1837), a native of North Carolina, established the Opelousas Journal in 1868. During its first year, it was printed weekly on a single double-sided sheet. Every second week, one page contained French-language content, under the title Le journal des Opelousas. In December 1868, the Journal expanded to four pages, with one page in French every week. Except for ads and occasional announcements, the paper had become English-only by 1871.

The Journal was a typical Southern small-town newspaper that offered miscellaneous news from around the world; brief editorials on various topics, especially local politics (the paper was affiliated with the Democratic Party); reports on political meetings and internal improvements such as the construction of roads, railroads, and levees; general-interest articles, fiction, and poetry, mostly reproduced from other sources; agricultural and domestic advice; advertisements; and marriage notices and obituaries. Also printed were acts of the Louisiana state legislature and letters chiefly on political topics from correspondents in Washington, New York, Philadelphia, and other cities. Like many French-language Louisiana newspapers of its day, each issue of the Journal contained a “feuilleton” (serialized novel or short story) until the paper ceased being bilingual around 1871.

The Opelousas Journal was published until January 1878, when it was sold and reorganized as the St. Landry Democrat [LCCN: sn88064537].

St. Landry Parish

Opelousas, Louisiana, the seat of St. Landry Parish, was established in 1720 as a French trading post. By the middle of the 19th century, it had developed into a cattle trading center and market town of regional importance. In 1862, it served briefly as Louisiana's capital after the state legislature abandoned the strategically more vulnerable city of Baton Rouge. Opelousas, too, was abandoned the following spring when Federal troops advanced toward the town.

The Opelousas Patriot was founded in 1855 by Albert Dejean, Cyrus Thompson, and Alfred Livingston. It was published weekly in four pages, two in English and two in French. Although the Patriot initially claimed to be neutral in politics and refuted accusations that it was an American (or Know Nothing) Party paper, it soon came out in support of the party, which sought to limit the political influence of Irish and German Catholic immigrants. Initially unpopular in heavily Catholic Louisiana, support increased in 1855 when Charles Derbigny, son of a former governor and member of an established French Catholic, Creole family, received the Know Nothings' gubernatorial nomination.

The Patriot's focus through about 1857 was American Party politics, but it also carried general foreign and domestic news as well as essays, poetry, and fiction, including serialized French novels. In the years leading up to the Civil War, it contained articles on topics such as abolition, slavery in the territories, and the influence of free blacks. Dejean and Thompson ended their connection with the paper after the election of 1856. Later publishers and editors included Charles Ealer, Charles Potier, Rodolphe Chachere, Samuel Nolley, Onezime Guidry, and Edmond Ducré Estilette, a graduate of Yale.

At present, no issues of the Patriot are known to exist from February 1860 to May 1861; according to a biographical sketch of Estilette, it was at that time "an independent organ, but favoring what was known as the Cooperative Party." The few issues that survive from the Civil War document troop movements and unrest in St. Landry Parish. After the Federal occupation of Opelousas in 1863, Estilette fell into disfavor with Union commanders, who shut the Patriot down.

Ouachita Parish

On September 18, 1865, George William McCranie (1838-1895), a former Confederate army captain, published the first issue of the Weekly Telegraph in Monroe, Louisiana. Located along the Ouachita River in the fertile farm country of northeast Louisiana, Monroe (the seat of Ouachita Parish) was then in a period of growth following its connection to Vicksburg, Mississippi, a key cotton port, by rail in 1855, and then to Shreveport and areas farther west in 1860. Cotton and timber formed the basis of the local economy.

McCranie expanded the Weekly Telegraph from two pages to four in December 1865 and changed its title to the Ouachita Telegraph. As a Democratic newspaper, it opposed Radical Republican rule and the empowerment of black voters in Louisiana. In the months leading up to the presidential election of 1868, McCranie published a series of original cartoons ridiculing presidential candidate Ulysses S. Grant, Republican officeholders, and their supporters, especially African Americans. He frequently spoke out against the most prominent Republican newspaper in north Louisiana, William Jasper Blackburn’s Homer Iliad . In July 1868, McCranie announced that he would publish a Democratic campaign paper, the Bastrop Saxon, in neighboring Morehouse Parish. He then briefly turned over editorship of the Ouachita Telegraph to Samuel D. McEnery (1837-1910), a Catholic and future governor of Louisiana, while McCranie assisted with the Democratic campaign. McCranie was also on close terms with and often published articles about S. D. McEnery’s brother John McEnery, a controversial Reconstruction-era politician.

Although the Ouachita Telegraph was primarily concerned with politics, other topics reported included immigration to north Louisiana and Texas, the cotton trade, railroads, bridge construction, river improvements, and the growth of local schools and academies. McCranie’s views on the temperance movement were skeptical, but he faithfully reported developments in this field, both local and national. The Ouachita Telegraph contained many articles related to former Confederate soldiers and political leaders. It also reported at some length on the so-called Exodus of 1879, in which large numbers of African Americans left Louisiana in search of a better life in Kansas. Coverage of religious issues related mostly to the Baptist church; however, McCranie occasionally reported the activities of other denominations, including Monroe’s small Jewish community, some members of which advertised heavily in his newspaper. 

McCranie served as the first president of the Louisiana Press Association when it was founded in 1880. In July 1886, Charles Henry Trousdale (1858-1921) succeeded McCranie as editor of the Ouachita Telegraph. Trousdale expanded the paper’s fiction and “society” sections and began publishing more articles on agricultural and household topics. In matters of politics, Trousdale largely maintained McCranie’s racist views. The last issue of the Ouachita Telegraph was published on December 28, 1889, after which it was consolidated with the Monroe Bulletin to form the Telegraph-Bulletin.

Rapides Parish

Glenmora is a small town in Rapides Parish in central Louisiana. Founded in the 1860s, by the 1890s its population still numbered fewer than 100. The completion of a rail line from Alexandria to Lake Charles through the virgin pine forest of central Louisiana brought jobs to Glenmora, and by the 1920s the town had grown to about 1,500. The local economy was based on lumber milling and the production of naval stores. As timber resources dwindled and more land was cleared, truck farming expanded, with strawberries becoming Glenmora’s principal crop. The Missouri Pacific Railroad and other owners of deforested land sponsored “colonization” projects to settle new farmers.

The Patriot was founded in June 1917 by Benjamin Walter Barnes. Within a few months, Barnes sold it to William W. Perry, a Methodist minister. By 1922, the Patriot had come under the management of Thomas Willis Cooper and his wife Nettie Cooper. In 1958, it was consolidated with another newspaper to form the Patriot-Tribune [LCCN: sn88064302].

Published weekly in four to eight pages, the Patriot typically carried a mix of local, national, and international news. Local items included personal notes from Glenmora and the nearby towns of Lecompte and McNary, news of churches and social organizations, and reports on businesses. The paper was founded shortly after U.S. entry into World War I and contains much information on the conflict, including its effects on life in Louisiana. Like many country papers of its day, the Patriot carried regular columns on progressive farming techniques and the Good Roads movement, as well as short essays on social issues by prominent writers from around the world.

Orleans Parish

Founded in New Orleans in 1851, the Spanish-language newspaper El Pelayo took its name from the Visigothic nobleman who, in legend, began the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the Moors in the 8th century. The newspaper’s primary purpose was to oppose Narciso López, a Venezuelan-born revolutionary who was attempting to enlist U.S. support for the liberation of Cuba from Spain, a plan which found favor among slaveholding Southern expansionists seeking to broaden their political influence.

The paper’s editor, Eduardo San Just (ca. 1825-1869), was a native of Spain. Most of his editorials are devoted to discrediting López and his American supporters in the eyes of Louisiana’s Spanish-speaking population. He also reported on national opinion about the situation in Cuba, the U.S. government’s handling of the affair, and resulting diplomatic tensions with Britain and France.

In addition to San Just’s opinions on Cuba, El Pelayo carried news of a general nature, focused on but not limited to Spain and Latin America. Some local news items, including a small number of obituaries, were printed, as were advertisements for New Orleans merchants and shipping firms. Published two to three times per week, the four-page newspaper advertised itself as a “political, literary, and mercantile periodical” and the “organ of the Spanish population.”

The last known extant copy of El Pelayo dates from December 1851. Several months earlier, the Spanish consulate in New Orleans had been attacked by a mob angry over the capture and execution of Americans who had participated in López’s failed filibustering expedition. The offices of La Union, a Spanish-language newspaper hostile to López, were also attacked. Bad feelings lingered, and in October 1852, fearing he would be the victim of further reprisals, San Just ended publication of El Pelayo. Leaving Louisiana, he served for a time as a Spanish consul in China before accepting a similar position in Sydney, Australia, where in 1869, in a fit of insanity brought on by illness, he committed suicide by throwing himself from a window.

Natchitoches Parish

The People’s Vindicator was one of the most incendiary newspapers of Reconstruction-era Louisiana. It was founded in 1874 in Natchitoches, a major cotton shipping center near the Louisiana-Texas border, by James H. Cosgrove (1842-1914). A veteran of the Confederate army, Cosgrove used verbal and physical violence in his mission to reestablish white supremacy in Louisiana and drive out northern carpetbaggers.

Shortly after the first issue of the People’s Vindicator was issued in June 1874, six white Radical Republican officeholders and as many as twenty of their black supporters were assassinated in Red River Parish in the so-called Coushatta Massacre. Cosgrove, who had encouraged such acts, was arrested by federal troops and briefly imprisoned. The following year, he engaged in a war of words with Republican state legislator E. L. Pierson, accusing him of embezzlement and forgery, and having his own character attacked in return. In December, Cosgrove shot and killed Pierson. Although the murderer was apparently never prosecuted, publication of the People’s Vindicator was suspended for three months. When it resumed, the paper had a new editor, George E. Gillespie. Cosgrove, however, returned as editor in June 1876.

During Reconstruction, reporting focused almost solely on politics, specifically the promotion of the Democratic party and white supremacy. Published under the motto “The Welfare of the People is the Supreme Law,” by 1879 the People’s Vindicator had declared itself the “Official Organ of the White Citizens of Red River, Sabine, Winn and Natchitoches Parishes.” The White League, a paramilitary organization formed to intimidate both black and white Republican voters, was a frequent topic of reporting. The activities of Colonel William Levy, a prominent local Democratic leader, and his Republican counterpart, the Vermont carpetbagger Marshall Harvey Twitchell, received much attention, as did the campaign to expose two allegedly corrupt officeholders, David H. Boullt, the parish tax collector, and Henry C. Myers, a district judge. Cosgrove initially opposed the Louisiana Lottery, which he regarded as a corrupting influence on state politics and a tool of the Republican political machine. By 1879, however, he had changed his opinion and supported the lottery.

In the 1880s, political tensions died down and the People’s Vindicator reported more frequently on topics such as schools, railroads, and agriculture. Fiction and domestic advice sections were also added. The weekly paper expanded from four to eight pages at this time and claimed to have the largest circulation of any country paper in the state.

On April 19, 1881, a large portion Natchitoches’ business district, including the offices of the People’s Vindicator, was destroyed by fire. Publication of the paper resumed on June 4, 1881. Phanor Breazeale (1858-1934), a future U.S. Representative for Louisiana, succeeded Cosgrove as editor in 1882. The paper went out of business a year later when Breazeale sold the press and type to Charles Vernon Porter, publisher of the new Natchitoches Democratic Review.

Assumption Parish

Napoleonville, the seat of Assumption Parish, is located along the banks of Bayou Lafourche in coastal southeast Louisiana. Tradition says that the town took its name from a French settler who had served under Napoleon Bonaparte. The population grew rapidly in the 1890s and was nearing 1,000 by 1900 (it has since fallen to about 600). Sugar cane became the parish’s principal crop in the early 1860s and continues to be important.

Dubbed the “Official Journal of the Parish of Assumption and the Town of Napoleonville,” the Pioneer of Assumption provided its readers with a wealth of national and international information. The paper originated as a French-language journal, Le Pionnier de l’Assomption, and was the first newspaper in the parish. It was founded on September 7, 1850, by Eugene Supervielle (1824-1868), a French émigré, and F. A. Devilliers (d. 1857). By 1853, the paper was being published in both French and English. Ownership would change over the years with Amadéo Morel (1813-1867) becoming proprietor in 1855 and Conrad L. Mavor both editor and proprietor the following year. Under Mavor’s management, the paper’s title changed to the Pioneer of Assumption.

French immigrant Charles Dupaty (ca. 1829-1884) bought the paper in 1858. Two years later, he sold it to his brother Joseph (ca. 1822-1867) while he voyaged to Mexico to support Maximilian I. Upon Joseph’s death in September 1867, Charles returned to Napoleonville, resuming his role as editor and becoming involved in the state legislature; he was also elected mayor of Napoleonville, a position he would hold for two terms. At Charles’s own death in September 1884, his widow Susan Young Dupaty (ca. 1843-1929) took over the paper’s management. In 1895, it changed its title once more to the Assumption Pioneer, by which it continues to be published as of 2013. By 1896, it was being printed in English only. Susan Dupaty would continue to manage the paper until 1903, after which it came under the editorship of a prominent local family, the Gianellonis.

The Pioneer of Assumption was published weekly on either Sunday, Tuesday, or Saturday. During the 1850s, it was principally a political journal, though issues were filled with a mix of judicial, local, national, and international news. The paper also included an official town directory, as well as literature, essays, and domestic advice. One of the contributors was Prudent d’Artlys, pen name of Hippolyte-Prudent de Bautte (1821-1861), a political refugee from France and editor of the newspaper Le Meschacébé in Lucy in nearby St. James Parish. The Pioneer of Assumption was one of the few Louisiana newspapers that did not suspend publication during the Civil War.

Assumption Parish

Napoleonville, the seat of Assumption Parish, is located along the banks of Bayou Lafourche in coastal southeast Louisiana. Tradition says that the town took its name from a French settler who had served under Napoleon Bonaparte. The population grew rapidly in the 1890s and was nearing 1,000 by 1900 (it has since fallen to about 600). Sugar cane became the parish’s principal crop in the early 1860s and continues to be important.

Dubbed the “Official Journal of the Parish of Assumption and the Town of Napoleonville,” the Pioneer of Assumption provided its readers with a wealth of national and international information. The paper originated as a French-language journal, Le Pionnier de l’Assomption, and was the first newspaper in the parish. It was founded on September 7, 1850, by Eugene Supervielle (1824-1868), a French émigré, and F. A. Devilliers (d. 1857). By 1853, the paper was being published in both French and English. Ownership would change over the years with Amadéo Morel (1813-1867) becoming proprietor in 1855 and Conrad L. Mavor both editor and proprietor the following year. Under Mavor’s management, the paper’s title changed to the Pioneer of Assumption.

French immigrant Charles Dupaty (ca. 1829-1884) bought the paper in 1858. Two years later, he sold it to his brother Joseph (ca. 1822-1867) while he voyaged to Mexico to support Maximilian I. Upon Joseph’s death in September 1867, Charles returned to Napoleonville, resuming his role as editor and becoming involved in the state legislature; he was also elected mayor of Napoleonville, a position he would hold for two terms. At Charles’s own death in September 1884, his widow Susan Young Dupaty (ca. 1843-1929) took over the paper’s management. In 1895, it changed its title once more to the Assumption Pioneer, by which it continues to be published as of 2013. By 1896, it was being printed in English only. Susan Dupaty would continue to manage the paper until 1903, after which it came under the editorship of a prominent local family, the Gianellonis.

The Pioneer of Assumption was published weekly on either Sunday, Tuesday, or Saturday. During the 1850s, it was principally a political journal, though issues were filled with a mix of judicial, local, national, and international news. The paper also included an official town directory, as well as literature, essays, and domestic advice. One of the contributors was Prudent d’Artlys, pen name of Hippolyte-Prudent de Bautte (1821-1861), a political refugee from France and editor of the newspaper Le Meschacébé in Lucy in nearby St. James Parish. The Pioneer of Assumption was one of the few Louisiana newspapers that did not suspend publication during the Civil War.

St. Mary Parish

Founded in 1836, the Planters’ Banner / Bannière des habitans was a bilingual English-French newspaper published in Franklin, the seat of St. Mary Parish, Louisiana. Its place of publication is sometimes given as Attakapas County, one of the twelve counties of the Territory of Orleans, from which St. Mary Parish was formed in 1811. In the antebellum period, this part of Louisiana was known for its large sugar plantations. It later became a center of the state’s oyster and shrimp industries.

The Banner was briefly edited by Jeremiah Cosden, Nicholas Kelly, and William C. Dwight before coming under the management of Robert Wilson, who edited it from 1838 to 1848. In politics, it supported the Whig Party and its platform of internal improvements. Articles on steamboat navigation, canals, banking, and public lands are common. International news included reports on unrest in the Republic of Texas and Canada and Indian hostilities in Florida and the western territories.

The Banner was a “family” paper, carrying fiction, poetry, essays, and humorous anecdotes. In 1842, it was renamed the Planter’s Banner, and Louisiana Agriculturist, but reverted in 1849 to the Planter’s Banner when it came under the ownership of Daniel Dennett, a native of Maine who became one of the leading promoters of southwest Louisiana. Dennett moved the paper to nearby New Iberia in 1871 because of financial difficulties. Publication ended the following year.

Pointe Coupee Parish

The town of New Roads, Louisiana, was founded in the 1720s as a French trading post. It later went by several names, including St. Mary’s, Chemin Neuf (“New Road”), and False River on account of its location on an oxbow lake that was once part of the main channel of the Mississippi River. It is the seat of Pointe Coupee Parish. In the 19th century, the area’s rich alluvial soil made it one of the most productive in the state. Its major crops were cotton, sugar, corn, and pecans.

The first issue of the Pointe Coupee Democrat was published in January 1858 by Edward J. Pullen. One year later, Pullen sold the paper to  Pierre Antoine Roy, a native of Quebec. Issued weekly with two pages in English and two in French, it was initially published under the mottos “United We Stand; Divided We Fall” and “L’Union fait la force.” These were dropped in October 1859 as political tensions between North and South intensified. Part literary journal, part news organ and advertising sheet, the Democrat carried discussions of topics such as slavery, abolition, free African Americans, state politics, roads, railroads, river traffic, education, and local agriculture. It also published the minutes of the parish police jury (similar to county councils in other states).

The content of the paper’s French section differed from the English, containing poetry and fiction, articles such as “Proscription de la langue française,” a series of “Biographies americaines,” and stories about French history.                  

In the presidential election of 1860, the Pointe Coupee Democrat endorsed secessionist candidates John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky and Joseph Lane of Oregon. Few copies survive from the first year of Lincoln’s presidency and only one copy from 1862. Extant wartime copies contain information on the raising of local troops, news of military campaigns, and letters to the editor from soldiers. Publication is thought to have ceased in 1862.

Caddo Parish

Founded in 1892, the Progress of Shreveport, Louisiana, was a politically independent newspaper edited by a reform-minded Democrat and one-time Populist candidate for the United States House of Representatives, Calvin “Cal” D. Hicks (1858-1931). Hicks supported the national Populist position on monetary reform, government ownership of railroads, and labor-friendly legislation. He was also an entrenched opponent of political bossism, election fraud, and the Bourbon Democrats, a powerful faction dominated by south Louisiana sugar planters. In 1895-96, Hicks feuded with Shreveport’s leading Bourbon Democrat, U. S. Senator Newton C. Blanchard, and helped to drive him out of office. Despite Hicks’s opposition to men such as Blanchard, however, he never fully broke with the Democratic Party or fully supported Populist ideals. Although he endorsed Populist William Jennings Bryan in the presidential election of 1896, in that year’s gubernatorial election Hicks refused to back Populist-Republican fusion candidate John Newton Pharr on account of Pharr’s advocacy of black rights.   

Initially published under the motto “Our Main Mission: The Upbuilding of Shreveport and North Louisiana,” the Progress promoted municipal improvements such as the building of street railways, levees, and public schools. As the official journal of the Caddo Parish Farmers Union, it carried regular columns on agricultural subjects as well as northwest Louisiana’s expanding timber industry. Society news and gossip was reported by various women editors, including Mary E. Land, Sarah Asher, Mary Dingle, and Sadie Bejach.

Adopting the Populist Party’s characteristically evangelical tone, the Progress devoted considerable attention to religious matters and discussions of social crusades such as the temperance movement; it also carried morally instructive fiction, weekly Sunday school lessons, and sermons of Presbyterian clergyman and social reformer Thomas De Witt Talmage.

The Progress was published weekly, usually in eight but at times in four, twelve, or sixteen pages. During the campaign season of 1896, it was published twice a week as the Semi Weekly Progress. The paper suffered embarrassment in 1898 when its associate editor, S. T. Abbott, was convicted of manslaughter and imprisoned for killing a black porter whom Abbott claimed had affronted him in a Shreveport furniture store. Publication ceased two years later when Hicks left journalism and returned fulltime to his law practice.

Rapides Parish

The Rapides Gazette was founded in 1869 in Alexandria, the seat of Rapides Parish, a cotton- and timber-producing parish in central Louisiana. Its founder, George Wescott Southwick (ca. 1814-1870), lived in Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas before settling in Alexandria at the outbreak of the Civil War, throughout which he remained a “Union man.” Published under the motto “Let Us Have Peace,” the Rapides Gazette was initially a Radical Republican organ. Its second editor, T. G. Compton (1814-1874), appears to have held more moderate views. A Maryland native, Compton came to Alexandria in 1839 to work as a pharmacist. He described himself in a “salutatory” editorial as a “life-long Whig of the old line” and a “conservative [i.e., moderate] Republican” who was “bitterly opposed to secession as long as opposition could be shown.” Indeed, in the late 1850s, Compton had served as assistant editor of Charles Boyce’s Red River American, an anti-secessionist newspaper.

As the official journal of the state of Louisiana, the Rapides Gazette documents the political turmoil of the 1870s. It is a valuable source of information on Reconstruction-era governors, senators, and other officeholders, including Henry Clay Warmoth, William Pitt Kellogg, P. B. S. Pinchback, and James Madison Wells. The paper also documents race relations in Louisiana. In the election of 1872, it endorsed Republican Ulysses S. Grant for president, but also reported on the activities of supporters of  Liberal Republican Party candidate Horace Greeley.

Miscellaneous news from around the state was printed in a column titled “Pelican Feathers” (a reference to the Louisiana state bird). Other notable topics reported include the Catholic Church, the construction and maintenance of levees, and Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy  (now Louisiana State University), which was located at Pineville, near Alexandria from 1860 to 1869. The Rapides Gazette was the official journal of Rapides, Grant, and Vernon Parishes and carried the minutes of the Rapides Parish police jury (the equivalent of a county council in other states).

Publication continued until at least 1878, when the paper was being edited by Hugh A. Wetmore.

Ouachita Parish

Now the largest city in northeastern Louisiana, the city of Monroe was little more than a village from the time of its founding in the late 18th century until 1855, when it was connected by rail to the thriving cotton port of Vicksburg, Mississippi. In 1860, this line was extended to Shreveport and then to areas farther west. Until the early 20th century, the Ouachita River was also important to Monroe as a way of shipping cotton, lumber, and other local manufactures.

The Monroe Register was published at least as early as 1851, but at present, the oldest copy known to have survived is dated March 31, 1859. Its editor was Samuel Bard (1825-1878), a native of New York who moved to the South as a young man. He had previously worked as commissioner of public education in Louisiana and as an editor for the Memphis Avalanche. During the Civil War, Bard served as a captain in the Confederate army and afterwards worked as a newspaperman and postmaster in Atlanta. In 1870, he was appointed governor of Idaho Territory but never took office.

The Register, a four-page weekly, carried articles on miscellaneous topics, with a focus on politics and the sectional crisis. In the presidential election of 1860, it endorsed secessionist candidate John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and his running mate Joseph Lane of Oregon. Several poems and songs related to the campaign were printed. The paper also carried news of local schools, churches, and the state legislature, as well as notices of public sales and advertisements for Monroe businesses.

The last known extant copy of the Register dates from July 1861.

Jefferson Davis Parish

Incorporated in 1888, the community of Welsh was named after Henry Welsh, a prominent local businessman who offered the Southern Pacific Railroad a right-of-way through his land, ensuring rail service to the town. By 1917, Welsh’s population had grown to about 1,250, due in large part to an influx of Midwestern farm families whom promoters of Louisiana’s rice industry, seeking experienced grain farmers, had recruited. Welsh and the surrounding area was also home to many French-speaking Cajuns who worked primarily in the cattle trade or on small farms.

The Rice Belt Journal was founded in 1900. Billed as “An American Newspaper, Devoted to the Interest of Southwest Louisiana,” it was nonpartisan and focused chiefly on agriculture. It also reported on land sales, the Louisiana oil boom, municipal improvements, the Good Roads Movement, the activities of temperance clubs and anti-gambling leagues, and the work of local Red Cross chapters during World War I. In addition to a “local and personal” section, the Journal carried regular news briefs from the neighboring towns of Iowa, Roanoke, Jennings, Crowley, Lake Arthur, and Lake Charles. Also of interest are ordinances and proceedings of the Welsh town council, reports of the parish school board, and minutes of the police jury, the governing body of the parish.

In 1912, the Rice Belt Journal became the official newspaper of Jefferson Davis Parish, one of three new parishes carved out of Calcasieu Parish. Published as an eight-page weekly for most of the period 1900 to 1921, it appeared briefly as a four-page biweekly paper in 1914 and 1918. J. R. Rountree edited the Journal from 1900 to 1902.  In 1902, James T. Walker (b. ca. 1858) and Gordon Crank (1876-1945), publisher and editor of the Elsberry (MO) Democrat, purchased the paper. Crank served as its editor until returning to Missouri in 1906. He was succeeded by Dwight Ripley Read (1873-1948), a graduate of the University of Kansas, who later went on to edit the Milton (FL) Santa Rosa Star, an agricultural newspaper. The lawyer John T. Hood (1875-1956) served as editor of the Journal from 1913 to 1915, followed by R. S. Greer, a one-time mayor of Welsh, from 1915 to 1918. R. W. Howard (b. ca. 1881), a native of Minnesota, began editing the paper in 1918. Publication ended in late 1948 or 1949; by 1950, the Welsh Citizen had become the official town paper.

Richland Parish

The Richland Beacon was founded in 1869 by brothers Wiley P. Mangham (1838-1896) and Thomas J. Mangham (1835-1918). Wiley Mangham began his career as a printer’s devil in Rome, Georgia, then moved in 1860 to Ashville, Alabama, where he and his brother Thomas published the St. Clair Diamond, an enterprise they both soon abandoned to enlist in the Confederate army. After the Civil War, the Manghams joined another brother in north Louisiana. Wiley worked for a time as a typesetter at the Louisiana Intelligencer in Monroe before moving to Richland Parish, a timber- and cotton-producing parish created in 1868 from portions of neighboring Ouachita, Morehouse, Franklin, and Carroll Parishes. The Richland Beacon was its first newspaper. By 1877, the journal claimed a circulation of 352.

Although Richland Parish was created through the influence of Radical Republicans and its seat, Rayville, named after the local Republican landowner John Ray, the Richland Beacon was staunchly Democratic. Published on Saturdays in four pages, its motto was “Libertas et natale solum” (“Liberty and Native Soil”). During Reconstruction it focused heavily on politics and political violence, such as the infamous Colfax Massacre of 1873. By the 1880s it had shifted its focus to agriculture and immigration, reflecting the Manghams’ interests in real estate development and progressive farming (T. J. Mangham served as first editor of the Progressive Age, founded in 1890 in Ruston, Louisiana). The activities of local granges and agricultural clubs were reported, and attention was called to the need for diversified farming and the improvement of Mississippi River navigation. The proceedings of local levee boards are also available. Women readers were offered a domestic advice column and recipes, as well as fiction and poetry, which typically made up most of the paper’s first page.

The Richland Beacon was the official journal of Richland Parish and carried the minutes of the parish school board and police jury (similar to county councils in other states). In 1890, it was consolidated with the Richland News to form the Richland Beacon-News.

New Orleans Parish

The Louisianian was founded in New Orleans in 1870 by P. B. S. Pinchback (1837-1921), a black legislator who in 1872 was elected governor of Louisiana. Published under the motto “Republican at all times, and under all circumstances,” it was one of the few nineteenth-century African American newspapers that sought both black and white readers.

William G. Brown (1832-1883) served as the paper’s first editor. Born in New Jersey and raised in Jamaica, Brown, like Pinchback, was of mixed race. He resigned as editor in 1872 to become the Louisiana state superintendent of education. His successor, Henry A. Corbin (1845-1878), was a graduate of an Ohio college. Corbin died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 and was succeeded by George Thompson Ruby (1841-1882), a free-born black who had worked in New England and Haiti as a correspondent for the abolitionist James Redpath’s Pine and Palm. Ruby settled in Union-occupied Louisiana in 1864 but was driven out two years later after trying to establish a school for white and black children. Before returning to the state in 1874 to edit the Louisianian, he published the Galveston (TX) Standard and served one term in the Texas state senate. In 1878, Pinchback himself became editor-in-chief but delegated most of the work of producing the paper to graduate students from Straight University, a black institution that merged with New Orleans University in 1934 to form Dillard University.

The education of African Americans was a major subject of reporting in the Louisianian. The paper reported at length on Straight University, but also took an interest in other black schools such as Howard University in Washington, D.C. It also encouraged desegregation of school systems throughout the United States. Recognizing the urgent need to educate black readers in politics, the Louisianian devoted special attention to coverage of the Louisiana state legislature and various Republican committees. Also of interest are biographical sketches of black politicians, social leaders, and educators.

Other subjects reported included immigration to the South, African missions, the activities of black Masons, and the New Orleans entertainment scene. Originally issued on Thursdays and Sundays in four pages, the Louisianian (renamed the Semi-Weekly Louisianian in 1871) was published as the Weekly Louisianian from 1872 until its demise in 1882.

Natchitoches Parish

In 1859, Ernest Le Gendre, a French political exile, began publishing a bilingual newspaper, the Natchitoches Union, in Natchitoches, Louisiana, an important cotton shipping center on the Red River, near the state’s western border with Texas. Upon his death in 1862, Le Gendre was succeeded as editor by another French immigrant, Louis Dupleix (1820-1900). Arriving in Natchitoches in 1848, Dupleix worked as a farmer, businessman, and teacher before turning his attention to journalism.

Dupleix changed the title of the Natchitoches Union to the Natchitoches Times in April or May 1864, probably out of anti-Union sentiment (Henry W. Allen, the Confederate governor of Louisiana, wrote to Dupleix in June 1864 listing atrocities committed by Union soldiers and complimenting Dupleix on his paper’s new title). In late 1865, the name was changed again to the Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times when it began to be issued twice a week. Reporting focused on post-war conditions in Louisiana, including Reconstruction, the establishment of local Freedman’s Bureaus, and efforts to educate former slaves. Dupleix frequently printed news and literary notes from his native France as well as commentary on diplomatic and trade relations between the United States and Mexico. A regular letter from New Orleans reported on various subjects ranging from art and industry to business and society news. Agricultural reporting was concerned chiefly with the cotton trade; also of interest are reports on Chinese laborers brought to Natchitoches Parish in 1867.

The Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times was an English-language newspaper. However, many notices and letters to the editor, as well as the minutes of the police jury (the governing body of the parish), are printed in both English and French.

In January 1867, Dupleix was joined by a co-editor, Mary Edwards Bryan (1842-1913). Born in Florida and raised in Georgia, Bryan was a relative of Alexander H. Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy. Her husband, a wealthy Louisiana planter, was ruined by the Civil War. To make ends meet, she began working for the Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times as a journalist, a vocation she had practiced as a teenager in Atlanta in the 1850s. Bryan contributed more than 150 items to the paper, including political articles, poems, and original fiction, much of which is written in the “Lost Cause” style. Around 1868, Bryan returned to Atlanta, where she served for many years as editor of The Sunny South. She later became a prominent literary editor in New York and wrote several novels, including one set in Reconstruction-era Louisiana, Wild Work: The Story of the Red River Tragedy.

Dupleix sold the Semi-Weekly Natchitoches Times in 1868 and returned to farming. Charles J. C. Puckette, the paper’s purchaser, continued publishing it as the Weekly Natchitoches Times. Puckette’s political agenda was more reactionary and solidly Democratic than Dupleix’s had been. A biographical sketch written in 1890 states that Dupleix “was formerly a Whig, but is now a Republican.”

Caddo Parish

Considered the “second city” of Louisiana until being surpassed in population by Baton Rouge in the late twentieth century, Shreveport was founded on the banks of the Red River in 1836 by steamboat captain Henry Miller Shreve of Pennsylvania. The city quickly became an important cotton shipping center and staging point on the route to Texas. In 1860, its population was approximately 3,500, of which about 1,300 were slaves.

The first issues of the Shreveport Daily News and the Shreveport Weekly News were published in April 1861. Their editor, John Dickinson (b. ca. 1831), was a Brooklyn, New York native and a former manager of the Natchitoches (LA) Chronicle.

Publishing both a daily and a weekly newspaper soon proved to be too difficult for Dickinson, and in November 1861, he consolidated the papers to form the Shreveport Semi-Weekly News, the title of which changed several times over the next five years. In February 1863, the Shreveport Weekly News was again issued alongside the semiweekly edition, but failed four months later. It was revived for a third time in 1866.

The Civil War was the main subject of Dickinson’s reporting. In addition to news of battles and troop movements, he printed official military correspondence together with his personal opinions on subjects such as abolition and the use of African-American troops. Recognizing Shreveport’s importance as a railroad hub and river shipping center, Dickinson promoted southern industry; many of his papers carried the motto “Home Manufacture.” Reports of the Louisiana state legislature, which fled to Shreveport from Opelousas in 1863, are available, as is information on Shreveport’s brief period as the last capital of the Confederacy following the fall of Richmond in April 1865.

The cultural life of Shreveport during the Civil War was reported in some detail, with announcements of concerts, plays, minstrel shows, and other public entertainments. A “Ladies’ Corner” carried recipes, household tips, and fashion advice. Articles such as “Gov. Morehead’s Experience in a Yankee Prison” and “What the Yankee Soldiers Say and Think” may have been printed to bolster the resistance movement as Union troops advanced up the Red River toward Shreveport.

By 1867, the Shreveport Weekly News (described by a New Orleans newspaper as “that lively and flourishing journal”) was being edited by Rev. A. L. Hay (b. ca. 1820), a former Indian missionary and a graduate of Georgetown College in Kentucky. His wife, M. B. Hay (b. ca. 1836), a poet of some distinction, also contributed to the paper’s management. In 1869, it claimed a circulation of 600 in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. Publication appears to have ceased by 1870, by which time the Hays had moved to nearby Marshall, Texas.

West Feliciana Parish

In 1868, Joseph Parkinson Newsham (1837-1919), a native of England raised in Illinois, established the Feliciana Republican [LCCN: sn89059462] in St. Francisville, Louisiana, the seat of West Feliciana Parish, an area known in the 19th century for its large, affluent cotton plantations. In March 1872, the Feliciana Republican was renamed the Semi-Weekly Republican. It retained the existing numbering system but received a new editor, Don A. Weber (1847-1877).

Published twice a week in four pages under the motto “Here shall the Press the people’s right maintain, unawed by influence and unbribed by gain,” the Republican encouraged enfranchisement and fair treatment of African Americans but called for an end to Reconstruction. In the presidential election of 1872, it endorsed Liberal Republican Party candidate Horace Greeley of New York and his running mate Benjamin Gratz Brown of Missouri. From then on, the Republican focused on Liberal Republican Party politics, carrying statements of party platform, news of local meetings, editorials and brief notes on state politics, clippings from other Liberal Republican newspapers, and criticism of Radical Republicans, including President Ulysses S. Grant. The paper’s third and fourth pages consisted mostly of personal notices and advertisements.

In November 1872, immediately after Greeley’s defeat, the Semi-Weekly Republican was renamed the Weekly Feliciana Republican. Don Weber eventually became tax collector and supervisor of voter registration for West Feliciana Parish. In 1876, he and his brother Emile manipulated local election returns to give Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes a majority over Democrat Samuel Tilden. The fraud was discovered and reported in the Feliciana Sentinel [LCCN: sn88064555], causing such outrage that in March 1877, while crossing the street in St. Francisville, Don Weber was gunned down and killed by a band of assassins.

Lafourche Parish

La sentinelle de Thibodaux / Thibodaux Sentinel was founded in 1861 in Thibodaux, Louisiana, a small farming community at the heart of the state’s sugar-growing region. It struggled during the Civil War, partly because of paper shortages (at least three issues were printed on wallpaper). A later editorial recalled that during the war years, the Sentinel had been “dead under the wings of adversity and military power.”

In August 1865, the journal was revived by former Confederate soldier Pierre Ernest Lorio (1833-1894) and François Sancan (ca. 1826-1897), a native of France who had emigrated to Louisiana as a young man and worked as a portrait painter and photographer. Issued weekly in four pages with two in French and two in English, the Sentinel’s motto was “Independent in all things—neutral in none” / “Independant en tout. Neutre en rien.”

The paper carried brief local news items along with miscellaneous stories on national and international topics mostly copied from other sources. A business directory was included on the first page, where readers also found advertisements for local businesses, announcements of public sales, town ordinances, and (during Reconstruction) military orders. Though neutral in politics, the Sentinel voiced a mild opposition to the Federal occupation of Louisiana. Other pages typically contained articles on a wide range of topics, including politics, agriculture, education, and entertainment. Marriage notices, obituaries, and the minutes of the Lafourche Parish police jury (similar to county councils in other states) were also printed.

In June 1866, the Thibodaux Sentinel was renamed the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel [LCCN: sn86079078] and was published under that title until 1875, when its name was changed again to the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel and Journal of the 8th Senatorial District. François Sancan, who edited the French section, owned the paper until his death in 1897; the English section was edited by Duncan S. Cage and Silas T. Grisamore, among others. From 1882 to 1898, the Sentinel was published in separate English and French editions, each with four pages. In 1898, its title reverted to the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel. Two years later, the French-language edition was discontinued. From 1905 to 1912, when it went out of business, the paper was published as the Thibodaux Sentinel by Henry R. Dupré (b. ca. 1874).

Iberville Parish

The Southern Sentinel of Plaquemine, Louisiana, began publication in August 1848. Its owner and editor, William Plummer Bradburn (ca. 1815-1864) was a native of Tennessee, who began his newspaper career as an apprentice at the National Banner and Nashville Daily Advertiser [LCCN: sn86071170]. He ran away from this position in 1832, eventually joining the navy. In 1842, Bradburn purchased the Ibervillian from John Dutton in Iberville Parish, Louisiana, a wealthy region known in the 19th century for its sugar plantations. In 1844, having unsuccessfully attempted to claim the Mexican estate of his late uncle Juan Davis Bradburn (a general in the Mexican army), Bradburn began publishing the La Grange Intelligencer [LCCN: sn86088857] in what was then the Republic of Texas. Three years later, Bradburn returned to Louisiana and edited several New Orleans newspapers before settling permanently in Iberville Parish, where he became the managing editor of the Southern Sentinel in 1848.

A Whig newspaper, the Sentinel endorsed Louisiana planter and Mexican-American War hero Zachary Taylor in the presidential election of 1848. In 1852, it supported another veteran of the war, Winfield Scott, and, in 1856, former president Millard Fillmore. Articles frequently discussed the leading political issues of the day, including abolition, the Free Soil movement, the Compromise of 1850, and the Fugitive Slave Act. The activities of Whig Party leaders Henry Clay and Daniel Webster were reported at some length. National and international news was of a general nature, while local news tended to focus on political organizations and meetings.

The Sentinel was briefly published twice a week in four pages, with three in English and one in French, before becoming a four-page English weekly with French content limited mostly to advertisements. In 1858, the paper merged with the Iberville Gazette [LCCN: sn83016703] to form the Gazette and Sentinel [LCCN: sn86053832].

Winn Parish

Winnfield is the seat of Winn Parish in rural north-central Louisiana. Cotton was the predominant local industry there in the 19th century. The arrival of several railroads between 1901 and 1905 triggered a timber boom that caused the parish’s population to double, reaching its historic high around 1910. Other important industries included salt mining and limestone quarrying. Politically, Winnfield is significant as the birthplace of governors Huey and Earl Long, as well as Oscar Kelly “O. K.” Allen, an important figure in Huey Long’s political machine.

The Southern Sentinel was founded in 1883 by B. W. Ashwood (probably Benjamin Ashwood, who later printed the New Orleans Daily States ). It was the second newspaper of that title to be published in Winnfield, the first having gone out of business during the Civil War. In the mid 1880s, following Ashwood’s departure for New Orleans, the Sentinel was edited by Robert Edward Milling (1861-1947), who would go on to become a prominent New Orleans lawyer; William Allyn Strong (1847-1908), a former Louisiana Secretary of State; and Solomon Morgan Brian (1849-1888), a lawyer and merchant. Editor James Thompson Wallace (1850-1907) resigned in 1887 to found the Winn Parish Democrat, whereupon the Sentinel came under the editorship of 19-year-old Crockett Kelly Jones (1868-1894), a distant relative of frontiersman Davy Crockett. By the early 1900s, the paper was being edited by David Benjamin Coates (d. 1927), who later worked as a journalist in Texas and Los Angeles. Former editor Will Strong returned in 1906 and operated the Sentinel until his death two years later. It was then taken up by the well-known north Louisiana newspaperman William H. Tunnard (1837-1916). Publication ended in 1910, when the Sentinel was absorbed by the Winnfield Comrade.

Like virtually all Louisiana newspapers of its day, the Southern Sentinel supported the Democratic Party. It also promoted the economic development of Winn Parish, carrying news of the cotton and lumber industries, encouraging the construction of railroads, and, in the 20th century, printing the charters of local businesses. An agriculture column offered practical advice for farmers. In the 1880s, the Sentinel briefly carried a temperance column, and around 1903, it began reprinting selections from the works of nationally known authors on contemporary social issues. General and “society” news from the state capital, Baton Rouge, was reported in a regular letter from “Vivian” (Addie McGrath). By 1906, the paper had come to include fiction, but this was removed by editor Will Strong, who returned the Sentinel’s focus to politics and the promotion of Winn Parish.

Caddo Parish

The South-Western was founded in 1852 in Shreveport, Louisiana, an important cotton-shipping center near the state’s border with Texas and Arkansas. Its original purpose was to support the election of Whig Party presidential candidate Winfield Scott. Lewis Dillard (1794-1864), formerly of the New Orleans Native American [LCCN: sn90065070], was its first publisher and editor. Following Scott’s defeat, Dillard criticized the incoming administration of President Franklin Pierce. The same scene played out in 1856, when Dillard endorsed former Whig president Millard Fillmore (now running on the Know-Nothing or American Party ticket) and then embarked on a campaign of attacking the election’s winner, Democrat James Buchanan.

Published under an emblem of the American flag bearing the motto “Our Country and Our Party,” the South-Western strongly opposed Southern secession. In the election of 1860, it followed the majority of Shreveport’s voters in supporting Constitutional Union Party candidate John Bell, who sought to avoid disunion over the issue of slavery. Shortly after Louisiana seceded from the Union in January 1861, Dillard reluctantly removed the paper’s flag and motto.

Pre-Civil War editorials focused on discrediting the administrations of Presidents Pierce and Buchanan. Other topics of discussion included the Free Soil and Know-Nothing movements. Fiction, poetry, and advertisements for local business and schools were typically printed on the first page. News of steamboats, the basis of Shreveport’s economy in the mid-19th century, is abundant. After 1861, the South-Western devoted most of its reporting to the Civil War and its effects on daily life in Shreveport. Although the city served as the capital of Confederate Louisiana from 1863 to 1865 and briefly as the last capital of the Confederacy following the fall of Richmond in April 1865, few copies of the paper survive from this period.

At the end of the Civil War, the South-Western restored the American flag at the top of its second page and adopted a new motto, “The Union and Constitution.” Beginning in 1868, a daily edition, the Daily South-Western [LCCN: sn86090506], was published alongside the weekly edition, which in 1870 was renamed the Weekly South-Western [LCCN: sn87090568].

St. Charles Parish

The St. Charles Herald was established in 1873 by Michael Hahn (1830-1886). Born in Germany but raised and educated in Louisiana, Hahn left the Democratic Party and became a Republican during the Civil War. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1862 and then governor of Union-occupied Louisiana in 1864. Between terms, he acquired the New Orleans Daily True Delta [LCCN: sn83016490] and used it to support Abraham Lincoln’s plans for emancipation and reconstruction. Although elected to the Senate in 1865, Hahn never took office because of factional struggles within the Republican Party and delays in Louisiana being readmitted to the Union. From 1867 to 1871, he published another newspaper, the New Orleans Republican [LCCN: sn83016555].

In 1872, Hahn moved to nearby St. Charles Parish, bought a sugar plantation, founded the town of Hahnville, and soon embarked on a third newspaper-publishing venture, the St. Charles Herald. Claiming to be “independent of politicians, rings or cliques,” it was published by Hahn until his death in 1886. The paper was then acquired by J. C. Triche & Co.

The Herald carried miscellaneous news on local, national, and international topics, general-interest essays, agricultural and commercial news, public notices, announcements of sales, domestic advice, and a large amount of fiction (including regular “condensed classics”). By the early 20th century, it had expanded from four to eight pages. In 1993, the paper was consolidated with the River Parishes Guide [LCCN: sn84009659] to form the St. Charles Herald-Guide [LCCN: sn97001565].

St. Landry Parish

The St. Landry Clarion was founded in 1890 in Opelousas, an important town on the so-called “Cajun Prairie” of south-central Louisiana. Established in 1720 as a French trading post, Opelousas developed into a regional cattle and farming center. A railroad line constructed in 1880 stimulated agricultural activity. Lumber also became an important local industry with the founding of the St. Landry Lumber Company in 1888. By 1910, the town’s population had grown to about 4,000. With boosterism typical of the time, the St. Landry Clarion asserted in 1908 that Opelousas “has taken a new lease on life… Progress is written all over town.”

Published under the motto “Here shall the press the people’s rights maintain, unawed by influence and unbribed by gain,” the Clarion was originally a four-page weekly. Democratic in politics, it opposed the Louisiana Lottery, a revenue-raising scheme widely regarded as a corrupting influence on state government. It also supported the Farmers’ Alliance and published the proceedings of the local farmers’ union. Edited for many years by Raymond Breaux, the paper’s reporting was a mix of local, national, and international news. For a brief period in the 1890s, one page was printed in French. In the early 1900s, the Clarion’s fiction section was reduced in favor of increased local reporting on topics such as the south Louisiana oil and gas boom and immigration to the region; at the same time, the paper was expanded to eight pages. Reporting on other topics included the Good Roads movement, the effect of World War I on local life, and news from nearby Grand Coteau, site of the Academy of the Sacred Heart, a well-known Catholic girls’ school.

In 1921, the St. Landry Clarion was consolidated with the Star-Progress to form the Clarion-Progress.

St. Landry Parish

The St. Landry Democrat, published in the small farming community of Opelousas, Louisiana, was established on January 19, 1878, as the successor to the Opelousas Journal [LCCN: sn86079077]. Its editors and publishers included M. D. Kavanagh, J. W. Jackson, and E. P. Goodwin. Publisher Austin D. Williams later edited newspapers in the state capital, Baton Rouge.

Published weekly in four to eight pages, the Democrat was a typical Southern “country” paper that carried miscellaneous local, national, and international news, including brief reports and letters to the editor from towns throughout St. Landry Parish. Editorials often discussed politics and internal improvements, such as the construction of roads, railroads, and levees, as well as how to attract immigrants and workers to the region. Readers also would have found general-interest articles, largely copied from other sources; agricultural and domestic-advice columns; a “religious reading” section; fiction and poetry; an abundance of advertisements for local businesses; announcements of public sales; obituaries, marriage notices, and other personal notes; and the minutes of the St. Landry Parish police jury, the governing body of the parish (similar to county councils in other states).

Publication of the St. Landry Democrat ceased in 1894.

St. Landry Parish

The St. Landry Whig was founded as a campaign paper in support of Whig Party presidential candidate Henry Clay of Kentucky and his running mate Theodore Frelinghuysen of New Jersey. It was published in Opelousas, Louisiana, a small but historically significant town founded in 1720 as a French trading post. Over the next 100 years, Opelousas developed into an important regional center of the cattle and cotton trades and has been the seat of government of St. Landry Parish since 1805.

Joseph Etter was the St. Landry Whig's founder and first editor. Its early issues relate chiefly to the Presidential election of 1844, state politics, and tensions between the United States and Mexico over Texas, the annexation of which Etter, like many Louisiana Whigs, supported, despite Henry Clay's opposition.

The Whig was published weekly in four pages, with two pages in English and two in French. Some articles were printed in both languages, but the French section often contains substantially different content than the English. In addition to foreign news ("nouvelles etrangères") and miscellaneous domestic news ("faits divers"), the paper carried campaign songs, poetry, and fiction. For several months in 1844-45, the French section reprinted Le loup blanc (The White Wolf), a historical romance about a masked albino swashbuckler by the French author Paul Féval, better known as a writer of vampire novels and detective stories.

At present, no issues of the St. Landry Whig are known to survive from after 1846. Other sources indicate that in 1849 it was being edited by André Meynier, who went on to establish, in 1852, the Opelousas Courier with Joel Henri Sandoz, a Swiss immigrant. The Whig is thought to have been published until 1855 and merged with the Opelousas Patriot.

St. Mary Parish

The St. Mary Banner, a weekly newspaper in Franklin, Louisiana, published its first issue on April 15, 1889. From the start, it was a mouthpiece of the Democratic Party establishment of St. Mary Parish. The president of its publishing company was Murphy J. Foster, the son of a prominent sugar planter who was an attorney and state senator in his own right. He later served as governor of Louisiana between 1892 and 1900. Henry Stirling Palfrey, the secretary and treasurer, was the son of William Taylor Palfrey, a St. Mary Parish planter, judge, sheriff, and state senator. The paper was edited by Donelson Caffery Jr., whose father likewise was an important attorney, sugar planter, and state senator. Donelson Caffery Sr. was appointed to a vacant US Senate seat at the end of 1892 and later won election in his own right, serving until 1901 (when, not surprisingly, he was succeeded by Murphy Foster).

The beginnings of the St. Mary Banner are rather unclear because very few early issues have survived, but control of the newspaper had passed to Jared Young Sanders, a future Louisiana governor, by 1891. It remained a staunch Democratic Party organ in 1900 when it celebrated the election of William Wright Heard for governor over its former editor, Donelson Caffery Jr., who had mounted an utterly hopeless campaign at the head of a hapless faction of the Republican Party. W.H. Latham became editor and proprietor later that year, and kept up the Democrat editorial line until he threw the paper behind the Progressive cause in 1916.

The St. Mary Banner merged with the Franklin Tribune, another local newspaper that had existed for only six months, at the close of 1931 to form the Banner-Tribune. It still exists today as the St. Mary and Franklin Banner-Tribune.

St. Tammany Parish

The town of Covington, Louisiana, is located on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain approximately 40 miles from New Orleans. It was founded in 1813 and is the seat of St. Tammany Parish. Sparsely settled during the French colonial period, the area was part of the British colony of West Florida (1763-1783) and Spanish Florida (1783-1810). At the time of the Civil War, most of Covington’s 500 residents were engaged in the lumber and brick trade. The products were shipped to New Orleans via the neighboring town of Madisonville, a regional center for the construction of wooden barges, tugs, and sailboats. By the 1870s, the once-rich timber resources of St. Tammany Parish were nearing depletion. The construction of the East Louisiana Railroad in the 1880s facilitated the transportation of timber from outlying areas to Covington for milling and aided in the town’s recovery, as did a 22-mile rail line built across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, which, along with a lively steamboat traffic, helped turn the North Shore into a popular vacation and weekend destination for New Orleanians seeking respite from the summer heat. Several resorts and sanitariums sprang up in Covington, and by 1909, electric streetcars were running to nearby Abita Springs, believed by some to be the site of Ponce de Leon’s fountain of youth. Sailing excursions could be taken from the lakeshore towns of Madisonville and Mandeville.

The St. Tammany Farmer was founded in 1874 by Scottish immigrant George Ingram (ca. 1829-1875). John Edis Smith (1809-1893), an English immigrant, acquired it in 1878. His daughter Susan V. Kentzel (1855-1953) and her husband William G. Kentzel (1847-1907), a native of Philadelphia, owned and edited the paper for many years. David H. Mason, Jr. (1856-1928), son of a Chicago journalist and writer on economic policy, succeeded William Kentzel as editor and eventually became proprietor.

Democratic in its political leanings, the St. Tammany Farmer took its motto from President Andrew Jackson: “The Blessings of Government, Like the Dews from Heaven, Should Descend Alike upon the Rich and the Poor.” The paper described itself as “a weekly journal devoted to agriculture, railroads, commerce, manufactures, and education.” From the 1880s onwards, it contained advertisements for hotels, boarding houses, pleasure excursions, and other businesses associated with the local tourism industry. By the turn of the 20th century, the Farmer had expanded to eight pages and included an extensive fiction section (later removed). As early as 1906, it was bringing deforestation issues to light and calling for regulation. During World War I, it reported on local Red Cross activities, war lectures, and the influenza epidemic. Its first page also carried a regular column titled “Items of Interest at Jahncke Shipyards in Madisonville,” which reported on the construction of several large vessels for the U.S. Navy. Also of interest are accounts of regattas and yacht clubs, as well as brief sketches of “Prominent People and Progressive Enterprises of St. Tammany Parish.”

The St. Tammany Farmer is still in publication as of 2012.

St. Landry Parish

The Star-Progress, established in 1917 as successor to the short-lived St. Landry Progress [LCCN: sn88064248], was published in Opelousas, Louisiana, an important cattle and farming center on the so-called “Cajun Prairie.” The town’s population in 1917 was about 4,000.

Published weekly in four to twelve pages by Lawrence A. Andrepont and W. F. Nolan, the Star-Progress was progressive in tone, carrying many articles on electrification, roads, agriculture, education, and other improvements, including the establishment of the first radio station in Opelousas in 1919 and a sanitarium in 1920. There is also abundant news of local businesses, as well as the proceedings of the St. Landry Parish police jury, the governing body of the parish.

Among other common topics of reporting were local politics, fairs, farmers’ organizations, clubs, sports, and other entertainments such as circuses and movie theaters. Also of interest are articles on the Red Cross and the impact of World War I on Louisiana. Although the paper did report on national and international topics, its focus was mainly on Opelousas, with occasional news briefs from the nearby towns of Washington, Grand Coteau, Arnaudville, and Eunice.

In November 1921, the Star-Progress was consolidated with the St. Landry Clarion [LCCN: sn88064250] to form the Clarion-Progress [LCCN: sn88064251].

West Baton Rouge Parish

The Sugar Planter, founded in 1856, was a four-page weekly newspaper published in West Baton Rouge, Louisiana, seat of the parish of the same name. Located on the west bank of the Mississippi River across from Baton Rouge, the town was renamed Port Allen when it was incorporated in 1916. Now an industrial and residential suburb of the state capital, in the 19th century West Baton Rouge Parish was known for its sugar plantations.

Henry J. Hyams (ca. 1828-1883), the Sugar Planter’s founding editor, advocated for the commercial and political interests of planters. Most early issues of the paper carried news related to planter meetings and the state sugar crop. In 1856-57, Hyams supported the American or Know-Nothing Party and reported on nativist activities in the vicinity of Baton Rouge. Although a staunch supporter of slavery, Hyams spoke out against Southern “fire-eaters” such as William Lowndes Yancey and John C. Breckinridge, and in the presidential election of 1860, he endorsed Constitutional Union Party candidate John Bell, who sought to avoid disunion over the issue of slavery. However, after Louisiana seceded from the Union in 1861, Hyams fully embraced it. Wartime issues of the Sugar Planter contain miscellaneous news related to military affairs and the formation of the Confederate government. Publication was suspended in 1862 when paper became unavailable. Shortly after the occupation of Baton Rouge by Federal forces, Hyams was arrested on charges of disloyalty.

Publication resumed in January 1866. For the remainder of the decade, the Sugar Planter focused on criticizing Radical Republican leaders and promoting the economic development of West Baton Rouge Parish. Few issues survive from after 1870, but the paper appears to have become a mainstream “home” journal during this period. Upon Hyams’ death in 1883, his son, Joseph W. Hyams (1864-1912), took his place. The younger Hyams was elected to the state legislature in 1888, and in 1906, the same year that he began a two-year term as speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives, he moved to New Orleans to work as an immigration agent for the Southern Pacific Railroad. From 1908 to 1923, the paper was edited by Francis J. Whitehead (1888-1951), a lawyer and civic leader who contributed to the development of Greater Baton Rouge as an inland port.

The Sugar Planter was renamed the Port Allen Observer in 1926.

Tensas Parish

The Tensas Gazette was founded in 1852 in St. Joseph, Louisiana, by Andrew Marschalk (1817-1878), son of Andrew Marschalk Sr., the “father of printing” in Mississippi. Publication was suspended from 1863 until the end of the Civil War. From 1868 to 1872, the paper was owned by Thomas W. Castleman (1845-1914), a Confederate veteran. During Reconstruction, it was issued as a “carpetbag” Republican newspaper under a new title, the North Louisiana Journal. It returned to Democratic hands in 1879 and was renamed the Tensas Gazette in 1886 when purchased by Robert H. Snyder (1855-1905), who retained it until his election as lieutenant governor of Louisiana in 1895. Subsequent editors included Hugh Tullis (b. 1857), Henry A. Garrett (1841-1901), and Abner E. Green, all prominent lawyers. Josiah Petit Scott (1875-1953) purchased the paper around 1912 and edited it until his death forty years later.

Tensas Parish is located in northeastern Louisiana along the Mississippi River. At the turn of the twentieth century, it had one of the largest African American populations in the state. Cotton formed the basis of the local economy. The Tensas Gazette frequently reported on agricultural conditions as well as the construction and maintenance of levees, which were vital to the flood-prone parish. Despite efforts to control flooding, the area was inundated by flood waters in 1912 and 1916. As the official journal of Tensas Parish, the Gazette reported on local government and printed the minutes of the parish police jury (the governing body of the parish, similar to county councils in other states). Important social issues reported on included immigration to north Louisiana and the development of parish liquor laws. In addition to news from throughout the state and region (printed in the 1890s in columns titled “Louisiana in a Nutshell” and “In our Sunny South”), the four- to eight-page weekly carried news briefs from other towns of Tensas Parish (chiefly Newellton and Waterproof), as well as nearby Natchez and Vicksburg, Mississippi. By the 1910s it was offering a wide range of reading material, including fiction, essays, sermons, domestic advice, and a farm and garden column.

The Tensas Gazette, one of oldest newspapers in Louisiana, is still in publication as of 2010.

Lafourche Parish

Charles Henry Neuville (C. N.) Dupre and his brother Ferdinand Dupre founded the Commercial Journal [LCCN: sn88064093] in 1903 in Thibodaux, Louisiana, a small town at the heart of south Louisiana’s sugar-growing region. Though Ferdinand set off on his own after a few years, Charles would remain with the Journal until his retirement in 1954, six years before his death. The word “Thibodaux” had been added to the paper’s title by 1915, but its unusual motto was retained: “Think not lightly of never so weak an arm which strikes with the Sword of Justice,” a quote from Renaissance poet Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.

Originally published in French and English, by the time of World War I, French-language content in the weekly, four- to six-page Journal had been reduced to little more than a “feuilleton” (serialized fiction). The rest of the paper consisted of miscellaneous news, with an emphasis on local topics, including business, education, civic improvements, the south Louisiana oil and gas boom, clubs, churches, charities, fraternal organizations, fairs and festivals, and sports (mostly baseball). A two-column editorial offered Dupre’s opinions on subjects ranging from state politics to movie theaters. It was published adjacent to a regular “Duz U Kno?” column, a collection of random, one-sentence observations possibly intended to stimulate conversation. The Journal also printed advertisements, charters of local businesses, and the minutes of the Lafourche Parish police jury, the governing body of the parish.

Lafourche Parish

The Thibodaux Minerva, originally known simply as the Minerva, was published in Thibodaux, Louisiana, a small sugar-farming community in Lafourche Parish, from the late 1840s to 1858 by Jonathan Church White, John D. Leary, and Louis F. Anderson. Its elaborate banner depicts Minerva, Roman goddess of the arts and trade.

Published weekly, each four-page issue carried a short editorial, usually related to politics or commerce. In 1855-56, the Minerva supported the American or "Know Nothing" Party and carried news of nativist meetings in and around Thibodaux as well as numerous articles discussing party philosophy.

Other common topics of reporting included agriculture (particularly sugar) and the construction of local roads, railroads, and levees. The first page usually included a town directory. Also of interest are articles on or advertisements for local celebrations, concerts, and other entertainments, such Van Amburgh's Menagerie, a traveling animal show and daredevil act that toured the Mississippi Valley on a steamboat in 1854. The bulk of the paper consisted of advertisements and general interest essays copied from other publications. Although primarily English, the Minerva often had one or two columns of French-language ads and notices.

Publication appears to have ceased in 1858.

Lafourche Parish

La sentinelle de Thibodaux / Thibodaux Sentinel was founded in 1861 in Thibodaux, Louisiana, a small farming community at the heart of the state’s sugar-growing region. It struggled during the Civil War, partly because of paper shortages (at least three issues were printed on wallpaper). A later editorial recalled that during the war years, the Sentinel had been “dead under the wings of adversity and military power.”

In August 1865, the journal was revived by former Confederate soldier Pierre Ernest Lorio (1833-1894) and François Sancan (ca. 1826-1897), a native of France who had emigrated to Louisiana as a young man and worked as a portrait painter and photographer. Issued weekly in four pages with two in French and two in English, the Sentinel’s motto was “Independent in all things—neutral in none” / “Independant en tout. Neutre en rien.”

The paper carried brief local news items along with miscellaneous stories on national and international topics mostly copied from other sources. A business directory was included on the first page, where readers also found advertisements for local businesses, announcements of public sales, town ordinances, and (during Reconstruction) military orders. Though neutral in politics, the Sentinel voiced a mild opposition to the Federal occupation of Louisiana. Other pages typically contained articles on a wide range of topics, including politics, agriculture, education, and entertainment. Marriage notices, obituaries, and the minutes of the Lafourche Parish police jury (similar to county councils in other states) were also printed.

In June 1866, the Thibodaux Sentinel was renamed the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel [LCCN: sn86079078] and was published under that title until 1875, when its name was changed again to the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel and Journal of the 8th Senatorial District. François Sancan, who edited the French section, owned the paper until his death in 1897; the English section was edited by Duncan S. Cage and Silas T. Grisamore, among others. From 1882 to 1898, the Sentinel was published in separate English and French editions, each with four pages. In 1898, its title reverted to the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel. Two years later, the French-language edition was discontinued. From 1905 to 1912, when it went out of business, the paper was published as the Thibodaux Sentinel by Henry R. Dupré (b. ca. 1874).

Orleans Parish

The True American was a nativist or Know-Nothing newspaper founded in 1835 at a time of growing tension over immigration, slavery, and states’ rights. By 1837, the four-page daily had become the organ of the Louisiana Native American Association. It was edited by John Gibson (d. 1847).

Nicknamed “the Faithful and Bold,” Gibson had previously edited the New-Orleans Argus and Louisiana Weekly Advertiser. He appears to have left the latter paper because of a disagreement over immigration, which, as editor of the True American, he denounced, feeling that immigrants’ true alliance was to their home country. For this reason, Gibson urged readers not to vote immigrants into political office and encouraged reform of naturalization laws. However, he also supported religious freedom for both Catholics and Protestants.

Politically, the True American was a Whig paper which nevertheless sympathized with the radical Democrats’ stringent opposition to a national bank. It was one of New Orleans’s main sources of information about the Panic of 1837. During the Texas Revolution, Gibson supported Texan independence and reported on the war daily. Other political perspectives offered included support for slavery but also humane treatment of Indians in the western territories. The True American carried the proceedings of various district and parish courts, news of ships arriving and leaving the port of New Orleans, information on Louisiana elections and politics, birth and marriage announcements, and obituaries. Gibson was an avid supporter of the New Orleans theatre and scorned those who criticized it on moral grounds.

In July 1839, the True American began reporting on the trial of editor John Gibson for alleged libel. Gibson replaced his standard motto, “Faithful and Bold,” with a new one, “Truth no Libel,” in each of his daily editorials throughout the course of the trial. Ultimately, the suit was dropped.

The last known extant issue of the True American is dated November 27, 1840. Gibson died in 1847 in Tampico, Mexico, where he was editing the Tampico Sentinel, one of several American newspapers published in Mexico during the Mexican-American War.

West Feliciana Parish

In 1925, the Woodville (MS) Republican hailed the True Democrat of St. Francisville, Louisiana, as one of the state’s “most ably edited and most influential newspapers as well as… one of the cleanest--mechanically and otherwise.” Founded in 1892, the paper was originally published in Bayou Sara, a busy port located on the Mississippi River between Natchez and New Orleans and, at that time, the commercial hub of rural West Feliciana Parish. Settled in the late eighteenth century as part of the colony of British West Florida and then governed by Spain (1783-1810), West Feliciana Parish in the early nineteenth century attracted predominantly Anglo-American settlers and was one of the few areas in south Louisiana where French culture never took root.

The True Democrat’s founder, William Walter Leake, Jr. (1865-1901), co-edited the paper with his wife, May Edna Leake (1864-1925). Its initial purpose was to “make war” on the Louisiana Lottery, a private corporation that provided revenue for Louisiana but was widely regarded as a corrupting influence on state government. When the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the Lottery in 1893, the True Democrat turned its attention to promoting the agricultural and industrial interests of West Feliciana Parish. Accordingly, in 1895, it moved its office from Bayou Sara to the adjacent town of St. Francisville, a railroad-shipping center that was rapidly surpassing Bayou Sara as a place of business on account of declining river traffic.

The True Democrat combined state and local news briefs with foreign and domestic reporting. Many issues feature poetry and serial fiction and more closely resemble a magazine than a newspaper. Local history was a major focus. In 1909, for example, the paper ran a series of biographical sketches of local Civil War veterans. Other articles trace the history of St. Francisville’s prominent families, including its small but significant Jewish community.

The four-page illustrated weekly carried relatively few advertisements but is rich in marriage notices, obituaries, and news of churches and local organizations. As the official journal of West Feliciana Parish, the True Democrat published the minutes of the police jury, the governing body of the parish. It was also the official journal of the parish school board.
Upon W. W. Leake’s death in 1901, May Leake served as the paper’s sole editor until 1906, when Elrie Robinson (1883-1955), a Texas printer, was hired as associate editor and publisher. Leake and Robinson married two years later and worked together in the newspaper business--publishing, in addition to the True Democrat, the Feliciana Record in neighboring East Feliciana Parish--until Leake’s death in 1925. Robinson worked as editor and publisher of the True Democrat for the remainder of his life and gained some notoriety as an expert on the reproduction of old typefaces and as author of several pamphlets on early West Feliciana history. In November 1928, he changed the True Democrat’s title to the St. Francisville Democrat. It is still in publication today.

Vernon Parish

Vernon Parish, on Louisiana’s western border with Texas, was formed from portions of Natchitoches, Rapides, and Sabine Parishes in 1871. Leesville, the parish seat, had a population of 1,300 when it was incorporated in 1900. In the 1890s, the area was a Populist/agrarian stronghold and was at the center of a lumber boom until the late 1920s, by which time the parish had been almost completely deforested and turned over to farmland.

For more than 20 years, Vernon Parish was the site of one of the largest experiments in socialist communal living in U.S. history. In 1914, Job Harriman, the unsuccessful Socialist Party candidate for Vice President of the United States in 1900, founded the Llano del Rio Cooperative Colony in the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles, California. Water shortages, transportation problems, and personal conflicts led to the colony’s dissolution, but in 1918, it was reestablished under the name of New Llano (sometimes spelled Newllano) on a 20,000-acre tract of cut-over land near Leesville, Louisiana. Largely self-sufficient, New Llano soon had several hundred residents, and satellite colonies were eventually set up in Texas and New Mexico. Internal disputes and financial difficulties, however, led to its decline, and the colony was abandoned in 1939.

The Vernon Parish Democrat, founded in 1917, was published weekly in four to eight pages under the motto “If We Cannot Say Anything Good, We Say Nothing.” The earliest surviving issues date from 1919, when it was being edited by Ernest S. Wooster, a member of the Llano del Rio and New Llano colonies who would later chronicle their history in Communities of the Past and Present (1924). Wooster returned to California in 1920, turning the paper over to George T. Pickett, one of the original Llano del Rio colonists. Later that year, Pickett was elected New Llano’s general manager, whereupon George E. Cantrell took over the editorship of the Democrat.

The Democrat carried a mix of local, national, and international news, but is chiefly of interest for its reports on the New Llano Colony. Regular columns with titles such as “Colony Notes,” “The Colony Diary,” and “One Minute Chats with Colonists,” contain information on socialist ideology, daily life at New Llano, its various business enterprises (including a hotel, ice plant, rice farm, and print shop), and interactions between colonists and other residents of Vernon Parish, such as community entertainments and use of the colony’s public library, one of the best in the state.

In April 1921, the New Llano Colony began publishing a second newspaper, the Llano Colonist, after which the Vernon Parish Democrat shifted its focus to other topics. However, the Democrat continued to report on labor issues and by 1931 had been renamed the Industrial Democrat [LCCN: sn88064279]. It survived until 1937, when it was absorbed into the Leesville Leader [LCCN: sn84009669].

The Llano Colonist was nearly identical to the early Vernon Parish Democrat. In 1922, it was being edited by Carl Gleeser. Born in Germany, by the 1890s Gleeser was publishing the German-language Kansas Staats-Zeitung [LCCN: sn85066982] in Kansas City, Kansas. During World War I, as owner of its successor, the Missouri Staats-Zeitung [LCCN: sn85032368], he criticized American involvement in the war. This led to a U.S. Supreme Court trial in which Gleeser was convicted of violating the 1917 Espionage Act. After his release from the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, Gleeser moved to the New Llano Colony in Leesville, where he continued to publish articles, either by himself or others, on socialist and antiwar topics.

East Baton Rouge Parish

Founded as a French trading post in the early 18th century, Baton Rouge was part of the British and later Spanish colony of West Florida from 1763 until 1810, when, as part of the short-lived Republic of West Florida, it was annexed by the United States. In the 19th century, the town developed into the main commercial center on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Natchez, Mississippi. Surrounded at that time by sugar and cotton plantations, Baton Rouge became the state capital in 1846 through the influence of rural planters desiring a more central location, even though its population was then less than 3,000, many times smaller than the state’s former capital, New Orleans.

Issued in daily and weekly editions, the Comet was one of Baton Rouge’s leading newspapers prior to 1856, when it merged with its competitor, the Baton-Rouge Gazette [LCCN: sn82003383], to form the Daily [LCCN: sn88083120] and Weekly Gazette and Comet [LCCN: sn85038555]. George A. Pike, brother of prominent Baton Rouge landowner and businessman William S. Pike, founded the Daily Comet in 1850. It and its successor the Morning Comet were published Tuesday through Saturday in four pages and consisted primarily of advertisements that serve as a record of Baton Rouge’s commercial life during the antebellum period. The Weekly Comet, issued on Sundays, was ad-free and offered editorial viewpoints on various political, social, and commercial topics, as well as a wide selection of essays, literature, and poetry. By the mid 1850s, Pike was promoting the anti-Catholic, nativist Know Nothing Party. In the growing sectional crisis between North and South, he opposed calls for secession. Other content included news of the Louisiana state legislature and state elections, reports on miscellaneous topics from around the world, and marriage notices and obituaries.

Calcasieu Parish

Located in coastal southwest Louisiana near the state’s border with Texas, Lake Charles is one of Louisiana’s youngest cities. It is the seat of Calcasieu Parish, which in the 19th century was about four times larger in area than it is today. Neighboring Cameron Parish was formed in 1870 from part of Calcasieu Parish; another division in 1912 led to the formation of Allen, Beauregard, and Jefferson Davis Parishes. Though a few Europeans settled in this remote area in the late 18th century, it did not attract significant numbers of immigrants until after the Civil War, when grain farmers from the Midwest were lured to the region, largely through the promotional efforts of Northern land agent and railroad developer Jabez Bunting (J. B.) Watkins. Southwest Louisiana quickly became a significant producer of rice. The older lumber industry was also important, but by the 20th century the region’s principal source of wealth was oil and sulfur mining. Today, Lake Charles is the site of major refineries and offshore drilling companies.

David J. Read and Louis S. Leveque established the Weekly Echo in 1868, the same year Lake Charles was officially incorporated. The Echo’s first editor was Bryant Hutchins, who began his career at the age of 13 as an apprentice at the Opelousas Gazette [LCCN: sn83016696]. Hutchins moved frequently and left the Echo after about a year to work as a newspaperman in nearby Galveston, Texas, but later returned to Lake Charles and resumed his post at the Echo. The paper dropped the word “weekly” from its title in 1876, becoming the Lake Charles Echo, though it continued to be published once a week. John W. Bryan, Lake Charles’s first mayor, was the Echo’s most long-lasting editor; others included George W. Wrigley, C. W. Felter, Thad Mayo, Simeon O. Shattuck, and J. B. Marshall.

Neatly printed in four to eight pages, the Echo was a Democratic newspaper that in the aftermath of the Civil War supported the restoration of the Union but opposed Radical Republican rule. In addition to news of Democratic Party meetings and articles on Reconstruction-era politics, the Echo carried miscellaneous reports from around the world, minutes of the Calcasieu Parish police jury (similar to county councils in other states), ads for local and regional businesses (including Galveston, Texas), agricultural and domestic advice, and information on the lumber and rice industry, as well as a wide selection of general-interest essays and fiction. In 1883, the paper adopted a handsome masthead depicting the port of Lake Charles, a lumber mill, and grain harvesters.

Publication of the Lake Charles Echo ceased in 1898.

Iberia Parish

Founded in 1779 by settlers from Spain, the town of New Iberia was at the heart of Louisiana’s prosperous sugar-growing region by the 19th century. The area is perhaps best known today for its association with Tabasco hot pepper sauce, which has been produced at Avery Island, a few miles from New Iberia, since 1868.

The Iberian Publishing Association established the Weekly Iberian in 1894 after its predecessor, the Daily Iberian [LCCN: sn88064321], founded a year earlier, failed to attract enough subscribers to justify a daily edition. A typical, small-town Southern newspaper, the Iberian carried miscellaneous news reports from around the world, brief personal notes (including, in the 1890s, biographical sketches of prominent locals), the minutes of the Iberia Parish school board and police jury (similar to county councils in other states), information on the Louisiana sugar industry, news related to local entertainment venues such as the popular Elks Theater, marriage notices, obituaries, and a wide range of general-interest essays. Around 1914, sheet music provided by the American Melody Company of New York was published. Issues dating from the First World War contain information on the war’s effects on life in Louisiana.

The Weekly Iberian was published until 1946, when it was again issued as the Daily Iberian [LCCN: sn88064323], continuing under that title until 1964.

Orleans Parish

The Louisianian was founded in New Orleans in 1870 by P. B. S. Pinchback (1837-1921), a black legislator who in 1872 was elected governor of Louisiana. Published under the motto “Republican at all times, and under all circumstances,” it was one of the few 19th-century African-American newspapers that sought both black and white readers.

William G. Brown (1832-1883) served as the paper’s first editor. Born in New Jersey and raised in Jamaica, Brown, like Pinchback, was of mixed race. He resigned as editor in 1872 to become the Louisiana state superintendent of education. His successor, Henry A. Corbin (1845-1878), was a graduate of an Ohio college. Corbin died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 and was succeeded by George Thompson Ruby (1841-1882), a free-born black who had worked in New England and Haiti as a correspondent for Boston abolitionist James Redpath’s Pine and Palm. Ruby settled in Union-occupied Louisiana in 1864 but was driven out two years later after trying to establish a school for white and black children. Before returning to the state in 1874 to edit the Louisianian, he published the Galveston (TX) Standard and served one term in the Texas state senate. In 1878, Pinchback himself became editor-in-chief but delegated most of the work of producing the paper to graduate students from Straight University, a black institution that merged with New Orleans University in 1934 to form Dillard University.

The education of African Americans was a major subject of reporting in the Louisianian. The paper reported at length on Straight University, but also took an interest in other black schools such as Howard University in Washington, D.C. It also encouraged desegregation of school systems throughout the United States. Recognizing the urgent need to educate black readers in politics, the Louisianian devoted special attention to coverage of the Louisiana state legislature and various Republican committees. Also of interest are biographical sketches of black politicians, social leaders, and educators.

Other subjects reported included immigration to the South, African missions, the activities of black Masons, and the New Orleans entertainment scene. Originally issued on Thursdays and Sundays in four pages, the Louisianian (renamed the Semi-Weekly Louisianian in 1871) was published as the Weekly Louisianian  from 1872 until its demise in 1882.

St. Martin Parish

St. Martinville, incorporated in 1843, is the seat of St. Martin Parish in south-central Louisiana. Settlement of the area began in the late eighteenth century by French-speaking families exiled from Acadia (Nova Scotia) by the British. Still celebrated today for its distinctive culture, St. Martin Parish is the setting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem “Evangeline.” In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the parish’s most important crops were sugar, corn and cotton. Oil was discovered at Breaux Bridge in 1899, but the mainstay of the local economy has always been agriculture. Located on Bayou Teche, St. Martinville is in the heart of “Cajun country,” and the French language was widely spoken there until recent times. A cultural center, the town won for itself the name “Petit Paris” or “Little Paris.” In the nineteenth century, it was a fashionable summer resort for affluent Creole families and members of the New Orleans French opera company.

The Messenger (published after its fourth issue as the Weekly Messenger) was founded in 1886 by Albert Bienvenu (1856-1930) and George S. Eastin. Its first printer was Bienvenu’s twelve-year-old brother, Laizaire Bienvenu (1874-1953), who later became editor. Published under the motto “Justice to All,” the four-page Democratic weekly was the official journal of the town of St. Martinville and St. Martin Parish. As such, it contained reports on parish schools as well as the minutes of the parish police jury (the equivalent of county councils in other states). News of politics and political meetings was combined with reports on miscellaneous subjects, including civic improvements, the development of the local rice and sugar industries, crop diversification, drainage of swamps, and Prohibition. After about 1901, the paper reported on the south Louisiana and Texas oil booms. Although the Weekly Messenger was printed in English only, it occasionally contained articles on Cajun and Creole folklore and culture. 

In 1948, the paper adopted a new title, the Teche News. As of 2010, it is still in publication and is managed by a grandson of Laizaire Bienvenu.

Lafourche Parish

La sentinelle de Thibodaux / Thibodaux Sentinel was founded in 1861 in Thibodaux, Louisiana, a small farming community at the heart of the state's sugar-growing region. It struggled during the Civil War, partly because of paper shortages (at least three issues were printed on wallpaper). A later editorial recalled that during the war years, the Sentinel had been "dead under the wings of adversity and military power."

In August 1865, the journal was revived by former Confederate soldier Pierre Ernest Lorio (1833-1894) and François Sancan (ca. 1826-1897), a native of France who had emigrated to Louisiana as a young man and worked as a portrait painter and photographer. Issued weekly in four pages with two in French and two in English, the Sentinel's motto was "Independent in all things-neutral in none" / "Independant en tout. Neutre en rien."

The paper carried brief local news items along with miscellaneous stories on national and international topics mostly copied from other sources. A business directory was included on the first page, where readers also found advertisements for local businesses, announcements of public sales, town ordinances, and (during Reconstruction) military orders. Though neutral in politics, the Sentinel voiced a mild opposition to the Federal occupation of Louisiana. Other pages typically contained articles on a wide range of topics, including politics, agriculture, education, and entertainment. Marriage notices, obituaries, and the minutes of the Lafourche Parish police jury (similar to county councils in other states) were also printed.

In June 1866, the Thibodaux Sentinel was renamed the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel and was published under that title until 1875, when its name was changed again to the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel and Journal of the 8th Senatorial District. François Sancan, who edited the French section, owned the paper until his death in 1897; the English section was edited by Duncan S. Cage and Silas T. Grisamore, among others. From 1882 to 1898, the Sentinel was published in separate English and French editions, each with four pages. In 1898, its title reverted to the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel. Two years later, the French-language edition was discontinued. From 1905 to 1912, when it went out of business, the paper was published as the Thibodaux Sentinel by Henry R. Dupré (b. ca. 1874).

Lafourche Parish

La sentinelle de Thibodaux / Thibodaux Sentinel was founded in 1861 in Thibodaux, Louisiana, a small farming community at the heart of the state’s sugar-growing region. It struggled during the Civil War, partly because of paper shortages (at least three issues were printed on wallpaper). A later editorial recalled that during the war years, the Sentinel had been “dead under the wings of adversity and military power.”

In August 1865, the journal was revived by former Confederate soldier Pierre Ernest Lorio (1833-1894) and François Sancan (ca. 1826-1897), a native of France who had emigrated to Louisiana as a young man and worked as a portrait painter and photographer. Issued weekly in four pages with two in French and two in English, the Sentinel’s motto was “Independent in all things—neutral in none” / “Independant en tout. Neutre en rien.”

The paper carried brief local news items along with miscellaneous stories on national and international topics mostly copied from other sources. A business directory was included on the first page, where readers also found advertisements for local businesses, announcements of public sales, town ordinances, and (during Reconstruction) military orders. Though neutral in politics, the Sentinel voiced a mild opposition to the Federal occupation of Louisiana. Other pages typically contained articles on a wide range of topics, including politics, agriculture, education, and entertainment. Marriage notices, obituaries, and the minutes of the Lafourche Parish police jury (similar to county councils in other states) were also printed.

In June 1866, the Thibodaux Sentinel was renamed the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel [LCCN: sn86079078] and was published under that title until 1875, when its name was changed again to the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel and Journal of the 8th Senatorial District. François Sancan, who edited the French section, owned the paper until his death in 1897; the English section was edited by Duncan S. Cage and Silas T. Grisamore, among others. From 1882 to 1898, the Sentinel was published in separate English and French editions, each with four pages. In 1898, its title reverted to the Weekly Thibodaux Sentinel. Two years later, the French-language edition was discontinued. From 1905 to 1912, when it went out of business, the paper was published as the Thibodaux Sentinel by Henry R. Dupré (b. ca. 1874).

East Baton Rouge Parish

In July 1921, less than a year after the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed women the right to vote, the Woman’s Enterprise was founded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the state capital and a center of industry and education. Devoted to women’s interests, the paper was published and edited by Mattie B. McGrath (1867-1926). Formerly a writer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, McGrath was the daughter of John McGrath (1835-1924), founder of two Baton Rouge newspapers, the Daily Truth and the Weekly Truth.

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In its inaugural issue, the Woman’s Enterprise declared that its purpose was to promote the “economic, moral, social and political uplift of the community… without trespassing upon the pastures of the daily and weekly papers… in a spirit of good will towards all.” It encouraged women to register to vote and, as the official organ of the local district of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (a nonpartisan, nondenominational service organization), reported on women’s volunteer work. Civic improvements were a major topic of reporting, and the paper was a strong advocate of the Good Roads Movement.Women’s education was frequently discussed, with much attention given to the activities of female students at Louisiana State University. For several months, the paper featured a series of articles for young women entitled “Choosing a Profession” written by local professionals of both sexes. This was coupled with regular profiles of Louisiana businesswomen. Most issues contain extensive historical sketches of local institutions and buildings, particularly churches and synagogues. Also of interest are news of lectures, plays, and concerts, household tips, and a fashion column.

The Woman’s Enterprise was targeted at white readers. Although it generally avoided issues of race, one editorial offered passive support for the Ku Klux Klan, and advertisements occasionally employed racial stereotypes. The paper was the official organ of the Louisiana Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a heritage association devoted to preserving the memory of Confederate veterans and Civil War battles. John McGrath, a former Confederate officer, contributed a lengthy memoir of his military service, both in the Civil War and with William Walker, an American adventurer and one-time editor of the New Orleans Daily Crescent who attempted to establish an English-speaking slaveholding empire in Central America in the 1850s.

The Woman’s Enterprise was issued monthly, usually in sixteen but at times in as few as twelve or as many as thirty-two pages. The last extant issue is dated July 31, 1925. Publication appears to have ceased by the time of Mattie McGrath’s death in December 1926.