Horace Greeley Popular Books

Horace Greeley Biography & Facts

Horace Greeley (February 3, 1811 – November 29, 1872) was an American newspaper editor and publisher who was the founder and editor of the New-York Tribune. Long active in politics, he served briefly as a congressman from New York and was the unsuccessful candidate of the new Liberal Republican Party in the 1872 presidential election against incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant, who won by a landslide. Greeley was born to a poor family in Amherst, New Hampshire. He was apprenticed to a printer in Vermont and went to New York City in 1831 to seek his fortune. He wrote for or edited several publications, involved himself in Whig Party politics, and took a significant part in William Henry Harrison's successful 1840 presidential campaign. The following year, Greeley founded the Tribune, which became the highest-circulating newspaper in the country through weekly editions sent by mail. Among many other issues, he urged the settlement of the American Old West, which he saw as a land of opportunity for the young and the unemployed. He popularized the slogan "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." He endlessly promoted radical reforms such as socialism, vegetarianism, agrarianism, feminism, and temperance and hired the best talent that he could find. Greeley's alliance with William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed led to his serving three months in the US House of Representatives, where he angered many by investigating Congress in his newspaper. In 1854, he helped found the Republican Party. Republican newspapers across the nation regularly reprinted his editorials. During the Civil War, he mostly supported President Abraham Lincoln but urged him to commit to the end of slavery before Lincoln was willing to do so. After Lincoln's assassination, he supported the Radical Republicans in opposition to President Andrew Johnson. He broke with the Radicals and with Republican President Ulysses Grant because of the party's corruption and Greeley's view that Reconstruction-era policies were no longer needed. Greeley was the new Liberal Republican Party's presidential nominee in 1872. He lost in a landslide despite having the additional support of the Democratic Party. He was devastated by the death of his wife five days before the election and died one month later, prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. Early life Greeley was born on February 3, 1811, on a small farm about five miles from Amherst, New Hampshire. He could not breathe for the first twenty minutes of his life. It is suggested that this deprivation may have caused him to develop Asperger's syndrome—some of his biographers, such as Mitchell Snay, maintain that this condition would account for his eccentric behaviors in later life. His father's family was of English descent, and his forebears included early settlers of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, while his mother's family descended from Scots-Irish immigrants from the village of Garvagh in County Londonderry who had settled Londonderry, New Hampshire. Some of Greeley's maternal ancestors were present at the siege of Derry during the Williamite War in Ireland in 1689.Greeley was the son of poor farmers Zaccheus and Mary (Woodburn) Greeley. Zaccheus was not successful, and moved his family several times, as far west as Pennsylvania. Horace attended the local schools and was a brilliant student.Seeing the boy's intelligence, some neighbors offered to pay Horace's way at Phillips Exeter Academy, but the Greeleys did not want to accept charity. In 1820, Zaccheus's financial reverses caused him to flee New Hampshire with his family lest he be imprisoned for debt, and settle in Vermont. Even as his father struggled to make a living as a hired hand, Horace Greeley read everything he could—the Greeleys had a neighbor who let Horace use his library. In 1822, Horace ran away from home to become a printer's apprentice, but was told he was too young.In 1826, at age 15, Greeley was made a printer's apprentice to Amos Bliss, editor of the Northern Spectator, a newspaper in East Poultney, Vermont. There, he learned the mechanics of a printer's job, and acquired a reputation as the town encyclopedia, reading his way through the local library. When the paper closed in 1830, the young man went west to join his family, living near Erie, Pennsylvania. He remained there only briefly, going from town to town seeking newspaper employment, and was hired by the Erie Gazette. Although ambitious for greater things, he remained until 1831 to help support his father. While there, he became a Universalist, breaking from his Congregationalist upbringing. First efforts at publishing In late 1831, Greeley went to New York City to seek his fortune. There were many young printers in New York who had likewise come to the metropolis, and he could only find short-term work. In 1832, Greeley worked as an employee of the publication Spirit of the Times. He built his resources and set up a print shop in that year. In 1833, he tried his hand with Horatio D. Sheppard at editing a daily newspaper, the New York Morning Post, which was not a success. Despite this failure and its attendant financial loss, Greeley published the thrice-weekly Constitutionalist, which mostly printed lottery results.On March 22, 1834, he published the first issue of The New-Yorker in partnership with Jonas Winchester. It was less expensive than other literary magazines of the time and published both contemporary ditties and political commentary. Circulation reached 9,000, then a sizable number, yet it was ill-managed and eventually fell victim to the economic Panic of 1837. He also published the campaign newssheet of the new Whig Party in New York for the 1834 campaign, and came to believe in its positions, including free markets with government assistance in developing the nation.Soon after his move to New York City, Greeley met Mary Young Cheney. Both were living at a boarding house run on the diet principles of Sylvester Graham, eschewing meat, alcohol, coffee, tea, and spices, as well as abstaining from the use of tobacco. Greeley was subscribing to Graham's principles at the time, and to the end of his life rarely ate meat. Mary Cheney, a schoolteacher, moved to North Carolina to take a teaching job in 1835. They were married in Warrenton, North Carolina, on July 5, 1836, and an announcement duly appeared in The New-Yorker eleven days later. Greeley had stopped over in Washington, D.C., on his way south to observe Congress. He took no honeymoon with his new wife, returning to work while his wife took up a teaching job in New York City.One of the positions taken by The New-Yorker was that the unemployed of the cities should seek lives in the developing American West (in the 1830s, the West encompassed today's Midwestern states). The harsh winter of 1836–1837 and the financial crisis that developed soon after made many New Yorkers homeless and destitute. In his journal, Greeley urged new immigrants to buy guide .... Discover the Horace Greeley popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Horace Greeley books.

Best Seller Horace Greeley Books of 2024

  • Horace Greeley, Founder and Editor of the New York Tribune synopsis, comments

    Horace Greeley, Founder and Editor of the New York Tribune

    William Alexander Linn

    Includes a Table of Contents. Horace Greeley (18111872) , a native of Amherst, New Hampshire , grew up the son of a poor farmer.  His life reads like the quintessential Americ...

  • Horace Greeley synopsis, comments

    Horace Greeley

    James M. Lundberg

    The founder and editor of the NewYork Tribune, Horace Greeley was the most significant—and polarizing—American journalist of the nineteenth century. To the farmers and tradesme...

  • Horace Greeley synopsis, comments

    Horace Greeley

    Robert C. Williams

    From his arrival in New York City in 1831 as a young printer from New Hampshire to his death in 1872 after losing the presidential election to General Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Gree...

  • Horace Greeley and the Tribune in the Civil War synopsis, comments

    Horace Greeley and the Tribune in the Civil War

    Dr. Ralph Ray Fahrney

    Horace Greeley (18111872) was an American author and statesman who was the founder and editor of the New York Tribune, among the great newspapers of its time. Born to a poor family...

  • An Assassin in Utopia synopsis, comments

    An Assassin in Utopia

    Susan Wels

    This true crime odyssey explores a forgotten, astonishing chapter of American history, leading the reader from a freelove community in upstate Ne...

  • All the Great Prizes synopsis, comments

    All the Great Prizes

    John Taliaferro

    The first fullscale biography of John Hay since 1934: From secretary to Abraham Lincoln to secretary of state for Theodore Roosevelt, Hay was an essential American figure for more ...

  • Lincoln and the Power of the Press synopsis, comments

    Lincoln and the Power of the Press

    Harold Holzer

    “Lincoln believed that ‘with public sentiment nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.’ Harold Holzer makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Lincoln’s l...

  • Works of Horace Greeley synopsis, comments

    Works of Horace Greeley

    Horace Greeley

    2 works of Horace Greeley American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery (18111972) This ebook...

  • After Lincoln synopsis, comments

    After Lincoln

    A. J. Langguth

    A brilliant evocation of the postCivil War era by the acclaimed author of Patriots and Union 1812. After Lincoln tells the story of the Reconstruction, which set back black America...

  • Horace Greeley, Founder and Editor of the New York Tribune synopsis, comments

    Horace Greeley, Founder and Editor of the New York Tribune

    William Alexander Linn

    Includes a Table of Contents. Horace Greeley (18111872) , a native of Amherst, New Hampshire , grew up the son of a poor farmer.  His life reads like the quintessential Americ...

  • Horace Greeley synopsis, comments

    Horace Greeley

    Robert Williams

    From his arrival in New York City in 1831 as a young printer from New Hampshire to his death in 1872 after losing the presidential election to General Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Gree...