St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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A ‘network of surveillance’
The goal was to counter German spies and saboteurs during the Great War, but the American Protective League appeared to be more successful at helping criminalize speech and neutralize dissidents, including leftists and labor activists. The league functioned as a “voluntary auxiliary” under the U.S. Department of Justice, a network of amateur secret agents of Continue reading
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‘The house where Eugene Field was not born’
A plaque on the Eugene Field House says “the children’s poet” — famous for “Little Boy Blue,” “Wynken, Blynken and Nod,” and other works — was born there. The Field House Museum, on its website, says “Eugene Field was born in St. Louis at 634 South Broadway, on September 2, 1850.” And some contemporary news Continue reading
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100 years of disappointment
The 1920 Census bumped St. Louis out of fourth place, launching a century-long quest to undo the Great Divorce of 1876. And though its population would climb for a few decades – peaking at 856,796 in 1950 – St. Louis kept sliding in the rankings and dropped out of the top 10 in 1970. Reaction Continue reading
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‘Bashful St. Louisans’
An odd and irreverent series highlighting influential St. Louisans who avoided “the limelight” ran from Dec. 12, 1909, through May 8, 1910. Continue reading
Bud Dozier, Charles F. Gallenkamp, Charles F. Wenneker, David R. Francis, Frank H. Gerhart, Fred Lehmann, Fred W. Peter, George W. Simmons, H.S. Priest, Henry S. Caulfield, Henry W. Peters, James E. Smith, Jeptha D. Howe, John A. Laird, Otto Teichmann, Seebert Jones, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tom L. Cannon, W.K. Kavanaugh, Walter B. Stevens -
‘Only one Santa Claus’
Everybody knows about little Virginia O’Hanlon’s 1897 letter to the New York Sun, asking if Santa Claus is real. Francis Pharcellus Church’s response – “Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus” – deftly elevated magical thinking, delivering a double blow to journalism and parenting from which neither ever recovered.* The Sun, which also gave us the Continue reading
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‘Three papers united in one’
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch was created in December 1878 when Joseph Pulitzer combined the Dispatch and the Evening Post. Most contemporary histories of the paper, however, omit Pulitzer’s acquisition of the recently launched Evening Star in May 1879 for a paltry $790. Continue reading
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Another moving day
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, as of 2019, has had eight locations* since the paper was founded by Joseph Pulitzer in 1878. But the only office built by the newspaper’s owners was at the northeast corner of 12th and Olive, now 300 North Tucker Boulevard. The newspaper was based there from 1917 until 1959. Continue reading
Roland Klose 