Canadian born and Ohio bred, Illinois became Medill’s true home once he took up residence in its largest city. Before he lived in Chicago, though, the Medill family lived on a farm in Stark County, Ohio during Joseph’s youth.
Medill’s Early Newspaper Work
His first encounter with the newspaper industry was his job selling subscriptions for Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune. Ironically, his first newspaper job was under the newspaper in whose shadow he would remain throughout his editorial career. In years to come, Medill and Greeley would battle for being the leading American editorial voice. By the end of Medill’s editorial reign, he was second only to Greeley as the nation’s chief journalistic history shaper.
By the age of 21, Medill was disconnected from the print world as he studied, then practiced, law. Despite his budding career in law, Medill still felt the calling to the press. He spent his spare days of law practice in the local newspaper office to discuss politics with other local lawyers, politicians, and teachers. During his hours spent in the office, he was taught to set type and to operate the newspaper’s handpress.
It was here, during his early twenties in Ohio, that Medill found the joining of his two passions in that one small office: journalism and politics.
At the age of 26, Medill and his brothers purchased the Coshocton (Ohio) Whig, at which point he abandoned law and became a newspaper publisher. He changed the name of the newspaper to the Coshocton Republican as the Whig party divided, and his editorial voice developed on his small Ohio newspaper.
The bitter indignation he used against southern Democrats in his editorial tirades eventually earned him a series of bruises. Medill received the first sign that he was fulfilling his job as a journalist when he infuriated a group of readers to the point of attacking him. His words stirred a strong, albeit violent, reaction.
Medill and Creation of Republican Party
Time in Cleveland stood between Medill and his future in Chicago. He established the Whig newspaper the ClevelandDailyForestCity, later changing its name to the Cleveland Leader when he merged with the newspaper of the same name, which was the Free Soil party’s newspaper in the city.
At the time of the merger, he believed the Whig party would falter and fail; thus, he undertook the task of trying to merge the anti-slavery elements of the Whig and Free Soil parties into a new, third party. His editorials in his Cleveland newspapers advocated a new, more aptly named political party. In them, he argued that the Republican name was more suitable than the Whig name because it was less connotative of a party from overseas.
His time in Cleveland resulted in one of his most significant political contributions. In the office of the Cleveland Leader in March 1854, Medill met with other leading political minds to create a platform and party that would pull anti-slavery individuals away from the Whig party. Medill is credited with christening the party with the Republican name.
Medill’s Purchase of the Tribune
A year later, Medill joined with Jeffersonian (Galena, IL) editor Charles H. Ray to personally purchase one-third interest in the Chicago Tribune, while Ray bought one-fourth.
Upon arriving to Chicago, Medill was not impressed by the city that would remain his home until his death. He considered neither the Tribune nor the city as a trophy, dubbing Chicago as little more than a “quagmire on the lake.”
The newspaper was in a state of financial crisis when Medill and Ray took the helm, requiring the men to seek an extension on its debts until they could steer it in a new direction. In spite of his lack of optimism, his Tribune work would guarantee him a notable place in American history.
Like his days in the Ohio newspaper office while he studied law, his passions of journalism and politics intertwined inseparably, first as with his tireless promotion of Abraham Lincoln and later with his work as a Washington, D.C. political correspondent.
Sources:
- Jones, Tom. "Joseph Medill Buys the Chicago Tribune." Chicago Tribune Online.
- Lee, James Melvin. History of American Journalism. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917.
- Kinsley, Philip. The Chicago Tribune: Its First Hundred Years. Vol. I. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1843.
- Kobre, Sidney. Development of American Journalism. Dubuque, IA: Wm. C Brown Company Publishers, 1969.
- Payne, George Henry. History of Journalism in the United States. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1920.
