The Daily Crescent ([New Orleans, La.])
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,175 issues from 1848 to 1851, published in New Orleans, Louisiana, digitised for Chronicling America.
The Daily Crescent, established in May 1848, took its title from New Orleans’ nickname, the Crescent City. Founders Alexander H. Hayes and J. E. “Sam” McClure had formerly worked for the New Orleans The Daily Delta, 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 on account of his opposition to the expansion of slavery. He then moved to New Orleans, which despite its notoriety as a market for the exchange of enslaved people, 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, which later became the Philadelphia Inquirer. During his time at the Crescent, Walker wrote…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress