Foster's Daily Democrat (Dover, N.H.) 1873-Current

• 1895–1900
• Newspaper

Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.

1,646 issues from 1895 to 1900, published in Dover, New Hampshire, digitised for Chronicling America.

Until it was sold in 2014, Foster’s Daily Democrat was the longest running independent, family-owned newspaper in New Hampshire. The paper was established by Joshua Lane Foster (1824-1900), a New Hampshire-born publisher and architect. During the Civil War, Foster held anti-Lincoln and pro-slavery views, and founded earlier publications, the Portsmouth States and Union and the Portsmouth Daily Evening Times to provide an alternative to the predominantly Republican and pro-Union papers in the seacoast region of New Hampshire. Foster denounced abolition, and he took particular aim at the Portsmouth Naval Yard, which supplied vessels to the Union army. In 1865, as a consequence of his antagonism, Foster was nearly killed by Union rioters who stormed and destroyed his offices. He subsequently sold his two Portsmouth-based papers to found a weekly, Foster’s Democrat, in nearby Dover with his sons in 1872. After some success with the weekly, Foster founded the daily edition in 1873.

In the first issue of Foster’s Daily Democrat, Foster declared to his Dover readership that “Whatever may tend to benefit this people and enhance their prosperity, will receive our warm and enthusiastic support.” Despite this benediction, Foster was a firebrand, unsparing in his editorial approach. He ruffled feathers and alienated politicians in both parties. By 1880, the paper had a daily circulation of 500 copies, comparable to its Portsmouth-based competitors like the Daily Chronicle, though…

Genres

News

Published in

Dover, New Hampshire, 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