Wilmington Journal (Wilmington, N.C.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,603 issues from 1844 to 1876, published in Wilmington, North Carolina, digitised for Chronicling America.
David Fulton (1821-1848) and Alfred Lanier Price (1815-1872) launched the Wilmington [North Carolina] Journal from the offices of the defunct Wilmington Messenger on September 21, 1844. Fulton and Price were both staunch Democrats and established the paper as the “uncompromising opponent” of Whig party policy and agenda. Though it was a political paper first and foremost, the editors also covered news relating to agriculture, industry, trade, and markets. Fulton, an Irish immigrant, served as editor of the paper until his death from a prolonged illness on December 17, 1848. Fulton’s brother James, who had previously served as editor of the Mecklenburg Jeffersonian, assumed the role of editor of the Journal, and Price, a North Carolina native, oversaw its publication. Under their leadership, the Journal quickly became one of the most politically influential publications in the state.
The paper’s 32-year span included features relating to local, state, and federal elections and campaigns; railroad construction; weekly wholesale and freight price lists; items regarding slave sales and runaway slaves; the Mexican and Civil Wars; and catastrophic events such as fires and epidemics. As a Confederate loyalist during the Civil War, James Fulton often suppressed information regarding conditions in Wilmington and other topics deemed harmful to the Southern war effort.
The Journal was the only paper circulating in Wilmington during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1862, thought to be…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Wilmington, North Carolina, 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