The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer (Wheeling, W. Va.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
11,053 issues from 1865 to 1900, published in Wheeling, West Virginia, digitised for Chronicling America.
The Civil War, the abolition of slavery, economic expansion, and industrial revolution contributed to political, social, and economic transformations that fundamentally changed America in the mid-nineteenth century. During this tumultuous era, the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer emerged as the most important newspaper in western Virginia.
The four-page, six-column daily newspaper played a pivotal role in the changes that characterized the era, especially the establishment of the state of West Virginia on June 20, 1863. The newspaper’s rise to prominence was attributable to a skillful balancing of commercial concerns, patronage, and political idealism. Its influence and sustainability were aided by Wheeling’s status as the new state’s capital city from 1863 to 1870 and again from 1875 to 1885.
Eli B. Swearingen and Oliver Taylor founded the Intelligencer in August 1852 to rally support for Winfield Scott’s Whig Party presidential campaign. Ownership changed several times before Archibald W. Campbell and John F. McDermot purchased the paper in 1856. They shortened its name to the Daily Intelligencer from 1859 to 1865. Aiming to establish “a liberal and independent journal,” Campbell took advantage of recent advancements in printing technology, marketing, and the availability of news by telegraph. These innovations, in concert with a new seven-column format and a policy of representing diverse viewpoints, garnered for the Intelligencer both a wide circulation and increased…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Wheeling, West Virginia, 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