The Democratic Advocate (Westminster, Md.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
3,065 issues from 1865 to 1922, published in Westminster, Maryland, digitised for Chronicling America.
Westminster, Maryland’s Democratic Advocate literally rose from the ashes of its predecessor, the Western Maryland Democrat, which fell victim to an angry mob that destroyed its premises and equipment in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865. A few weeks later, the proprietor of the Democrat, Joseph Shaw, met a similar fate when he was attacked and murdered in a hotel in Westminster. In the aftermath of this violence, William H. Davis established the weekly Democratic Advocate in November 1865. A former publisher of the Western Maryland Democrat, Davis had the support of the local Democratic Party, but soon turned operations over to Joseph M. Parke, a lawyer and Democratic office holder. In 1868, William H. Vanderford assumed control of the Democratic Advocate, with his father, Henry Vanderford as editor. The elder Vanderford was a longtime newspaperman who had published the Cecil Democrat in the 1840s. In the 1870s, William’s younger brother Charles Vanderford joined the business as a co-editor. An energetic newspaperman, Charles had experience with the Middletown Transcript in Delaware and the Old Commonwealth of Harrisonburg, Virginia.
In contrast to the violent political passions exhibited in the Civil War years, the pages of the Democratic Advocate reflected the more mundane interests of the people of central Maryland in the postwar era. The formation of the Carroll County Agricultural Society and the opening of its handsome fair grounds and…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Westminster, Maryland, 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