Vernon County Censor (Viroqua, Wis.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,299 issues from 1898 to 1922, published in Viroqua, Wisconsin, digitised for Chronicling America.
The Vernon County Censor first appeared on August 23, 1865 in Viroqua, Wisconsin. Jeremiah McLain Rusk, William Nelson, and Daniel B. Priest had just bought its predecessor, the North Western Times (1858-1865),from Joseph A. Somerby, and changed its title. The Censor was “designated in early years of its existence as the official publication of the city of Viroqua as well as all of Vernon County.”
The Vernon County area had been inhabited by the Ho-Chunk for thousands of years. Early European settlers arrived in 1844 and built lumber mills on the Kickapoo River. Viroqua, the county seat, flourished agriculturally, producing mainly wheat, oats, corn, and later tobacco. It was also the site of much early political activism. Before and after the Civil War, the Viroqua area became home to communities of formerly enslaved people.
The three owners of the newspaper had strong ties to Wisconsin. Rusk had served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and he soon left the Censor as he launched his political career. He was elected Representative for the Wisconsin 6th Congressional District, and then served as the 15th Governor of Wisconsin. Nelson had also served during the Civil War and was an experienced newspaperman, having previously worked at the Monroe Sentinel. He would later become president of the Village of Viroqua and be elected to the State Senate. Priest served as District Attorney for Vernon County and in the State Assembly in the 1860s.
As the tobacco crop was…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Viroqua, Wisconsin, 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