The Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City [Utah])
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
10,007 issues from 1880 to 1909, published in Salt Lake City, Utah, digitised for Chronicling America.
On Sunday, June 5, 1870, publishers William C. Dunbar and Edward L. Sloan, elders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), released the first issue of the Salt Lake Herald. The men promoted their newspaper as independent and neutral. The newspaper was sympathetic to but separate from the Mormon Church, while providing advertising opportunities for the growing numbers of non-Mormon merchants in the city. Their new paper, however, consistently reflected the views of the Deseret News, the official organ of the Church. Dunbar and Sloan were veteran newspapermen, having edited and managed the short-lived Salt Lake City Daily Telegraph. On September 1, 1870, John T. Caine bought an interest in the Herald. Caine, who later was a six-term delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, became the paper’s managing editor. Dunbar assumed the role as business manager, while Sloan served as general editor.
Sloan’s editorials reflected the Mormon values of the day, for he thought it important to explain his faith’s beliefs to the reading public. “When the people of Utah, their faith and institutions are aspersed, maligned and unjustly attacked,” he wrote, “we shall esteem it our solemn duty to present the truth in reply, when the source is worthy a rejoinder.” Sloan had personal reasons for providing such rejoinders, for he was a devout convert to Mormonism and, with three wives of his own, a confirmed polygamist.
The four-page morning daily was in many respects…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Salt Lake City, Utah, 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