West Virginia Argus (Kingwood, 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.
1,765 issues from 1877 to 1916, published in Kingwood, West Virginia, digitised for Chronicling America.
In 1877, twenty-two year old Henry Clay Hyde purchased the Preston County Herald from James Carroll. Rebranding the paper as the West Virginia Argus, the first four-page issue hit the streets of Kingwood on September 7, 1877. Published weekly, the Argus stood as a staunch Democratic newspaper in Preston County and northern West Virginia for nearly seventy years.
In his salutatory editorial, Hyde declared: “It shall be our aim to publish a paper for the people—to work for and with them in everything that will have a tendency to lead to the development of the resources of Preston county.” Moreover, he described the Argus‘s politics as “a fair and impartial representative of the Democratic party.” A year later, Hyde left the Argus to pursue a career in law and passed his editorial duties onto Harry McCafferty. This marked the first in a long series of regular leadership changes for the paper, whose editors included George Purcell, Lee Kussart, J. Slidell Brown, Martin Mehrten, and William Lavelle, among others.
Despite frequent editorial changes, the Argus remained a firm advocate for the Democratic Party, a tough task in Republican-dominated West Virginia. The paper routinely reported on local and state Democratic activities. It likewise stumped for Democratic presidential hopefuls, including notable candidates William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson.
Beyond politics, the newspaper offered readers a wide variety of news and entertainment. Short stories, poetry, and other…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Kingwood, 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