The Laclede Blade (Laclede, Mo.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,010 issues from 1902 to 1922, published in Laclede, Missouri, digitised for Chronicling America.
Albert J. Caywood published the first issue of the Laclede [Missouri] Blade on May 10, 1890. Caywood had lived in Laclede since 1880 when his family moved there from Livingston County, Missouri. Shortly after settling in Laclede, Caywood started in the newspaper industry. He worked as a printer at the Laclede Laconic in March 1886. After a year, he moved on to the Norborne Leader and the Brookfield Argus. On April 1, 1890, Caywood decided to strike out on his own. The Laclede Laconic had changed ownership and left town, opening up an opportunity for a new paper in Laclede without any competition from an established paper. It was under these conditions that, at age 24, Caywood bought a small printing outfit and launched the Laclede Blade. He published the weekly eight-page paper for the next 55 years.
Caywood quickly established himself as a political writer and used his editorials as an opportunity to promote the interests of the Republican Party. In a Blade editorial from May 7, 1910, he wrote, the Republicans had “redeemed our country from an unstable, unreliable and dangerous financial system and built up the best banking and currency system ever enjoyed by any country on earth.” Caywood enjoyed a long career as proprietor and editor of the Laclede Blade. He retired in June 1945, selling the Blade to Charles E. Hastly. Soon thereafter, Hastly sold the paper to Edgar C. Nelson who merged it with the Meadville Messenger. The first issue of the Blade and Messenger appeared…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Laclede, Missouri, 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