Western Carolina Democrat and French Broad Hustler (Hendersonville, N.C.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
159 issues from 1913 to 1915, published in Hendersonville, North Carolina, digitised for Chronicling America.
Mitchell Lee Shipman (1866-1944), a teacher in Brevard, North Carolina, purchased a struggling newspaper to which he had contributed and began publishing the Transylvania Hustler in 1891. Shipman changed the paper’s name to the Brevard Hustler before finally settling on the French Broad Hustler, a nod to the French Broad River, which runs through western North Carolina.
In 1896 Shipman, an ardent Democrat in a mostly Republican region of the state, moved the Hustler to Hendersonville, a town about 30 miles from Brevard. With the relocation, he sought to counter the Republican-leaning Hendersonville Times. In addition to serving as editor and publisher of the Hustler, Shipman also served as superintendent of public instruction in Transylvania County from 1892 through 1895 and chaired the Henderson County Democratic Party from 1898 through 1906.
In 1908 Shipman hired Noah Hollowell (1886-1973) to help him with the Hustler. Shipman retained his title as editor. But Hollowell’s hiring freed him up to pursue elective political office, which he did that same year. By dint of his experience as a journalist and printer, Shipman was elected the state’s Commissioner of Labor and Printing, a post he held until 1925. In that position Shipman’s chief objective was to promote industrial growth.
The pages of the French Broad Hustler over time moved from providing scant local coverage to more intense coverage of news important to western North Carolina readers, particularly…
- Genres
- Westerns, News
- Published in
- Hendersonville, North Carolina, 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