The Madison Daily Leader (Madison, S.D.) 1890-Current
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
9,825 issues from 1890 to 1922, published in Madison, South Dakota, digitised for Chronicling America.
On April 7, 1890, James F. Stahl launched the Madison Daily Leader in Madison, South Dakota. The four-page, six-column paper cost $6 per year by mail, 15 cents per day delivered, and 5 cents daily. It was published in the evenings on Monday through Saturday and was Republican in tone. In 1902 Stahl’s son, Harm A. Stahl, was added to the masthead as business manager.
From its beginning, the Madison Daily Leader carried a large amount of national and international news, with very few human interest or sensationalistic stories. Editor Stahl consistently followed several topics for many years, including the rise of unions and labor strikes, prohibition, and the evils of tobacco, and was outspoken in his dislike of non-white immigrants and of Native Americans. He tracked the beginnings of unrest in Cuba that culminated in the Spanish-American War, and published updates from that country for several years. During the Spanish flu pandemic, he encouraged closing local schools to prevent the spread of the disease in the state and kept track of the number of cases per county.
A daily “Local News” column kept readers apprised of Madison residents’ travels and visitors, and a column composed of snippets from other South Dakota newspapers supplied regional news. Stahl tended to use a moralizing tone in his editorials; in addition, the Daily Leader was consistent in detailing services at local churches, listing the names of ministers and their sermon topics and at times reprinting…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Madison, South Dakota, 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