{"id":413,"date":"2012-05-08T23:33:23","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T03:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-bye\/?p=413"},"modified":"2012-05-08T23:33:23","modified_gmt":"2012-05-09T03:33:23","slug":"a-historically-conscious-journalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-bye\/2012\/05\/08\/a-historically-conscious-journalist\/","title":{"rendered":"1886: A Historically Conscious Journalist"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Coverage of the Quarter Century celebrations by the Atchison Daily Globe<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1886, D.R. Anthony and his fellow Kansan’s celebrated the 25th Anniversary of their state’s admittance to the Union<\/a>, an incident D.R. Anthony had been intimately involved in. From far and wide, Kansan’s of all stripes gathered to the state capital of Topeka<\/a> to take part in the celebrations, scheduled for the afternoon and evening of January 29th. As President of the recently (1875) founded Kansas State Historical Society, D.R. Anthony occupied a central role in the proceedings. According to its own website<\/a>, the KSHS was founded by an association of \u00a0Kansas journalists, publishers, and editors, Anthony among them. Never one to miss an opportunity<\/a>, he\u00a0became a life-member<\/a>, and in 1886 was serving as president. The event was closely covered by other newspapers however, including the Atchison based Daily Globe <\/em>and Daily Champion. <\/em>According to both,\u00a0Anthony “was to “preside during the evening” while other speakers, including D.W. Wilder, gave speeches. Wilder’s speech, incidentally, was titled “The<\/p>\n

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D.W. Wilder<\/p><\/div>\n

Press of Kansas” and was quoted in full (or nearly in full) by the Atchison Daily Champion. <\/em>In his speech, Wilder extolled the virtues of the American press, namely its being “the freest, the most self-reliant, the most loyal to home…in the world,” and that Kansas<\/em> papers represented the best of all American papers. Like his Massachusetts-born<\/a> friend and colleague, Wilder did not know the meaning of modesty. He and Anthony, whose partnership in Kansas dated back to land speculation activities in 1857, shared another trait – an appreciation of history. Wilder also commented on the Historical Society. Founded and watched over by journalists and publishers, it contained “every Issue of every paper in Kansas…bound and preserved.” Though Wilder does not mention Anthony by name, he does describe some of the qualities of a Kansas editor, qualities that Anthony had in spades. “The Kansas editor…makes a name in that…will live while the world turns round.” Of the people of Kansas he said they “cannot get along without newspapers, and lots of them. The Press is the Iron and the editor the blood” of Kansas towns.<\/p>\n

D.W. Wilder was Historian who wrote The Annals of Kansas, <\/em>a thorough study of Kansas history going back to 1541, the year of Hernan De Soto’s discovery of the Mississippi. As such,<\/p>\n

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The cover to an 1882 Kansas Day brochure for school children (courtesy, Kansas Memory)<\/p><\/div>\n

his credentials as a student of History need no verification. Anthony however, deserves to be in the discussion of stewards of the past for his role in the creation of the Historical Society. While it may not have been his idea, he was almost certainly in the group of founders. He and his fellow journalists understood the importance of historical memory, and Anthony, always ambitious, wanted to be remembered. No doubt he also understood the impact he had has in both his editorial activities and otherwise. Nor was he the only one who acknolwedged this; the Iola Register <\/em>of February 5, 1886, would remark on just how many of the “old-timers in connection” with the Quarter Century celebration were in the newspaper business. Anthony topped their list.<\/p>\n

The attendance list and Wilder’s speech speak to the importance of newspapers and newspaper editors to life in Kansas during its first thirty years. Anthony was part of that – his role as an editor took him to great heights of power, as well as danger. Always\u00a0conscious\u00a0of his place in history and the way Kansas history would be remembered, he and his fellow editors strove to both<\/em> preserve and write Kansas history.<\/p>\n

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In 1886, D.R. Anthony and his fellow Kansan’s celebrated the 25th Anniversary of their state’s admittance to the Union, an incident D.R. Anthony had been intimately involved in. From far and wide, Kansan’s of all stripes gathered to the state … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58747,59382,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-an-original-kansan","category-anthony-as-a-journalist","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-bye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-bye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-bye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-bye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-bye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-bye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-bye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-bye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-bye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}