The Universalist (Chicago and Cincinnati, 1884-1897) was a religious newspaper published near the end of the nineteenth century, a century when religious newspapers proliferated alongside the denominations they documented. Denominationalism was a distinctive feature of the nineteenth century American religious landscape, and European observers frequently remarked upon it, usually attributing the phenomenon to religious disestablishment. […]
Month: January 2021
The Universalist
January 14, 2021
The National Prohibitionist
January 13, 2021
From 1907 to 1911 the National Prohibitionist was the official organ of the Prohibition Party, an influential “third party” of the Progressive Era. The Progressive Era produced at least twenty “third” parties, and the Prohibition Party was among the more influential, certainly the most enduring. The newspaper was formed by the consolidation of multiple Prohibition […]
Newly Digitized Immigrant Newspaper: Irish Republic
January 6, 2021
The Fenian Brotherhood, a secret society of Irish nationalists, founded the Chicago Irish Republic in 1867. At the time, Chicago had the fourth largest Irish population in the United States and was considered a “hotbed” of militant Fenianism: for example, in 1864 the Chicago Fenians tried to declare war on England; in both 1865 and […]
The Daily Worker: A Communist Newspaper out of Chicago
January 6, 2021
The Daily Worker was created for Communist Party USA members in 1921. The paper was originally titled the Worker, centered in Chicago and marketed as a weekly newspaper for the first three years of its existence. It then moved to New York City and carried out a pre-planned expansion into a daily broadsheet with a […]
A Twentieth Century Church-State (in Illinois)
January 5, 2021
Zion City was a utopian religious community founded in July 1901 by John Alexander Dowie, an evangelical minister and pioneer of Pentecostalism in the United States. Dowie emigrated from Australia in 1888, and eventually settled in Chicago where, in 1893, he established a ministry near the World’s Columbian Exposition. Central to Dowie’s ministry was the […]