This collection contains 18 items related to Horace Greely, including 11 outgoing letters, 2 incoming letters, 1 letter discussing Greeley, 1 receipt for a subscription to the Weekly Tribune, 1 telegram, 1 postcard, and a 2-page offprint from Harper's New Monthly Magazine. The material concerns Greeley's public appearances, lectures, interest in politics and charitable efforts, and his legacy.
Included are 11 letters Greeley wrote between 1838 and 1872, concerning his travel and speaking engagements, and personal advice. He received 2 letters about Irish affairs (February 23, 1847) and a request for his attendance at a Fourth of July celebration (June 6, 1853). The receipt was for a subscription to the Weekly Tribune (May 1, 1858). Other items include a telegram about Greeley's presidential nomination (October 1872); a letter from George A. Beach to his parents, in which he mentions Greeley's charitable pursuits (December 10, 1875); a 2-page offprint from Harper's New Monthly Magazine entitled "Greeley's Handwriting," an editorial by Hayden Carruth, in which he shares an anecdote about Greeley's notoriously illegible handwriting (Volume XC, December 1894- May 1895); and a postcard illustrating Greeley's birthplace (undated). For more information, please see the inventory in the Detailed Box and Folder Listing.
Horace Greeley was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on February 3, 1811, to Zaccheus Greeley and his wife, Mary Woodburn. Because the family moved frequently during Greeley's childhood, Horace's formal education was sporadic. His first introduction to the newspaper business was as an apprentice with Vermont editor Amos Bliss (Northern Spectator), and as a printer for the Erie Gazette in Erie, Pennsylvania. He moved to New York City in 1831, where he worked for the Evening Post, Spirit of the Times ,Morning Post, and Commercial Advertiser. In 1834, he founded the weekly New Yorker, and, later, the campaign weekly Log Cabin. The New-York Tribune (The Tribune), his most successful publication and a highly influential paper in the mid-19th century, began in 1841. Greeley frequently wrote editorials expressing his strong anti-slavery views, and other progressive political positions. He assisted in founding the Republican Party in 1854, and briefly served in the United States House of Representatives (1848-1849). Greeley won the nomination for President in 1872 from both the Liberal Republican and Democratic parties, but was soundly defeated in the November election. He died shortly thereafter, on November 29, 1872. Greeley married Mary Youngs Cheney in 1836, and they had seven children, of whom two survived to adulthood.
