Savannah Morning News

History

Newspaper

Note: The period from 1900-1922 comprises 110 reels of microfilm (over 100,000 pages). Therefore, we have suggested to only digitize issues prior to 1900.

"The newspaper was founded as the Daily Morning News in 1850 by William Tappan Thompson, who wrote the "Major Jones" series of humor stories. Except for a brief period during the Civil War (1861-65), Thompson edited the newspaper until his death in 1882. When the Civil War erupted, he vigorously championed the Southern cause until he was forced to leave Savannah in 1864, as Union general William T. Sherman's soldiers approached the city on their march to the sea. In 1868 Thompson resumed the editorship of the newspaper, renamed the Savannah Morning News, and became a leading spokesman for the South during the Reconstruction years.

The paper's most famous editor was Joel Chandler Harris (his title was actually associate editor), who went on to write the Uncle Remus tales. Harris, who was named second in command in 1870, was considered a muckraker for using the paper as a bully pulpit against dueling, a local chivalric tradition. In contrast to the typical media coverage of dueling at that time, which tended to romanticize it as a rite of manhood and honor, Harris's reportage portrayed dueling as a misbegotten anachronism, and his articles led to its banning. Harris went on to work for the Atlanta Constitution.

In more recent times, the Morning News has conformed to the conglomerate-oriented trends of the day. In 1960 Southeastern Newspapers (later Morris Communications), an Augusta-based chain, bought the dominant morning paper and eventually merged it with the fading Savannah Evening Press. The merger, allowed by the Newspaper Preservation Act, reflected what was happening elsewhere in the industry. A combined Sunday edition named the Savannah News-Press debuted in 1972. Morris closed theEvening Press in 1996, citing competition from television and other media."--Sverdlik, Alan. "Savannah Morning News." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 20 March 2013. Web. 31 January 2018.