Sally Foreman Griffith

Abridged and edited for the modern reader and available in paperback for the first time ever, this second edition brings back into print a classic autobiography of Middle America--an immensely readable document that enriches our understanding of Progressivism and politics, journalism, and the social history of small-town America from Reconstruction into the Roaring Twenties. At the time of his death in 1944, William Allen White, editor of the Emporia Gazette, was a national celebrity, proclaimed one of the truly great Americans of his age. Life magazine called him a living symbol of small-town simplicity and kindliness and common sense. During his career White had managed to expand his circle of influence far beyond Emporia Kansas to include most of the nation. By the end of his life he had become a nationally acclaimed journalist and author of biographies, novels, and short stories. He was also widely known for his shrewd commentary on contemporary events in the national media. An influential Republican political leader, he founded the Progressive party and was a longtime advocate of social reform and individual rights. But what endeared him most to his contemporaries was that, in spite of national fame, he remained first and foremost a small-town newspaperman. First published posthumously in 1946, White's Autobiography was immediately hailed as a classic portrait, not simply of White himself, but of the men and women who transformed America from an agrarian society to a powerful industrial nation in the years before World War I. A bestselling Book-of-the-Month Club selection, the Autobiography was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. This new edition, edited to eliminate repetitions and digressions, features an introduction by Sally Foreman Griffith, author of a recent biography of White. Griffith explores the background of the Autobiography and illuminates its place in the development of the autobiographical genre.

William Allen White was the best known newspaper editor of the first three decades of the twentieth century in America. He chose always to work with the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette, where he had begun his career, but achieved a national reputation, through his books, and articles in the magazines Atlantic and Harpers. This book is concerned with small-town values and achievements in turn-of-the-century America when the nation was changing dramatically. The author's dissertation, on which this book is based, won the Allan Nevins prize of the Society of American Historians.