Timely updates and further insights into the times, places, and people in Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn

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Women, Slavery, and Susan B. Anthony’s Brother

Daniel Read Anthony heads for Bleeding Kansas.

When Anthony Met Stanton

Their working friendship began in 1851, and lasted their entire lives.

The Seneca Falls Presidential Election

Six weeks before the Woman’s Rights Convention, Smith received the presidential nomination of the abolitionist Liberty League. He had little hope of outpolling the Democratic and Whig nominees, but a minor party might tip the balance in a close election.

About the Original Official Bulletin

Before becoming president, Woodrow Wilson had long desired a “national newspaper,” a “national organ of opinion.” In Wilson’s vision, creating what he called a “national medium of intelligence” under his own direction could “mobilize the mind of America.” To that end, between 1917 and 1919, the government’s censorship agency, the Committee on Public Information, published a model newspaper for the nation’s press to copy from. Titled the Official Bulletin, its content was laid out in newspaper columns, with suggested headlines atop each story, so that a compliant publisher could, without cost, simply reproduce the contents at great savings while also giving a wide berth to legal liability under the newly-enacted Espionage and Sedition Acts. The committee’s strategy was to fill the void created by censorship, by flooding the information channels with government-created news.

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