HORACE GREELEY: Newspaperman

From age three, the farm boy from New Hampshire displayed remarkable talent. At , he became the community spelling champ and as a teenager was offered a full scholarship, which he was forced to decline. Horace Greeley came from a family of poor farmers who moved from New Hampshire to Vermont to the backwoods of Pennsylvania in a vain effort to improve their condition. In all of these years, Horacc's personal dream of working on a newspaper remained intact and his avid interest in reading became more intense. His adult years in New York are not described in as much detail as his childhood, only the highlights of his climb from printer's apprentice to exalted publisher of the Tribune. His pet beliefs in Western expansion and a protective tariff are mentioned though not wholly integrated into the account. When one considers the first hand sources available to the author including Greeley's own Recollections of a Busy Life, the end result is hardly inspired, or reflective of the complicated and vital Horace Greeley.