Skip to main content

Harrisburg Telegraph Archive

  • Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
  • 18661948

About

The Harrisburg Telegraph was published from 1879 to 1948 in Pennsylvania’s capital city, which also is the seat of Dauphin County. The city on the Susquehanna River was named after 1719 settler John Harris. Dauphin County, formed in 1785 out of Lancaster County, honored the heir-apparent to the French king, Louis XVI, an ally of the American Revolution. It was a highly industrialized city in the early 20th century, with iron and steel mills and many other manufacturing facilities. Edward James Stackpole (1861-1936) was born in McVeytown, Mifflin County, and worked as a printer and reporter at newspapers in McVeytown and Orbisonia before coming to the Harrisburg Telegraph as assistant foreman in 1883. In January 1901, he purchased the controlling interest in the newspaper. In 1927, Stackpole published a memoir, Behind the Scenes with a Newspaper Man: Fifty Years in the Life of an Editor.His son, E.J., Jr. (1894-1967), succeeded him as editor and publisher. E.J., Jr. was assisted in running the Telegraph by Frank Ross Oyster (1868-1925), his brother-in-law, and by Augustus (Gus) M. Steinmetz (1876-1951), a Harrisburg native who had started his career at the Harrisburg Patriot before joining the Telegraph. Calling itself “A newspaper for the home,” the Republican Telegraph was published every evening except Sunday, and at the beginning of 1914 it claimed a circulation of 22,210 (the city’s population in the 1910 census was 64,186).  In addition to a solid base of national and international news, the Telegraph also delivered a lot of social reporting (headed “Receptions, Parties, Weddings, Anniversaries”), arts and cultural news including theater and film, regional church events and religious feature articles (the Stackpoles were leaders in their local Presbyterian church), advice columns, serialized fiction, and far-ranging “Central Pennsylvania” news from areas as far away as Juniata, Union, and Lancaster counties.  Diverse subjects from suffrage to poultry-raising were dealt with in feature articles. The first successful daily comic strip, “Mutt and Jeff” by Bud Fisher, often appeared in the Telegraph, alternating with a strip by Philadelphia cartoonist Walter C. Hoban.

Archive Info

  • 323,125
  • Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
  • 18661948

Source Information

Harrisburg Telegraph, 1866–1948 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2024. Last updated: March 14, 2018

Newspapers made available courtesy of
Leave Newspapers.com and Visit Library of Congress - Pennsylvania

Library of Congress - Pennsylvania

Recent Article Clippings

See All
Obituary for GOLDIE HOCKENBERRY

Obituary for GOLDIE HOCKENBERRY

Harrisburg Telegraph
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
 • Page 8
Clipped 
Baseball accident - Was this Thomas E? Not Charles? See other article
Clipped 

Harrisburg Telegraph
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
 • Page 1
Clipped 
Joseph F Berry saves 2 women from being hit by a train

Joseph F Berry saves 2 women from being hit by a train

Harrisburg Telegraph
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
 • Page 2
Clipped 
Marriage Licenses

Marriage Licenses

Harrisburg Telegraph
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
 • Page 22
Clipped 
Obituary for JOSEPH SCOTT TYSON

Obituary for JOSEPH SCOTT TYSON

Harrisburg Telegraph
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
 • Page 4
Clipped 

Archive Info

  • 323,125
  • Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
  • 18661948

Source Information

Harrisburg Telegraph, 1866–1948 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2024. Last updated: March 14, 2018

Newspapers made available courtesy of
Leave Newspapers.com and Visit Library of Congress - Pennsylvania

Library of Congress - Pennsylvania