Brooks, Erastus (31 January 1815–25 November 1886), journalist and politician, was born in Portland, Maine, the son of the late James Brooks (c. 1788–1814), a commander of a privateer in the War of 1812 who had gone down with his ship, and Betsey Folsom. The financial problems caused by his father’s early death meant that Erastus had to begin work at age eight as a grocery store clerk in Boston. Ever enterprising, he used his pocket money to buy books and attend night school. He soon was placed in a printing office, where he learned to set type. Knowledge of this trade enabled him to earn enough money to attend classes at Brown University, although he did not complete the course of study. Eager to work for himself, he started his own newspaper, the ...
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Brooks, Erastus (1815-1886), journalist and politician
Phyllis F. Field
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Hall, Abraham Oakey (1826-1898), politician and journalist
Phyllis F. Field
Hall, Abraham Oakey (26 July 1826–07 October 1898), politician and journalist, was born in Albany, New York, the son of Morgan James Hall, a wholesale merchant whose business was in New Orleans, and Elsie Lansing Oakey. In 1830 his father died of yellow fever and his mother moved to New York City, where she ran a boardinghouse. Relatives helped his mother finance his education, and Oakey (as he preferred to be called) graduated from New York University in 1844. He attended Harvard Law School for one term but decided that study in a law office would allow him to practice law sooner. Living with an uncle in New Orleans, he studied under noted states’ rights Democrats ...
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Tyler, Ralph Waldo (18 March 1860?–02 June 1921), African-American newspaperman and federal officeholder
William Jordan
Tyler, Ralph Waldo (18 March 1860?–02 June 1921), African-American newspaperman and federal officeholder, was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of James S. Tyler, a shopkeeper active in Republican party politics, and Maria McAfee. Tyler attended public schools in Columbus and studied for one year in Baldwin, Missouri. As a teenager and young man he worked as a coal shoveler, a teacher, a clerk for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and a letter carrier. In 1888 he began a seventeen-year association with the ...
