The Alfred D. Chandler Lecture
in Southern Business History

Lee Craig, Department of Economics, North Carolina State University
"Of Papers and Politics: Josephus Daniels and the Raleigh News and Observer"
Thurs., April 6; 4:00 pm -- Please note unusual time
569 Hamilton Hall
UNC Campus

Free and open to the public.
Visitor Parking information here: http://www.unc.edu/visitors/parking.html

Josephus Daniels (1862-1948) – newspaper editor, publisher, and owner; as well as diplomat and secretary of the U.S. Navy during World War I – was among the early regional newspaper entrepreneurs to sever the explicit financial ties between local political machines and newspaper publishing. Prior to Daniels, although big-city newspapers had been able to generate sufficient revenues from circulation and advertising to remain financially independent from political parties, provincial papers relied on political patronage to survive. Daniels himself held the North Carolina state-printing contract between 1887 and 1895. However, after acquiring his flagship property, the Raleigh News and Observer, in 1894 he began packaging (reasonably unbiased) news coverage with an openly partisan editorial page. This increased circulation and subscription revenues substantially. Subsequently, rural free delivery expanded the subscription base by lowering the marginal cost of distribution. In addition, with the rise of name-brand consumer goods, newspapers increased their advertising revenues. The result was the rise of the modern newspaper business based on largely family-owned, regional and local papers, of which the Daniels family and the News and Observer were examples, and which survived until the corporate consolidations of recent decades.

Dr. Lee A. Craig is Alumni Distinguished Professor of economics at North Carolina State University. He received B.S. and M.A. degrees from Ball State University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Indiana University. Since coming to N.C. State in 1989, he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in microeconomics and economic and business history. Professor Craig has published more than 60 books, scholarly articles, chapters, and reviews on these and related topics. His recent research has focused on the history of the newspaper business, public-sector finance, and the history of nutrition and health. In addition to his appointment at N.C. State, Professor Craig has been a research fellow and research economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1991-2004). He is a trustee of both the Economic History Association and the Cliometric Society. He is also a former fellow of the Center for Demographic Studies at Duke University (1991-94) and the Seminar für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Universität München, Germany (1996). Professor Craig has been a visiting professor of economics at Duke University, and he has lectured and given seminars at universities and colleges around the world. In addition, Professor Craig is a former winner of the Allan Nevins Prize (1989). He is also a former winner of an N.C. State Outstanding Teacher Award (2001) and has been the N.C. State College of Management’s nominee for the University of North Carolina Board of Governors’ Teaching Award (2003-2004). He is a member of the North Carolina Academy of Outstanding Teachers.