Joseph Medill epitomized the best and worst of personal journalism as editor and principal owner of the Chicago Tribune between 1855 and 1899. John Tebbel said that Medill's Tribune "tried lawsuits in its news columns, used everything short of gutter language in assailing its enemies and stopped at nothing when it advocated a cause." Medill and the Tribune were synonymous for nearly a half-century when both stood staunchly for Republicanism (particularly of the Radical kind), capitalism and patriotism (and therefore stridently against labor and the various foreign ideologies associated with it, such as socialism, communism, and anarchism), and the city of Chicago. When Medill died in 1899 he left a financially sound and politically powerful Chicago Tribune as his legacy.

Joseph Meharry Medill was born on 6 April 1823 near what is now St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. The Medill family originated in France, where the name was probably Medille, and was among...