The American journalist and statesman Josephus Daniels (1862-1948) was secretary of the Navy in Woodrow Wilson's Cabinet and served as Franklin D. Roosevelt's ambassador to Mexico.

Josephus Daniels was born in Washington, N.C., on May 18, 1862. After his father was killed in the Civil War, his mother moved to Wilson, where he was raised and sent to school. In his early teens he developed an interest in journalism and upon graduating from high school became a partner in, and then the owner-editor of, the local weekly newspaper. He studied law at the University of North Carolina and eventually moved to Raleigh, where he edited two papers.

A dedicated and active Democrat, Daniels worked in Washington, D.C., in 1893 as chief clerk in the Department of the Interior. Upon returning to Raleigh, he bought the News and Observer and soon established himself as an influential man in the state...