Samuel Bowles III (February 9, 1826 – January 16, 1878) was an American journalist and newspaper publisher. From 1844 to 1878, he was the publisher and editor of the Springfield Republican, which became a national model for regional newspapers. He was "a pioneer in the establishment of independent journalism".
Early life Bowles was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Huldah (née Deming) and Samuel Bowles Jr. His father established the Springfield Weekly Republican newspaper in 1824.Clogston, William (1884). King's Handbook of Springfield, Massachusetts. Springfield, Mass.: Moses King. pp. 286–290. via Google Books. Growing up, Bowles shared a room with three of his father's apprentices and delivered newspapers to his father's subscribers. One biographer characterizes his childhood household as "frugal".
Bowles was educated in public schools, but was sent to Master George Eaton's private school in Springfield when he was thirteen. He wanted to attend college, but his father found college was unnecessary to train as a printer. It is also possible that the cost of college was a factor in his decision. At the age of seventeen, Bowles began work in the printing office of the Republican. For the first year, he was a general helper who did mechanical jobs, ran errands, and wrote articles on local topics.
Career In 1844, Bowles convinced father to expand the newspaper to include a daily edition. At the time, "daily journalism ... was pioneering work, calling for an exhausting expenditure of personal energy." The first issue of the Daily Evening Republican was published on March 27, 1844. Bowles took on general management of the daily newspaper, while his father continued to publish the weekly edition. The daily paper started with no advertisers and no subscribers. It lost $200 its first year, and only had 200 subscribers after two years. By comparison, the Weekly Republican started with a circulation of 350 copies. Not giving up, Bowles pivoted.
The Republican became a morning paper in December 1845. That change required its editors to work through the night. His father devoted more attention to the business office and finances, while Baldwin took on expanded editorial duties for both the daily and weekly Republican. He was assisted by writer and poet Dr. Josiah Gilbert Holland as editor. After two years, Holland purchased a 25% interest in the newspaper for $3,500. In addition to news, the Republican covered art, charity, farming, literature, local life, religious news, and social affairs, along with poetry, short fiction, political editorials, and sermons. By the fourth year, the morning edition of the Republican had 800 subscribers—giving it the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in New England, outside of Boston. Bowles reinvested profits into equipment and larger facilities.
In 1851 his father died, and the entire management of the newspaper went to the 25-year-old Bowles. He was involved in all aspects of the paper's operations and retained primary editorial control for most of his career. He gained a reputation "as an industrious, bold, and fearless journalist". In 1855, he expanded the paper from a single sheet to a double sheet. The paper gained a national reputation even though it remained mostly regional, focusing on Springfield and surrounding towns. Circulation grew to more than 5,000 for the daily edition and more than 10,000 for the weekly edition. The New York Tribune called it "the best and ablest country journal published on the continent".Merriam, George S. (1885). Life and Times of Samuel Bowles, p. 179. Gale.
After receiving offers for various jobs and newspaper partnerships, in early 1857 Bowles entered into a partnership to publish a new daily paper out of Boston Massachusetts, the Boston Traveller.Merriam, George S. (1885). Life and Times of Samuel Bowles. pp. 181–186. Gale This project lacked the credibility of other offers, but "was to be Republican, independent, and progressive". He invested $10,000 in the venture and resigned as editor of the Republican so he could be the editor of the Traveller for a salary of $3,000 a year. Unfortunately, the Traveller owners were not united on policy, and there was a lack of capital needed for a successful launch. For four months, Bowles struggled, feeling "thwarted and misunderstood". He resigned and took a trip out West before returning home to his wife and children in Springfield. Josiah Holland generously stepped down as editor-in-chief of the Republican, allowing Bowles to return to his prior role.
In 1857, Bowles decided to gain full editorial control by buying Holland's share of the business. However, Holland continued to contribute articles for the Republican until 1864. In 1872, Bowles used his majority ownership of the newspaper's parent company, Samuel Bowles & Co., to split the organization. He retained the newspaper, giving the other investors, Bryan and Tapley, the binding and miscellaneous printing concerns. However, Bowles' approach alienated minor shareholder and twenty-year business partner Clark W. Bryan. Bryan, along with Tapley, purchased the Republican competition—the Springfield Union and vastly expanded its production. William M. Pomeroy, managing editor of the Republican, became editor of the Union. Another Republican staffer, Joseph Shipley, also joined the Union; he eventually replaced Pomeroy as editor of the Union in 1881. Bryan would go on to found Good Housekeeping.
The long-running success of Bowles's newspaper was attributed not only to its content and local relevancy, but also to its "lively, concise, and professionally written style". Biographer George S. Merriam wrote, "His style was admirable—simple, direct, pure, forcible without being passionate, pungent without being vulgar, often delicately sarcastic and deliciously humorous, never egotistical, never suggesting the writer, always representing the journal, and this as the voice of the people—he was by nature, by culture, by experience the model modern working journalist. He saw the world without, partly through others, but chiefly through its own words, interpreted to him by his own divine instincts."
As his health declined in later years, Bowles turned over the operation of the newspaper to a team of men. During his lifetime, the Republican served as a school of sorts for young journalists, "especially in the matter of pungency and conciseness of style". His trainees, Charles R. Miller and Robert G. Fitch, went on to become editor of the New York Times and Boston Post, respectively.
Politics Bowles believed in taking a strong moral and political stance through his newspaper, regardless of public sentiment. Once his father died, Bowles had editorial control of the Republican; his influence was felt immediately, not only through heated discussions about President James Buchanan's administration, but also during the Civil War itself. He "announced that the Springfield Republican was still devotedly Whig." When the Whig Party fell apart, he condemned "Know-Nothing" party and exposed its fallacies.
In the early 1850s Bowles's position on slavery was conservative. He wrote against the abolitionists and supported the Fugitive Slave Act. However, during the debate over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, he had a change of heart. Moving forward, the Republican had an anti-slavery agenda. He wrote about the need for a "new party of freedom" and headed efforts to create a Republican Party in Massachusetts in 1855. He was one of the first editors to support abolitionist John C. Frémont for president of 1856. He also denounced the execution of John Brown. In 1860, Bowles was a delegate for the Republican party's convention in Chicago where Abraham Lincoln was affirmed as a presidential candidate. Bowles told his readers, "Lincoln is a man of the most incorruptible integrity—firm as a rock against duplicity, dishonesty, and all dishonorable conduct, public and private." While he did support Abraham Lincoln's presidency and emancipation, Bowles also criticized the president's infringement upon civil rights.
After the war, Bowles attacked carpetbaggers and supported Lincoln's recommendations for a "mild and magnanimous policies of reconstruction". Rather naively, Bowles' "Yankee faith in human behavior convinced him that enlightened self-interest would compel Southerners to renounce the ideas and institutions for which they had fought." In contrast to Frederick Douglas and William Lloyd Garrison, Bowles believed freed slaves needed protection from potential exploitation from their former masters. He strongly supported the efforts of the Freedman's Bureau and other organizations providing education and guidance, with military backing if needed. He also suggested that confiscated plantations should be divided into small farms for sale to former slaves. Although Bowles acknowledged that free land was fair compensation for years of enslavement, he saw greater value in encouraging the emancipated to work for wages, as this would develop a middle class with "bargaining power". However such position was not needed to vote, according to Bowles. On March 8, 1865, the Republican favored giving anyone who could read and write the right to vote. Clearly, Bowles was also an advocate for women's suffrage. However, he was against universal suffrage, wanting to limit voting to those who were literate.
During Reconstruction and Grant's presidency, Bowles expressed Liberal Republican opinions. Once he decided on amnesty and equality were the right path, he grew increasingly impatient with Congress failing to implement either. In the Republican he wrote, "This indifference of public men to their public character and their public duties, and in the interests of the people is a sign of poison at the root." To Bowles there was only one solution—changing the leadership of the Republican party and the nation. Bowles played a major role in shaping what became Liberal Republican policies, along with identifying strategies and gaining support for a third party. With three other newspaper editors—Murat Halstead of the Cincinnati Commercial, Horace White of the Chicago Tribune, and Henry Watterson of the Louisville Courier-Journal—Bowles was part of the "Quadralateral" that tried unsuccessfully to secure Charles Francis Adams the nomination for president rather than Ulysses Grant. Although cautioned that his anti-Grant position could hurt the Republican circulation, Bowles was undeterred, remaining anti-administration once Grant was president. In 1872, the Republican supported Horace Greeley for president. In the disputed election of 1876, the paper favored the claims of Samuel J. Tilden, the reform candidate who won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College.
When "partisan fanaticism" slowed national progress, Bowles declared his paper independent of political parties. He stuck to these policies moving forward, pioneering today's independent journalism. He also advocated for "honest money" in government and public office, and tried to expose corruption. He wrote a scathing editorial about robber baron and Erie Railroad director James Fisk. Almost proving Bowles' word, Fisk used his "Tammany Hall henchmen" to arrest Bowles on trumped-up charges when he was visiting New York City. Bowles spent time in jail, and when he returned home to Springfield, he wrote about Fisk again. Later on, the Republican accused railroad builder and politician Willis Phelps of being a "public robber and corrupter", as well as the "Boss Tweed of Springfield". In 1875, Phelps filed a libel suit against the Republican, asking for $200,000 in damages. Fortunately for Bowles, the juryless trial was adjudicated by Judge Endicott who essentially agreed with Bowles; he assessed damages of just $100. Bowles "became a hero to most of America's newspaper editors as a champion of a free press."